Kea’s body had no permanent form. The layers of clothes he wore were not meant to hide it, only to delay the moment someone else decided what he really looked like.
God knew, if Kea could, he would never go outside to buy groceries. Yet life had to continue for everyone, even for someone like Kea. Sometimes, he too had to leave the house and pretend to be a normal human being.
As he walked toward the supermarket, all he could think about was returning home as quickly as possible and resting for a while.
Today would be exhausting, just like every other day. If he could, he wished he were a normal human being. Even buying groceries felt like torture. No matter how much he wanted to, he could never exist in the presence of others the way ordinary people did. Whenever he bought something, he thought about the last time he would buy it. Whenever he walked somewhere, he thought about the moment he would finally arrive. Whenever he ate, he mourned the fact that the meal would eventually end.
On his way to the market, Kea encountered only one person, a random woman. It was still very early in the morning, so the streets were almost empty. She neither spoke to him nor looked at him for more than ten seconds. Yet that was enough for his right leg to turn into glass.
When he finally entered the supermarket, he greeted the salesperson at the entrance. All the while, he tried to hide his glass leg. People could never understand how difficult it was to walk on a glass leg without shattering it. As he walked, he slowly realized that the space between his legs was changing as well.
He first went to the cheese section. There, a mother and her daughter were choosing cheese for breakfast. The mother paid no attention to him, but the little girl watched his every movement with curiosity. Kea tried his best to ignore them. After all, he was used to strange stares.
He reached out with his fluid hands toward a fresh piece of cheese in the refrigerator. He wanted to taste it, yet he still had no lips or tongue with which to do so. It was frustrating. Without trying it, he placed it into his shopping bag.
Then the little girl tugged at her mother’s sleeve.
“Mom, look at that man. He looks like a bird.”
Kea slowly felt feathers pushing through the skin beneath his robe. Soon, both of his arms were covered in feathers. Each feather tore through his flesh, staining his robe crimson. The pain was sharp for only a moment. He tried to scratch his arms, but without proper fingers, he failed. Eventually, the itching faded.
Without drawing any more attention to himself, he quickly left the aisle and headed toward the bakery.
An old woman was standing there, trying to reach a package of cookies. Since the bakery worker had not arrived yet, Kea was the only one nearby who could help her.
The moment she saw him, she smiled as though he were her savior.
“Young handsome man, could you help me reach that?”
Kea silently did as she asked.
As he reached upward, flowers began to grow from his stomach, tearing through his flesh. They slowly lifted the fabric of his clothes until several blossoms emerged from beneath his shirt.
The old woman’s eyes widened. Instead of stepping back, she knelt in front of him and admired them. She reached out and gently plucked one flower from his body. The pain of losing it was far worse than the pain of growing it. It felt as though she had removed an organ.
“These flowers smell wonderful,” she said with a smile. “Thank you, boy.”
Without replying, Kea continued walking, blood dripping beneath his clothes.
What hurt more? The glass leg? The feathered arms? The flowers blooming from his torn stomach?
At that moment, Kea smelled entirely of blood, mixed with sweat and the faint scent of rot.
His final stop was the winery.
Somewhere behind him, an employee accidentally dropped a bottle. The glass shattered loudly across the floor. Kea did not even flinch. His nerves had not formed yet. The employee looked at him in surprise.
“You seem so calm, sir.”
Kea’s heartbeat stopped. His heart simply ceased to function. It was not a great loss as there had been many days when he had survived without needing one.
At the checkout counter, Kea took out his credit card. The cashier examined him carefully, as though she were studying a patient. Perhaps the man standing before her looked horrifying. Perhaps he was simply pitiful.
Kea prepared himself for whatever she was about to say.
“You seem tired, sir.”
His shoulders sank. His already half-hidden eyes drooped permanently. He could not rest until he reached home.
On his way back, Kea noticed a man staring at him.
At first, he could not understand what the stranger saw. He kept walking.
Then the pain began. His feathered arms slowly transformed into silicone. His mouth stretched into a perfect smile. Between his lips remained only a narrow opening, just wide enough for a hungry length to enter. His fingers fused together. His body became impossibly light. Only then did Kea understand. The man had mistaken him for an object. Without a beating heart and stripped of his feathers, he had become something that could be owned.
His shopping bag slipped from his fused plastic fingers. The bottle of wine shattered across the pavement. A pair of arms gently embraced him from behind. Warmth entered his body before he understood why. By then, polyester had already replaced every muscle within him. His body no longer knew how to refuse. By the time the stranger looked away, something warm remained inside him.
Only then did Kea finally return home. He had no idea how many hours had passed.
After closing the door behind him, he waited for his body to return to its usual state.
Every evening, his body shed the day’s perceptions and became formless once again. He waited for hours. Nothing changed. The smell of the warm liquid still lingered. His plastic organs remained motionless. What is wrong? he wondered. Why am I not returning to myself? He forced himself to stand.
Without proper limbs, even that was difficult.
When he finally reached the mirror, a stranger stared back at him.
Usually, the mirror forgot everyone. Tonight, it remembered them all. Glass reflected glass. Feathers twitched beneath flowers. There was no empty space left on his body. He tried to remember what he had looked like that morning. Nothing came. For the first time in his life, the formless man could no longer remember what it felt like to be formless.
