Agent Orange
John had
discovered his unusual power a few weeks after his 18th birthday. Standing 5ft7,
he was often pushed around, but he never reacted to it, choosing to bottle up
his anger. He had often been bullied by a gang of five guys, they were your
typical football goons; 6ft tall, serious brown eyes and bodies to die for. The
gang was run by 6ft4 monster Tom, he was the worst, always picking on John,
egging the other 4 guys to play along.
John always wanted to get one up on them, but he knew it would only end in
disaster. Despite this, kept to his studies, and got a job with the football
team, in charge of refreshments. He would wheel around his trolley with bottles
of water for the football team at half time. It wasn't a great job, but he got a
bit of money for it. The downside of this was when the gang of 4 joined the
football team a few months after John started. He didn't want to give up the
job, he needed the money, and he didn't have to get near the gang very often.
So this uneasy routine continued for a month, until one day Tom emptied a bottle
of water over John's head, totally soaking him. The others pushed him around for
a while, and after a while John stormed off.
He was furious, so went to a secret spot under a nearby bridge to cool off. He
tried breathing deeply, but the anger wouldn't subside.
Soon a rat scuttled nearby, and started scratching at his shoe. This was the
last straw, he wasn't going to take any more crap from vermin today, and shouted
as furiously as he could at the rat. He felt a head rush, and then opened his
eyes... the rat was gone, but an orange lay at his feet. A little odd, he
thought, the rat must have run off.. well he couldn't explain the orange...
A while later, he sat in the park for a little while. A smile crossed his lips
as his imagination ran away with him, what if he had the power to turn things
into oranges? Stupid, he thought, but he had always been into comic books and
such, so he had always wanted superpowers.. surely he could do better than that?
Just to kill time, he decided he would practice on a pigeon. He focused on an
angry thought, not difficult to find.. and concentrated on the pigeon. He head
rush came again, and to his astonishment, the pigeon made a quiet popping noise
and a small orange dropped onto the floor in its place.
John was gobsmacked.. this wasn't serious surely? But the orange was real
enough.. he picked it up.
Over the next few days, he practiced on more pigeons and rats, it worked every
time. It looked a little suspicious being surrounded by oranges, so he eased
off. He realised soon that he could turn the oranges back into their original
form. The pigeons looked a little disoriented, but seemed ok.
As the experiments continued, he tried peeling the orange and turning it back.
The pigeon reappeared.. minus its feathers. After a while, he tried cutting the
orange in half.. the results were messy, the pigeon lay in two pieces on the
floor. Shocked, John turned them back into orange halves, and loosely
reassembled them. To his amazed relief, the pigeon looked fine, and it flew off.
He eventually tried it out on larger animals, next door's horrible cat. It still
worked. He didn't dare try it on Tom though, that would be a step too far...
So football practice came around again, and John was on duty with the water. He
quickly ran to the bathroom to relieve himself. While he was in there, the team
took a break from practice, and looked around for John and his water.
'Where is that lazy idiot?' the team captain growled. 'I'll go find him' Tom
replied with a menacing grin, and ran in the direction of the changing rooms.
John came out of the toilet just as Tom burst into the changing room. 'Hey
little man, slacking again?' 'No Tom, I was in the bathroom, I didnt realise you
guys were having a break'. 'Didn't realise? Well that's pretty bad of you, you
should be waiting patiently for us.. you do realise you need to be punished now
don't you?' 'Hey Tom, leave me alone, I didnt know!'
Tom pushed John against the wall with a whack, John winced. 'Leave me alone Tom,
I'm warning you...' 'WARNING me? HA! What are you going to do?' He pulled a fist
back, and was about to hit John. John cowered and shut his eyes 'NO!'
He felt an unmistakable head rush again, and opened his eyes cautiously. Tom had
gone.. in his place was an orange...
'Oh god, what have I done?'.. John picked up the orange Tom and inspected him.
He felt a surge of power.. he could stamp on the orange, and all this bullying
would be over. 'God, no I can't.. he's a dick, but I can't murder him..'
At that moment, the other 4 gang members burst in. 'What's taking you so long?'
'Ooh look, Johnny's snacking on the job!' 'Get your ass into gear, little man.
The team are really gasping out there, do your duty!'
John looked wide-eyed and speechless. 'Bringing fruit? Nice touch J. Don't think
your ass licking is going to do you any favours.'
The biggest of the gang grabbed the orange out of John's hand. 'Hey, dont take
that! You don't know what you're doing!' 'Oh I know what I'm doing, I could do
with a refresher'. John went pale, and couldn't move, only watch. The guy went
to his jacket pocket and whipped out a flick-knife and skillfully sliced the
orange into quarters. John was horrified.. he thought 'I can stop this, I can
put him together again'..
But it was too late, he had put the knife down and thrown a quarter to each of
his friends, and they immediately put their teeth around the soft fruity flesh,
and slid their teeth between the quarter and the skin, sucking deeply on the
juice, unaware that they were sucking dry a part of their friend. Then finally,
they pushed their teeth in further and pulled the flesh from the skin, casting
it aside, and chewed thoughtfully on the flesh, before swallowing it. 'That was
good, but a little too bitter. Maybe you should be taught not to give us such
bitter fruit' he said before picking up the knife again.
Shocked, John felt a flash of fear, and then horror as the four gang members
turned into oranges.
He gathered the fruit up and rested them on the side, just as the rest of the
team hammered into the changing room.
'What happened to you? You look like you've seen a ghost! Came here to be sick
huh? Tough break. Well go home early, it's raining, so we are calling it a day'
The team captain said as the team quickly stripped off for their shower.
'Hey guys, Johns been busy, he brought oranges! Help yourself to a piece' He
said, picking up the knife and cutting the oranges into 16 quarters. John went
pale again, as he was surrounding by tall athletic footballers, all naked, and
picking up pieces of orange and sucking them dry, before swallowing the flesh.
Before long, there were some leftovers, and they started a food fight. John
stared as peeled segments of juicy orange were thrown around, hitting the solid
abs of fellow players in a juicy sticky mess, before dropping down and getting
tangled in a few bunches of pubes. The players werent fussy though, picking the
loose hairs off and swallowing some pieces whole.
'Good job, John, nice to find someone thinking outside the box for a change!'..
John was kinda relieved too, at least he would have an easier life from now on.
To be continued...