“…and that’s why, despite the pandemic, we’re still on track to break even in the fourth quarter, and we might even see some growth.”
“Thanks, Ahab,” said Jill, my supervisor. “Stacy, you had more details on the possible transition back to the office next year?”
I breathed a little sigh of relief and stopped sharing my screen. I have no problem presenting in front of people, but I’m still glad when it’s over. Yes, even when it’s just a presentation over Zoom and I’m not wearing any pants because I’m working from home, alone.
I looked down at my phone to check if I received any messages while I was speaking. Whoa, it’s down to 3%, I thought. When did that happen? I’ve had the same phone for more than three years now, so I figure the battery life is getting throttled at this point. At least I won’t be going out in the winter cold much during These Uncertain Times.
On the Zoom meeting, Stacy was sharing some floor plans with strategies for social distancing if we opted to go back to the office in a few months. Perfect. Nobody would notice if I ducked below my desk for a few moments and grabbed my charger to plug in my phone.
I slid out of my chair and onto the floor. I’ll be honest, the process for finding the right charger takes me a lot longer than it probably should, because my power strip is an absolute disaster right now. I bought an extra monitor when I started working from home, and then my company also let me bring home my work-provided laptop.
Do I need this many screens on my desk? No. Is it detrimental to my work to have that many screens on my desk? Probably. Do I want this many screens on my desk? Yes, and because of that, my power strip is a tangled mess.
Although… I didn’t remember it being this much of a tangled mess. I could barely see the base of the power strip through the thicket of wires. And what was this bright yellow cord? I didn’t remember owning any devices with yellow cords. The only ones I had were black and white.
I grabbed the yellow wire to try to follow it to its end. I fumbled with it at first and it somehow slipped out of my hand, but I got a better grip on it the second time and started tracing its path with a finger on my free hand.
The process of finding the cord’s end took longer than I expected. It was long and weaved through seemingly everything else that was plugged into the power strip multiple times. I worked my way through it, trying to unravel things as I went along. When I reached the end, I discovered a three-pronged plug that… wasn’t connected to anything at all.
Well, maybe I’d find something at the other end. I started pulling it out of the mess of cables. It slid out with relative ease — right up until I accidentally brushed the prongs on the end of the plug with my free hand. I received a nasty shock, causing me to yelp and drop the cord.
I shook out the hand that was shocked, forgetting the mystery wire for a moment. Good chance the shock had burned me, too. I rubbed my fingers a bit before turning my attention back to the cord, which was… wait, where was it?
My eyes widened in shock — the other kind of shock — as I realized the yellow wire was moving on its own. It had already wrapped itself around my midsection twice. I lurched toward it, attempting to grab the troublesome cable. It nimbly avoided my grasp, then launched itself toward my neck, this time coiling around my throat.
“Hrrrrkkk!” I grunted and tried to claw it off me. The cord held against my attempts to remove it, but I was able to loosen its grip enough to get some air. “What the… what the hell?” I sputtered.
“Ahab, is everything alright?” I heard Jill ask through my computer. Oh, right, the Zoom meeting. I was definitely off camera, but I hadn’t muted myself before reaching for my phone charger.
“Just… dropped something…” I wheezed. “Hit my head… I’ll be fine… one second…”
I wasn’t sure whether I’d be fine. The yellow cord just kept coming. By this point there had to be a couple dozen feet of cable wrapped around me with no end in sight. My legs were now bound tightly together, so I had no hope of getting up or kicking out. They were also starting to feel… kind of itchy? It was a weird thought to have at a time like this, but my legs were definitely itchy, like they were extra hairy or something. Come to think of it, most of my torso felt the same way, buried under a dense layer of yellow. Maybe it was the adrenaline running through my body.
The only things left untouched by the wire were my arms, which up until now had managed to keep my windpipe unrestricted. But the intrusive cord was thorough, and once it was done constricting my lower body, it moved back to my arms. I growled and tried to fight back, but it soon overpowered them, wrestling my limbs down to my sides and wrapping them up tight as I gasped for air. Damn. I need to work out more.
Last to be enveloped was my head, but the cable made quick work of that, curling swiftly around my face. I realized, amid my struggles, that I was still able to breathe. The cord hadn’t tightened around my throat after neutralizing my arms.
That was a relief, but I still had no idea how I’d escape, and perhaps to a greater extent I couldn’t shake that feeling of itchiness that had spread from head to toe. I desperately tried to move my arms for a few moments to try to scratch some part of my body, any part of my mummified body. When that proved futile, I gave in to the panic attack. I began to feel lightheaded, like I was about to pass out, and then— — —
—suddenly, the cord loosened and began to unravel. It went back the way it came, unwrapping my head first. The grip around my throat lessened even more, much to my relief. I could tell, looking at the light on my ceiling, that I was seeing double, but my vision gradually began to sharpen.
I looked down to find that most of the wire had already unraveled from my body. Just my torso remained bound. But I was concerned to see that my legs were a bright shade of blue. Uh oh, I thought. Oxygen deprivation?
I wiggled the toes on my left foot. Fortunately, all three of them seemed to work. Wait, all three of them?
I strained to sit up to examine my feet, but the still-unraveling cord was just restrictive enough that I couldn’t reach all the way down. But, as my hand brushed against my leg, I realized that my legs were blue because they were now covered in blue fur. No wonder everything felt so itchy when it was constricted by the cable.
So if I had blue fur, that must have meant I transformed into something. Oddly, that didn’t alarm me. I guess turning into something else is just much more preferable to asphyxiation or getting trapped by a rogue extension cord. I reached up and felt around on my desk until I found my phone. I grabbed it and brought it down to try to get a look at my face through the self-facing camera. As I did, I noticed the top of my arm was covered in thick black fur, and the underside was mostly blue, like my legs, with some yellow stripes.
I tried to turn on my phone to access the camera only to find the battery had completely drained. And I still hadn’t extracted my charger from the jungle of cords, either. Oh, well. At least I could still use the blank screen as a sort of mirror to see my reflection. I could make out a big mane, especially toward the top of my head, and distinctive round ears. My nose and mouth jutted out to form a sort of feline snout.
Ah, the pieces suddenly came together. I’m a Luxray. I’d been trying to catch one in Pokemon Go right before the meeting started, but couldn’t finish in time. Was that connected? It’s probably what drained my phone’s battery, at least.
No sooner had I solved that mystery than — YOWCH — the final bit of cable, encircling my waist, fell away, and I felt a sharp pain stabbing into the area just over my butt. I rolled over and immediately felt some relief. When I looked back, my suspicions were confirmed: A big, yellow, four-pointed star floated in the air above my lower half, attached to a black, rope-like tail. I wagged it a little and resisted the urge to bat at it with my hands — I mean, paws.
Something in my peripheral vision caught my attention. It was the mischievous yellow cord, moving teasingly just within my field of view. I wasn’t going to let it get away this time. I had cat-like reflexes now! But as I reached out to grab it, an enormous spark leapt from my finger to the nearest prong, and the entire room went dark.
This spark didn’t cause any pain — in fact, it was almost pleasurable — but it had somehow short-circuited my entire apartment. I couldn’t hear the hum of the heating unit or the refrigerator. Everything had gone unnaturally silent.
I blinked a few times. Now what? I grabbed my phone to turn on the flashlight, but — right, still out of power, and now my charger wouldn’t work. I idly tapped the charge port as I racked my brain for another solution. To my surprise, it sprang back to life. I checked how much battery life it had and couldn’t believe my eyes: 100%! Did I just charge my own phone?
I turned on the flashlight and stumbled over to the apartment’s electrical panel. Somehow, none of the breakers had tripped. I reached up to try to investigate, and as I did, a flurry of sparks leapt off my paw into the electrical box. Everything in my apartment suddenly sprang back to life.
I stood there for a few seconds, just staring dumbfounded at my paw. I had no idea how electrical systems worked, and if you asked me before all this, I’d’ve said “magic.” Nothing that had just happened convinced me otherwise.
I walked back to my desk and looked for the mysterious yellow cord, but it was nowhere to be found. All the same with me — I’d had enough surprises for the day.
I sat down at my computer, and casually rejoined the Zoom meeting as if nothing happened. When I glanced at my camera feed, I noticed I was even still wearing the button-up shirt I had on before. “Sorry about that, there was a brief power outage here,” I said. “What did I miss?”
My co-workers stopped talking and stared, slack-jawed. “Ahab, what on earth is going on?” Jill asked.
“Oh, you know what? I think I must have accidentally turned on some sort of weird new Zoom filter,” I said. “Let me turn off my video while I sort that out.”
I switched off the camera and leaned back in my chair, arms behind my head. I had no intention of turning it back on.
“I’m sorry,” I heard Stacy say. “Did anyone else hear Ahab just purr?”
“Just my cat!” I yelped as I scrambled to hit the mute button.
“You don’t own a—” Jill started. “—never mind. Where were we?”
