Jamison awoke one morning to find that his lips and the area around his mouth tickled uncontrollably. He stuck his very dry tongue out of his mouth and ran it experimentally around his lips: it seemed that during the night his lips had sprouted feathers. As he turned over in bed to look at the alarm clock, vague memories of flying oppressed his thoughts, and he wished he had not drank quite so much last night.
The party had gone on long past the expectations of anyone involved, and in fact seemed to be prolonged to the point of painfulness: Jamison noticed a certain tightness of the mouth in his guests, a certain straining between the shoulder blades that made each squirm in his or her chair as unobtrusively as possible. Jamison's intake of alcohol corresponded exactly with the amount of squirming his guests did, and the more Jamison drank, the more his guests squirmed; and so the night went.
The party had not been his idea originally: his girlfriend, Sasha, insisted that Jamison have an "apartment-warming" party to get to know his new neighbors. "You must show them that you are more than they think you are--there is more to you than meets the eye, and they will realize it if you throw a successful party," she whined incessantly in his ear for a full week before he finally decided to have the get-together. "That's right; bite the bullet, bear down, finish the race! It'll be over before you know it!" she said cheerfully. And so Jamison made the preparations for a party he did not want to have for people that he did not want to get to know. It had, of course, gone just as terribly as he imagined it would.
Looking at the alarm clock, Jamison sat immediately fully upright and awake in his bed: it was nearly 9:00 A.M.! He was supposed to be at work at 9:30! Quickly he jumped out of bed and promptly collapsed. It seemed that during the night his legs had grown much thinner, longer, and weaker than the muscular legs he had gone to bed with. As the floor rushed up to meet his unguarded face, he began to flap his arms uncontrollably, in a reflexive motion completely unfamiliar to him, and yet totally natural. Instead of crashing dully into the hard wood floor face first, he was suddenly lifted violently into the air, and he realized all at once that he was flying; furthermore, his head, which had been pounding painfully, now didn't hurt at all; indeed, a sense of euphoria and well-being coursed through his ticklish body. "This will simply not do," he said aloud to no one in particular. Involuntarily, he continued to flap his arms and to float above the gleaming hard wood floor for a few more seconds, but upon realizing his situation, he stopped flapping his arms and fell heavily to the earth. At just this moment he heard the ringing of the front doorbell and Sasha's insistent voice calling, "Jamison! Wake up! Why aren't you at work? A stitch in time saves nine, you know! Jamison! Let me in now!"
Jamison took a moment to check himself for any injury or other abnormalities besides his feathery lips and suddenly weakened legs, gave one last mournful glance at his bed, and then got up and walked into the living room to let his girlfriend in. As soon as he had opened the door, Sasha sprang into the house and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. "Ooh! Tickly! You haven't even shaved yet? You'd better get going; your boss is going to kill you if you're late again!" and with that she rushed past him and into the kitchen to begin preparing his breakfast.
Jamison was incredulous: she hadn't even noticed the feathers sprouting from his lips or his spindly and discolored legs. "Don't you notice anything different about me this morning, honey?" he asked her.
"Different? Like what?" she replied.
"Oh, I don't know . . . like maybe the feathers sprouting out of my lips or the fact that my legs seem to have been replaced by those of a bird while I was sleeping! Those things didn't strike you as odd?"
"Jamison! Whatever are you talking about? Honestly, you expect me to notice every little thing that's different about you? You get a haircut and I'm supposed to notice? You wear a new tie and I'm supposed to notice? Your lips sprout feathers and I'm supposed to notice? I swear, with all I do for you, you'd think that you'd be more appreciative. I mean, you can hardly see the feathers, and your legs aren't that skinny--a little yellow maybe--but not that skinny. Really!"
At this last word Jamison ran into the bathroom to convince himself of the reality of his new appendages. They were there! They must be there! He had flown, for God's sake! Didn't she have eyes to see with? What was wrong with her? He had woken up with feathers where his lips used to be and scaly and yellow legs, and she didn't notice? As he ran to the bathroom, his legs began to feel stronger, and he noticed a strange tugging sensation at his lips: during his flight, the feathers were being pulled from his lips by the force of the wind his body created. He grabbed for them convulsively as they floated past him, but they always fluttered just past his reach, seeming to know just how to elude his grasp.
Finally he reached the bathroom and stood in front of the cabinet mirror with his eyes downcast. His legs were now muscular again: the blood flowed through them so quickly that he felt dizzy for a brief moment. He put a shaking hand to his lips and felt only smoothness there. With a terrible sob, he turned away from the mirror, shut off the bathroom light, and walked calmly back to the kitchen.
"What's for breakfast this morning? I'm starving!" he said as he licked his lips hungrily and sat down easily at the small kitchen table. As he waited for Sasha's reply, something tickled his vibrant thigh.
"Eggs. Hope you like 'em," she replied. Looking down, he saw resting delicately on his powerful right leg a single white feather. Looking at it intensely for a brief moment, he brushed it off and turned to the steaming hot gelatinous mounds his girlfriend had just placed in front of him. He smiled to himself briefly as he watched the feather flutter silently to the floor, and then he picked up his knife and fork and hungrily devoured his breakfast.