And I can see it in my mind’s eye. I wake up to a coating of soft, black fur across my body, punctuated with a patch of off-white from my jaw that runs down my neck, my chest, my stomach. My fingernails have become claws, dull and brown, my fingers and palms tipped by plump little pawpads. I reach up, half-disbelieving, to paw gently at my snout, feeling my wet, brown nose, my sensitive whiskers, my cheekfluff, ruffled by a night of rough sleep.
My ears twitch, and I am made aware of their new position atop my head, crowning a mop of thick fur that passes for hair, a sort of messy mullet, and as I roll onto my side, I stretch my digitgrade toes, feeling them spread, my feet moving in unfamiliar yet… ordinary… ways.
I can feel it pressing against my back, too. Feel myself pressing against it. My tail, dense and fluffy, twitches knowingly as I reach back to touch it, feel how my paw sinks into its depth, how it forms a body pillow all its own behind me. I pull it around my side, wrap it tightly in my arms, and I lie, silently, in peaceful contemplation.
There’s no disbelief, no… shock at this outcome. Of course I was a skunk, of course I turned- the illness broke, the fever is gone, and finally, finally, I’m healed.