There’s a man in a cave near here who’ll turn you into an animal if you ask. No one’s ever seen him but we all know he’s there, in the shadows, in the cave, just waiting for you to go and see him, for you to go and ask. He’ll do pretty much anything, birds, beasts, bugs, whatever you want, really, as long as you do want it, really want it, need it. 

There’s no turning back, it’s a one way trip.

I don’t know why, it just is. I suppose without words you can’t ask for anything else, can’t tell him what you want any more, what you need. Or maybe it’s simply that no one changes their mind. No one wants to come back. It’s better out there in the wild. It’s better to be free.

He’s been living there for a long time, longer than anyone can remember. Perhaps he’s been there forever. People used to say it was a trick, or a coincidence. An illusion. But it’s not. It’s strange what he does, when you think about it, it’s strange that he’s there, but everyone accepts it now. It’s just a normal part of life.

Well, not everyone. There was an incident once when the mayor’s wife was turned into a boar, came rampaging back through the town a few hours later with nothing but fury on her mind. Bins knocked over, windows smashed, car alarms going off throughout the afternoon and long into the night. It was quite the sight.

No pretending then. No looking the other way.

Something had to be done, the mayor said later, shaking his head and sighing, shaking his head and looking sad in front of the cameras, the crowds, as if he was doing this for us, doing this for our own good, doing this for the town he served and the people he loved. He just wanted us to be safe.

So the council decided to put a stop to these shenanigans then, put security guards by the entrance and forbid everyone entry to the cave, forbid everyone from going inside and asking the man in there for his help. 

Not that this made any difference of course. People simply found other ways in, crept in through the cracks, sneaked in past the guards, or paid them off, whatever it took to get inside, to get what they wanted. 

You’d see them at dawn, at dusk, coming back out as bats and basilisks and whatever else they’d asked him for, whatever they’d decided to be, whatever they were. 

Or they just didn’t come back out at all. It’s a big cave. There’s lots of shadows down there to hide in, to lurk in, to linger, become.

But that was all a long time ago now. Moral panics come and go. If they’re posting guards anywhere these days it’s down by the woods, near where the witches live, where they brew their potions, practice their spells. You know the ones. The ones we’re not supposed to like. The ones we all do.

So the cave’s unguarded these days, anyone can enter if they want. If they’ve got something in mind for the man down there, the unseen man who lives in the cave, the man who’ll turn you into an animal if you ask.

My mother became a butterfly, my sisters birds. Not even anything exotic, just starlings. They’d always liked squabbling, those two. The cat watches them out the window sometimes as they fight over yesterday’s bread, her eyes fixated on their fluttering wings, mewing and pawing at the glass as she begs plaintively to be let out to pester them.

I don’t let her out, obviously. And to be honest, she doesn’t seem to mind. She always settles down eventually, sleeps off the excitement by the fire for the rest of the afternoon, dreams her dreams, leaves me to mine.

Sometimes I think about my mother, about how her wings caught the light as she fluttered out of the cave, fluttered out to sea, into the sky, away, away, away.

And sometimes I think about what I’d like to be, think about I want to be, think about what I’d say if I went down there now, went down to the cave, stepped inside and asked the man to turn me, to change me. 

To release me.

But I can’t imagine myself as anything else. I try, but I can’t see it. I’m always me. Who knows why. A lack of imagination? A lack of courage? A surfeit of certainty? Even in my dreams I’m unable to change.

And anyway, if I’m truthful, the only thing I’d like to be is alone. The last one left in a town turned to beasts. Me and the cat sitting in the house, in the shadows, looking out the window at the world, the last exhibits left in an empty zoo.

__________

Notes:

1. Written in February 2026