Neighbor Dispute (Patreon)

I like my neighborhood. It’s a bit out of the way, so there is no traffic nearby and no kids from other places hanging around, making mischief. It was quite a bit pricey for the size of the house, but expensive areas kind of self select people with good income, good education and good manners. And then there is Phil.

Phil is the raisin in the chocolate chip cookie. My neighbor across the garden. He sold his business some year ago and retired to spend his golden years getting melanoma by the pool in his garden. Every day I look out the living room window I see his fat blob of naked body squeezed into a pool chair. You can barely even see his speedos under that mass of a body.

I’ve tried to raise the issue with him several times, being less and less subtle about it. His response on the other hand have grown increasingly blunt. He used to run a business, and isn’t very keen on any input on his personal behavior.

Through a friend I found myself at some very hush-hush event with some of the local city elite. A bunch of local power players meet a few times a year to discuss God knows what. This time, when they were done with business, they moved to some social party in a rented club my friend owns. A few cocktails later I was talking about my garden problem, when someone listening in said it would be perfect application for a Chronivac. I’ve never heard about it before, and the guy I spoke to appeared slightly annoyed that I now had, but by the end of the evening I was given one such device with enough charge to dramatically change the appearance of one person.

The device had a lot of design in common with a smartphone, though thicker and heavier. In the menus you could change everything about a person, from sweeping templates such as “Athletic Male Adolescent”, to general themes of complexion and ethnicity, to microscopic changes like the fascia that determines the layout of the six pack, or even reshape the belly button. The mental menus where similarly extensive and detailed. I spent a good hour, worked up about Phil’s latest rude response, making a pool boy profile fitting for Phil. I could have just made Phil thinner perhaps, but I was too boozed and angry not to make an obedient, self aware, illiterate stupid shit of teenage eye candy out of him.

I knew that I had blown the issue way out of proportion. Altering the appearance of someone else just because you don’t like them lounging by the pool all day is kind of the definition of petty overkill. But at the same time I felt forced to use the device, now that I had been let in on such a secret. So when confronting Phil the next morning, I was actively looking for a reason not to use it. Phil however was his usual, sucky self.

“Trying to get me to stop spending my golden years the way I want again, boy? Well, some spoiled entitled brat like you wouldn’t understand, but I worked for the privilege to be able to just laze around like this! I didn’t just get handed it by my mommy and daddy like you did!”

Self restraint and compassion went out the window. My parents might have paid for my education, but I’ve worked hard for every penny I own. Fuck Phil! I pressed the button.

The change was quick, over in seconds. I could feel a strong heat radiating all over my body and everything wobbled a bit. Then I looked at Phil from a few inches lower than before. I was so confused. Shouldn’t he look different? My too big clothes were hanging on my body and in my hand I held the Chrowa thing. Strangely I could not make out what it said in the display.

- Aw, did someone’s plan not work out for them?
- I… don’t understand.
- No, I guess you wouldn’t with those settings. Give me back my Chronivac.
- Yes, sir.
- Go inside and look in the duffel bag in the guest bedroom. My niece left some clothes your size. Wear the skimpiest you can find. Then come back here and oil me up with sun lotion.
- Yes, sir.

Read my commentary.