Frank

I awoke to find myself covered in brine. From my stem to my blossom end, I am covered in salty juice. As my luck would have it, I have shapeshifted into a pickle.

Pickle: a vegetable (commonly a cucumber but can also refer to other foods) that has been preserved in brine (a solution of salt and water) or acid (commonly white vinegar). Also, in a pickle, the position that I am in.

The fermentation process is well underway. Frank, my local bacterial microorganism is busy converting my carbohydrates into pickling byproducts such as gases, acids, and some alcohol. You’d have to eat a ton of me to get blackout drunk, but if you ever have the appetite of an elephant, the possibility is there!

Luckily, I am a premium pickle. No canning for me, no sir! Only the finest glass jar in the finest refrigerator. Next to me are five other pickles, although these are not shapeshifters like me. Inert, their low-in-calorie attitude exude a determination to be eaten that would put a competition loaf of sourdough to shame.

“First time, uh?” Asked Frank between two bites of pectin. Frank is a master at his craft. After each bite I can feel my cellulose restructuring as complex carbohydrates turn into simpler ones.

“Yes, but how do you know?”

“You’re not releasing your lactic acid properly. Here, let me show you.”

Frank pressed near my stem and out came all of my lactic acid buildup.

“That’s good, kid. Soon you’ll learn all the tricks to pickling. Why are you here anyway? I rarely get to talk to sentient pickles.”

“Ah, I’m from the school of magic. This is my first skinwalking experiment.”

“Turning into a pickle is? Absolutely crazy stuff. I’d start looking for an exit if I were you.”

A particularly flavour dense chunk of pickle meat collapsed, releasing tension that had been building up these last few minutes.

“What do you mean? Soon my spell will end and I’ll turn back into a human.”

“You better be right. Because if you are eaten before that happens… let’s just say that if you die as a pickle, you die in real life too if that makes sense to you.”

The refrigerator opened before I could answer Frank. A gargantuan hand reached for my jar and yanked it out of the fridge. The lid popped and two fingers full of curly black hair reached for one of my kind before unceremoniously throwing it onto a wooden cutting board. A sharp slender knife was drawn and the pickle was cut into halves before being plated next to a smoked meat sandwich. The burly Italian man called something to cashier that was barely legal for employment, with a face full of pimples, and the pickle along with the sandwich was served to a grateful sprightly tourist alongside a black cherry soda. The quintessential Montreal experience.

“And how do I turn back into human form? I put a timer on the spell but now I’m unsure I’ll live to experience its end.”

“How would I know, kid? I’m just a sentient strain of Lactobacillus bacteria. I turn cucumbers into pickles, I don’t do magic. You should probably ask Marco.”

“Who’s Marco?”

“The burly Italian man, he might know.”

Before I even knew it, Marco reached for the jar again. Using all of my might, I dipped my stem towards his hairy two fingers.

“Stop!”, I said as he took me out of the jar. “Please me now! My name is [Redacted] and I am a junior student of shapeshifting magic. Please help me turn back into my human form!”

“Uh, you’re in quite the pickle, eh?”

“Very funny, now help me.”

Marco placed me down on his cutting board and reached for his knife… before halving lengthwise another pickle he pulled from the jar. He plated the delicacy next to another smoked meat sandwich, this one with extra mustard, and sent it the cashier’s way.

“Look, buddy. Turning back into a human is very easy. Just repeat after me:

Oh, salty specter, briny soul,

Release your grip and be made whole.

From crunchy core and verdant skin,

Let human form and life begin.

No longer spear or chip or chunk,

I reverse the brine and the pickle-punk!

Be free from jar and pickle-hood,

Return to human, as I should!"

“How would you know that works?” I asked with much incredulity.

Marco looked left and right before lowering his face to within a half inch of my crunchy skin. He whispered, his voice full of the salty brine from the coast of Sicily, “Believe it or not, but I am a pickle in human skin. Us skinwalkers have to look out for one another.” And with that he gave me the most exaggerated wink.

“Alright Marco, thanks for the help. And may we meet again in better circumstances!”

With that, I repeated the formula to a T and the world went blank.

***

Back in my mage tower (a tiny tower as I was still a student of magic), I scrubbed away the last of the brine from my skin. The smell, my teacher insisted, would last for another week.

I got an A for my report on shapeshifting. I also got an A for my report on lactic fermentation, a last minute elective I was on the verge of flunking.

Dear Dairy, only two more semesters before I graduate and can call myself a master of magic.

Looking outside the tiny window of my tiny tower, I wondered how Frank was doing without me.