A Metamorphosis

It happened bit by bit, and then all at once. She first noticed the change on Monday morning when she was brushing her teeth and the plastic bristles scraped against something hard, slippery and distinctly un-toothlike. Little Mila frowned, touching the tip of her tongue to where her molar once was, and felt a cold wet stone. Hooking her finger into her mouth, she pulled her cheek back and peered at the rock in the mirror. It looked like a diamond or a sort of crystal, roughly shaped like a tooth, dimly reflecting the bathroom light. She pinched it between her thumb and forefinger, trying to wobble it, but the rock was firmly embedded in her gums. That same morning, as she brushed her hair, she noticed a few wiry strands of gold sprouting from her head, glowing among her mousy brown locks. She couldn’t pluck those out either. This was the beginning of a metamorphosis.

Mila continued getting ready for work, as if alchemy were a normal part of her Monday morning routine. She was only mildly disturbed. Her biggest worry was what her colleagues would think of her glitzy new look, so she hid the golden strands in a bun scraped tight against her head. Mila lived a very small life. In fact, her entire existence could be mapped onto a straight line. Her simple, homely flat was tucked away in a corner of London, from which she could take a direct tube to her offices, where she worked as an assistant estate agent, persuading busier people to buy and sell. In the opposite direction was her supermarket and high street. She enjoyed this linearity, and liked to imagine herself as a bead on an abacus, sliding along a wooden spoke. For a long time, nothing changed in Mila’s life. She liked stability, routine and logic. The idea that her own body could take away her small and stable life was one that she quite simply rejected.

Over the next week her transformation continued, gathering speed. Mila deduced that her body must change whilst she slept, as she often noticed new gems or coins in the morning. By Wednesday, all her fingernails had turned into shiny coins of varying sizes. A 5p at the tip of her little fingers, pound coins on her ring fingers, and large golden disks of a currency that she did not recognise, inlaid with silver, on each thumb. By Thursday, her ears had turned into furled bank notes, the Queen’s face tucked into the whorl of her cochlear. Amazingly, she could still hear, so she hid the notes with her hair, which was growing more brilliantly gold by the day. By Friday, all but her front teeth had transformed into glistening semi-precious stones. At work the same day she noticed that her left nipple had also turned into a coin, with a small ruby embedded at the centre. Yet Mila was determined to carry on with her daily routine, to live unperturbed by a transformation of flesh and bone to metal and stone. She refused, staunchly and resolutely, to acknowledge that her body was betraying her.

It only became difficult to sustain the illusion of normality when people around her noticed the changes in her body. Her colleagues were, of course, awkwardly polite, looking the other way when her new fingernails made it difficult to pick something up, or when her hair brushed aside to reveal her origami ears. It was worse with strangers. Mila had become, like all women, accustomed to a certain level of constant attention, but she had never felt wandering eyes on her body as often as this before. One incident in particular stuck with Mila, taking place a couple of weeks into her transformation. She was on the tube home after an uneventful day at work and she caught a fellow commuter staring at her. His piggish, grey eyes were fixed on her hand, gripping a dirty hand railing. He had noticed the coins on her fingertips, and the rolled-up banknote that had now replaced her little finger. There was a glint of greed in those eyes, an intrusive intensity that wanted to grab and steal. Mila shifted her hand awkwardly, moving to lean against another railing. She had an uncomfortable certainty that she would spend the rest of her life moving from one piggish gaze to another.

It was only after this encounter, when she got back to the safety of her small flat, that it dawned on Mila that the money and the gems spontaneously appearing on her body could be valuable. She unpacked her work bags, absentmindedly flicking through some housing appraisals, and sat down to eat. Perhaps she could spend a part of herself, perhaps her body was worth something. Would that be so wrong? She chewed her banana thoughtfully, feeling the crystals in her gums mash the sweet, tangy pulp. It made the fruit taste almost metallic. Perhaps, as an estate agent, she could make sense of the way her body was changing beyond her control if she could think of the metamorphosis as an exchange of value. The space she lived in was changing, so naturally it required an appraisal, a new evaluation. She needed someone to tell her the value of herself. This realisation is what pushed her to make an appointment with her doctor.

When Mila woke the next morning, she was looking forward to speaking to someone about her condition. Yet there remained a kernel of fear, waiting tight in her chest. The life that she had built for herself, the calm linear rhythm of her days, that she had spent time constructing and maintaining, would also change. What's more, she could not shake the man on the tube’s greedy eyes from her memory. Where would her body be safe? At the surgery? She had to abruptly swallow these fears when she looked in the mirror and saw that one of her eyes had changed overnight into a coin, nestled in an oval of gold leaf foil. With a new loss of depth perception, she wobbled around her flat, hastily getting ready for her appointment. Whilst she was eating her breakfast, she heard a popping noise, and her nose turned into a stack of coins, with a rough ruby nostril on either side. It was time to go.

She stumbled down the staircase of her building and out onto the street. The road was busier than she would have liked, the first hint of spring feebly warming the city air. With a steely resolve, she put her head down and fixated on reaching the doctors, willing her body to move forward unnoticed. Pop! Her left calf turned into a heavy gold bar, visible beneath her skirt. Mila cringed as she felt the young couple walking behind her staring, and bitter panic started to rise in her chest. She urged herself onward, dragging her calf along the pavement, doggedly determined. Another pop! Both her feet transfigured into silver blocks. She staggered, losing her balance, and collapsed on the ground, with a metallic clang. The young couple instinctively rushed towards her, wanting to help the small lady. As passersby gathered around her crumpled body, their concern quickly turned to confusion, and Mila understood this. Everywhere she saw that greedy glint, that subconscious desire to take and possess. She looked up at the group from the pavement, faces crowding her vision, blocking out the sky, and she stretched her hands out to push them away. As she waved her arms, her fingers fragmented into silver coins which pinged off the concrete, and banknotes peeled off of her forearms, fluttering away in the wind. It felt like trying to run in a dream, like she was using all of her force and getting nowhere. The last thing Mila saw before her other eye metamorphosed into a coin was a ravenous, grasping crowd.

*

The inspector had been on his way to work when he saw a commotion on the other side of the road. He saw a group gather around a woman, hunched over and gesticulating. He saw people begin to shove each other, with unexpected aggression. And, as he got closer, he saw that his eyes had misled him. It wasn’t a woman at all, but a huge pile of coins, notes, gems, gold bars, silver chains, tangled piles of golden thread. The crowd had surged forward to take what they could, grubby hands grabbing fistfuls of coins and notes. He barged his way through the mob, brandishing his silver police badge and shouting in the voice he reserved for official business. The mob was growing rapidly but he managed to reach the pile of money, batting away hands that tried to sneak in. He could sense the swarm’s fury at being denied what they considered rightfully theirs, the hints of frenzy in the whites of their eyes.

The night was dragging on, as it always did, and the inspector shifted from foot to foot, rubbing his hands together to keep warm as the evening cooled. Once back-up had arrived it had been easier to disperse the crowd and secure a small ring, a buffer, around the pile of money. Faced with officials, people gradually lost interest and wandered away, happy with the few coins or notes that they had snatched and eager to discover their worth. The inspector himself could probably have left a long time ago but he found himself unable to do so. He could not understand the case and it frustrated him. According to eyewitnesses, the glittering jumble of money had once been a woman, small with mousy brown hair. He struggled to reconcile the idea of a woman with the pile of goods behind him, which was currently valued at around £17,000 by the squad’s numismatist. The inspector wrote down all his thoughts in a little black notebook, as he always did. Who did the money belong to? How had this transformation occurred? Were the bystanders who took from it thieves? Was the money taxable? The notebook filled up rapidly, and he was determined to continue until he could form a comprehensive narrative, however long that took. The numismatist announced that upon the discovery of two large gold bars, the pile could be confidently estimated at a value of £20,000.