Andrew’s limbs looked as if they were telescoping into themselves as his legs and arms simultaneously shortened and dwindled in diameter. Andrew’s High School Class ring slipped off his size one index finger and dropped to the living room carpet, bouncing once before coming to rest on the short nap of Krystyn’s carpet. A moment later, his wristwatch slithered loosely from his tiny wrist, working it’s way easily over his two and one-quarter inch palm to fall to the carpet with a soft thud and lay beside his ring. Andrew’s eyes rolled back in his head as he laid motionless on his back volatilizing excess water from his shrinking body. His grossly disproportioned limbs writhed helplessly in the air like boneless tentacles while streams of hot vapor shot to the ceiling as the water in his body was magically pulled from his body. The balance of the steam that was cool enough to remain at floor level condensed around him as if he was either an exhausted afrit that had been loosed from an undersized genie’s lamp or a poor soul who was about to be transported on his own personal cloud straight into Heaven.
For a moment, the transformation abated itself, leaving the formerly tall college student with the arms and legs of a baby, ridiculously attached to a rib-less naked adult male torso surrounded by a pearl-white translucent mist of water vapor. Then the transformation began again; this time attacking his genitals a split-second before his pelvis, neck and torso followed suit. Within seconds, the rest of his body had regressed to the size and apparent age of an eight-month-old infant. All that was left of Andrew’s former body was his adult-sized head.
When the transformation was finished, Andrew looked like a wingless cherub who was resting himself on the carpet. The only evidence of his transmogrification was a rapidly dissipating halo of water vapor around his head. When the sunbeams which lanced through the window stuck the water vapor, the light was diffracted into a local rainbow that encompassed the upper portion of his body with a surreal aureole of a mercurially shifting aura. The multihued glory that danced around his head made it appear as if he had somehow been blessed by the change, rather than cursed by Krystyn’s spell.
