I woke up one morning to find my phone had turned into a lizard. I stared at its striking obsidian eyes for a while, trying to assess whether I was hallucinating. I didn’t dare reach out to touch the creature, even though it was docile and still—only trembling through its olive-green belly when there was an alert from social media. I was late for work, so without much thought I quickly got dressed and swept the lizard into a Bag for Life. It remained still during my morning commute, and at my office I shook the lizard out of the bag onto my desk. It scrambled to its feet, then froze. As each alert came through, the lizard shifted and groaned with more intensity. I covered it with sheets of A4 paper so none of my colleagues could tell my world had become a little strange.
Then it occurred to me, I was locked into an expensive and punitive phone contract, sold to me by some shyster Apple Genius preteen. So I couldn’t afford to lose this phone, and all I could do was hope the reptile would shapeshift back to its previous state, and my carefree life could continue unabated.
The lizard phone began to ring. Maybe it was the girl with the giant hooped earrings and platform boots I’d met at the Reddit meetup group. She was really something, and I’d been hoping she’d call me for several days now. I closed in on the lizard. It seemed to be lost in its own fantasy world, gazing out the window at the gentle movement of the river against the shore. I took the opportunity to snatch it with a violence that surprised even myself, and I pressed it to my ear, feeling its soft scaly legs graze my stubbly cheek.
"Darling?"
"Yes, mum," I sighed in disappointment, as the lizard struggled in my hand. "I can't talk now; I'm dealing with some issues."
"What issues?"
"It's weird, I can't explain."
"You haven't been smoking that stuff again? Whaddyacallit?"
"No, mum, no. Look, I've got to go."
Before I could hang up, the lizard bit down hard on my ear. I threw it to the ground and it bared its rotten, wretched little teeth. With a burst of rage, I stomped on the lizard with my foot and crushed it. But as I pulled my foot away and stared at the remains, there was no blood or flesh, just demolished electronics and a mangled protective cover.
I stared at the mess for a while, then tried to focus on my work. Things had spiralled out of control and I needed some normality.
An elderly colleague in thick purple lipstick with lots of pictures of poodles and cats in her cubicle said, “I think it’s simply horrible to treat a pet like that. It’s disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
I was speechless. I had no pets growing up and I was allergic to dog hair, but could I really be an animal-hating psychopath? I did know killing lizards with my size 12 boot was not where I wanted to be in my mid-to-late twenties.
In the end I said "Fuck off, you old bag."
I looked back for the lizard or the phone or whatever it was, but it wasn't there, not even any remnants of debris. Now my phone was dead, my connection to all that meant anything to me, no matter how inconsequential, had gone. I was already feeling symptoms of withdrawal. Ant then it occured to me: how was I going to explain all of this to the shit-face Apple Genius kid, and not only that -- what the hell was I going to do with the rest of my life? Fuck.
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Tim Frank's work has been published in Bending Genres, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Maudlin House, The Forge Literary Magazine, New World Writing, and elsewhere. He is a Best Small Fictions and 3x Best of the Net nominee. His debut chapbook is An Advert Can Be Beautiful in the Right Shade of Death (C22 Press, 2024). His sophomore effort is Delusion to Live By (Alien Buddha Press, 2025).