by C. J.
She’d put the formula on approximately thirty minutes ago and was beginning to have serious doubts about the success of the formula. She’d been in the lab, going over the ingredients and wondering if she had added them all correctly when she heard the Jaguar come up the drive. Since there were no mirrors in the garage, Maggie did not see that the fine lines under her eyes had disappeared along with the two-inch scar on the side of her neck from an unusually aggressive experiment a few years back.
She was walking casually from the lab to her house when the boys approached her in the driveway.
“Hi guys, how did it go?” she asked.
“We rocked. Well, I can only speak for myself, but I know they will not soon forget my statement...” Danny trailed off and looked intently at Maggie.
“What? Did you just forget your most memorable statement, Papa San?” Maggie asked.
“Kevin doesn’t Maggie look especially pretty today. I mean really, really, really pretty today” asked Danny?
“What do you mean?” Our Maggie always looks pretty,” Kevin replied, not being a stupid man. “She... wait a second!” Kevin paused as he moved in for a closer look. “Um, Maggie, you look exceptionally pretty right now. Your skin is absolutely flawless. It’s amazing how much you’ve changed since we’ve been gone. It’s almost if you applied some sort of new and fabulous beauty treatment,” accused Kevin, who was now standing only inches from Maggie’s flawless face.
“Now, now, back off, you two. So I look good. Can’t a girl pretty herself up and, and...” And with that, Maggie bolted for the house.
By the time Kevin and Danny got inside, they found Maggie on the couch in the living room, a Mort’s Fresh Mart canvas bag on her head and holding a fashion magazine aimed at the “Fresh” in the bag’s logo.
“So, Maggie, what did you get up to while we were brutally interrogated,” inquired Danny as he sat down next her on the couch and casually put his arm around her shoulders.
“Not much, you know, a little bit of this and that, laundry, dishes, you know the usual dreary routine,” came the somewhat muffled reply from the bag.
Kevin sat down on the other side of Maggie and was trying to peer under the bag when he veered back. “Whoa, Maggie, what did you carry in that last, onions and peppers?”
“I smell beef and maybe some hot salsa,” Danny said leaning in and sniffing Maggie’s neck.
“Taco salad!” Danny and Kevin shouted in unison as they tried to wrestle the bag off of Maggie’s head and only succeed in causing a massive pileup on the floor. Maggie put up a valiant effort, but due to Danny’s secret knowledge of her most ticklish spots, Kevin managed to pull the bag off her head with a triumphant, “A ha!”
“Now look what you did, I think you ripped my bag. I’ll have to get another one at Mort’s, and I think they are all out of the lavender ones!” wailed Maggie as she slowly returned to her feet while brushing bits of baggie lint out of her hair. A ripped receipt that had been tangled in her hair floated to the floor.
“Geez, what is this, Prada? I’ll get you another one,” said Kevin, and flipped Maggie a five dollar bill.
“I don’t need a five, just a single will do.”
“What do you mean? I paid five for mine, and it looked like someone had returned it after carrying around dirty diapers.”
“If you buy one after you’ve made a purchase of $20.00 or more, the bag costs $1. Geez, it’s posted all over the store, Kevin, it’s even on the shopping cart seats. What did you do, go in there and buy just the bag? What a goof.”
“For your information, some of us don’t have the time to leisurely shop all day in the store after our hairdresser and manicure appointments. Some of us have a very demanding schedule and can only spare a few moments for our shopping needs.”
“Oh let me guess, they had a sale on Captain Crunch, buy one get, one free. Or was it Twizzlers’ big half-off sale?”
“Hey, for your information cereal never goes on sale and if it is, it’s something no one ever buys, like dried out birch bark chips with grass clippings, the all-natural cereal.” Kevin made a gagging sound while sticking a finger down his throat.
“Girls, girls. May I have your attention? I never thought that this day would come, but I seem to be the only one here who hasn’t gone off point,” Danny said in what he thought was his calm voice, but in reality was more of a whiny shout.
Kevin and Maggie’s heads snapped in Danny’s direction, then turned to their shoes as if discovering them for the first time.
“OK. Now no one moves, and by that I mean Maggie. We know you recreated the formula, Mags, and we are not mad since it had to be done at some point. I just wish you’d waited to try it out on yourself until we had done a few more tests on ourselves to see if there were any side effects.”
Still looking at their shoes, Kevin whispered to Maggie, “Geez, what the hell just happened? How the hell did Danny turn into the reasonable, responsible one?”
“I don’t know, but I’m scared. What if it’s permanent? Can we live with him like this?” Maggie asked.
“I can hear you, you know,” Danny said as he paced back and forth and ruffling up his spiky hair as he muttered to himself.
“Oh my God, he has super hearing now!” exclaimed Kevin.
“Or maybe it’s because you two are only four feet away from me, you idiot. We have to start writing down everything. Actually, Maggie, it will have to be you. Everything will have to be in your handwriting, or on your iPad, etc. Nothing can look like it came from either Kevin or me.”
“Danny’s right. Wow, that sounded weird. But let’s ignore the slightly weird and concentrate on the phenomenally weird. That being the formula. We will have to find out how long it lasts. Is it permanent? Do we return to our old ugly selves all at once or does it happen gradually? None of us will be objective about ourselves, so we will have to take photos, scan them into the computer, and keep comparing them against the software that I’m sure Kevin can come up with that will track our changing appearance.”
Danny, hands on hips, looked at Maggie. “I don’t know why you are so surprised that I am right. I’m positive I’ve been correct on many occasions. You just don’t recall them because after a while it does become monotonous and your mind simply ignores my rightness. Right, Kev?”
“Kevin. Hey Kevin, stop looking in the mirror. You are gorgeous. Did you hear anything I said? I need you to come up with some software that will alert us to any physical changes,” Maggie said trying to pull him away from the decorative mirror hanging over the fireplace.
“Is anyone bleeding? Kevin asked. When we crashed on the floor with the unknown scientist here, I slid into the corner of the bookcase and cut my wrist open. I saw some blood and then got wrapped up in our conversation and forgot about it, but now, I can’t find the cut. There’s some smeared blood, but no cut.” Kevin said, twisting his right arm in different positions to get the best view of his wrist.
“Will you stop that, you look like a drunken vampire trying to hypnotize someone. Bring your arm over here, and I’ll take a look,” said Maggie.
She checked Kevin’s right and then his left in case he got confused about which arm he’d banged into the bookcase.
“Nope, I don’t see anything. You have the most pristine set of arms I’ve ever seen. You could be a hand model.”
“Then where did this smeared blood come from? Look it’s on the corner of the bookshelf and on the floor,” Kevin said, pointing out those spots.
“You always were an easy bleeder. I remember the time I accidentally sneezed on you and I swear you started bleeding.” remarked Danny.
“That never happened. You are such a liar, Danny. I do, however, have thin skin and never did develop calluses properly to protect myself.”
“Well, for one thing, honey, you have to actually do something to develop calluses” laughed Maggie.
Kevin looked as though he was going to respond to Maggie but then turned and headed purpo
sefully to the kitchen.
“I’ve seen that look before. This could go either way. Better look for the nearest exit,” Dann said, as he began to ease his way toward the front door.
Just as Danny put one foot in the hallway, Kevin shouted, “Stop!”
Neither Maggie nor Danny saw any reason to flee and stayed where they were for all Kevin had in his hand was a lighter.
It wasn’t until he was within a few feet of Maggie that she saw what he had been holding behind his back. At first, she couldn’t comprehend what Kevin was doing with one of her best knives. In fact it was the best of the lot, the one that could cut through a tin can and then slice a tomato. Why, she’d always wondered would you want to cut through a tin can? How many times in your life do you say ‘If only I had a knife that could cut through this tin can?’ What the hell can be in a tin can without a pull-tab, or can’t be opened with a can-opener? Are there people out there who can only afford a knife or a can opener but not both? And, if she remembered correctly, that super sharp knife set certainly cost way more than a stinking can opener. And why am I thinking about can openers and crazy sharp knives when Kevin is going to gut us both?
Danny was rooted to the spot but for a different reason. He saw the knife and was somewhat concerned, but it was his lighter Kevin held in his hand. He distinctly remembered asking Kevin if he had seen his souvenir Cedar Point Halloween Snoopy lighter he had gotten last October when all three of them spent the weekend at the amusement park.
“Hey, that’s my lighter, you ass. My souvenir Snoopy lighter that I picked out last Halloween at Cedar Point!” shouted Danny. He now lunged at the lighter in Kevin’s left hand, forgetting what Kevin was holding in his right hand until he pointed the super sharp knife with the eight-inch blade toward Danny’s outstretched hand.
“Kevin, dude, buddy, pal, who. Maybe made a mistake, maybe you bought that knife, I mean lighter, or maybe I bought that lighter for you as a present. Yes, that’s it. It’s all yours, good buddy,” Danny said, taking a giant step backward.
“Now that I have your attention, I would like to conduct an experiment. If it succeeds, it will blow this facial wrinkle remover out of the water.” And with the souvenir Snoopy lighter, Kevin lit a flame under the tip of the knife and then drew the blade against his left forearm.
Danny yelped, took a step forward to grab the knife, but upon seeing blood oozing from the cut on Kevin’s arm, started gagging and made a quick retreat. Maggie charged past the backpedaling Danny and nearly tackled Kevin, who saw the blood dripping down his left arm and immediately sat down. He had been aiming for a small footstool but missed and crashed on to the living room floor with lighter and knife still in hand.
“I may have made an error based on false data,” Kevin began. But he looked at his arm again and smiled.
Maggie shouted, “I’m going for the first aid kit!” And as she passed by Kevin, she snagged the knife out of his hand and hugged it to her. Seeing that Kevin wasn’t doing anything else that appeared suicidal or homicidal, she rushed to the bathroom for a clean towel and bandages.
When she returned to the living room, she found the boys playing living statues. Kevin was still on the floor, staring at his arm, and Danny was right next to him, also staring at Kevin’s arm. Oddly they both had goofy grins on their faces.
“OK I’m just going to get it clean and then try and put some sort of bandage on it,” Maggie told Kevin as she knelt by him.
“No need, babe,” said Kevin as he grabbed the towel and wiped the blood off his arm.
“Don’t! You’ll open it up further if you do that-” Maggie began, but stopped mid-sentence as she looked closely at his arm.
Most of the blood was wiped away, revealing nothing more than a slightly hairy, red tinged arm without a mark, scratch, or any other sign of injury.
“What the fuck did you do? That’s not funny. It looks like my knife. Is that some sort of trick knife? You are such a jackass, Kevin. I nearly had a heart attack. I thought you had gone off the deep end!” shouted Maggie.
“Maggie, it is your knife, and it isn’t a trick. Get any knife from the kitchen and I’ll show you what just happened.” said Kevin
“OK, but you had better not be fucking around, or I’ll show what these knives can do.”
Kevin went into the bathroom to clean the remainder of the blood off his arm and when he returned, he only saw Danny in the living room.
“Where’s Maggie? How long does it take to get a knife? Geez, you don’t think she called the police, do you?”
“No, of course not. Maybe she went to the bathroom. Wait, you were in the bathroom,” Danny said.
They both raced to the kitchen where they found Maggie bent over the sink.
“What are you doing, hon? You’re still not mad at Kevin, are you?” asked Danny as he approached Maggie and noticed little drops of blood in the sink.
“Baby, you cut yourself!”
Maggie held one of five-inch stainless steel super sharp knives in her right hand. “I did, several times. I grabbed one of the knives and thought maybe you had switched them, and they were trick knives or something, so I poked myself with the knife and drew blood immediately. But then the weirdest thing happened, I stuck my finger under the faucet to clear the blood away, and the cut disappeared right in front of me. I thought I was going nuts, so I did it again, and the same thing happened.”
Danny took the knife out of Maggie’s shaking hand and immediately tapped his left arm with the point of the blade with his eyes closed.
“Oh for God’s sake what kind of scientist are you?” Kevin said. He grabbed the knife out of Danny’s hand, cut a three-inch slice in Danny’s arm, and then stuck the newly sliced arm under the sink’s faucet.
“You son of a bitch, that hurts!” Danny shouted. But he looked at his arm just in time to see the cut mend itself. Twisting his arm, he stared at where the cut had been from all angles but saw only a pristine arm. “What is in this formula and how is it doing this?”
“I’ve been thinking about this a lot, just from the cosmetic angle, ever since the formula erased all our exterior flaws. I think once it’s absorbed, the formula is affecting our DNA. I think it is actually causing a mutation in our DNA.” Maggie said.
Danny and Kevin looked at each other, then at Maggie, again at themselves, and took a giant step backward.
“Shit, I think I’ve seen about 100 of these types of movies. None of them end well for the first people that are affected,” Kevin moaned and sat down with a thump on a kitchen chair.
Danny froze and stared off into space somewhere over Maggie’s left shoulder.
“My heroes,” Maggie sighed, grabbed the sprayer from the sink, and let it loose toward Danny, and then Kevin.
After the swearing and sputtering subsided, Maggie continued. “OK superheroes, listen up. There are acquired DNA mutations, such as ultraviolet light or nuclear radiation. I think we can rule that one out. Mistakes can also occur when a cell copies its DNA in preparation for cell division. This may be a possibility. There is also epigenetic mutation, which is when a pregnant woman’s diet can alter her child’s DNA. I think the formula is somehow changing the way our cells are dividing. It may have to do with nanotechnology and the ingredients interacting with each other. As you may or may not know plants, which are the natural ingredients used in the formula, can be extremely hostile to each other and the world around them. They change to meet the predators around them and other plants fighting for space and sustenance. My guess is that our formula’s ingredients are interacting with each other and possibly forming something incredible. Not to mention, I used some products found in the wild in my formula as well. The combination of the two has given us flawless skin and unbelievable healing powers. Oh, God. Oh my God, do you know what this means?” Maggie cried and then burst into tears.
“What is it, babe? Are you happy? Are these tears of joy?” asked Danny as he steps forward to hug Maggie.
“You ba
stards, both of you. What the hell have you two been doing all this time except screwing around? If you two had done what you were supposed to instead of waiting until the last minute, do you know what a difference you could’ve made? You fucking, fucking lazy bastards!” screamed Maggie through her tears and ran out of the room.
Soon Danny and Kevin heard the sounds of large and heavy things breaking upstairs. They noticed the dining room chandelier swaying to and fro as they walked from the kitchen into the dining room, toward the stairs. They began to play rock, paper, and scissors to see who should make the first approach. Usually, it was left up to Danny, but in some instances, if Maggie’s ire was directed at him, Kevin would make the initial contact. In this case, Maggie’s anger seemed to be equally divided between the two of them.
“Do you know what she’s going on about?” asked Kevin.
“Not the slightest. I mean if we could have stumbled upon the formula years ago, what difference would it have made? Oh God, I know what. Shit, shit, shit. We have been a couple of shits!” Danny ran upstairs to confront the thumping.
“Well at least two out of the three of us know what’s going on.” Kevin said. He decided to make use of this time and began writing down possible names for the new and improved formula.
“Maggie, baby, I know what’s upsetting you,” Danny said as he walked down the hall toward the sound of the last bang. He clung to the wall ninja style, near the bedroom Maggie had converted into a study and began talking.
“I have a confession to make, Mags. Remember back in the lab when we were telling you about that day? Well........ we may have omitted a few details here and there, which at the time didn’t seem so crucial to the story. Remember the part in the story when we threw all the ingredients together? Uh, well, we literally just threw all the ingredients together. We didn’t even know what we put in until it went through the NMR spectrometer.”
Danny decided to take a chance and peek around the corner into the study. He saw Maggie facing an open window, a piece of pressboard raised over her head, arms locked and frozen. He took a deep breath and continued.