There is a capybara in his bathroom.
A big one. Has “stout” been used to describe capybaras, yet? It comes up to about hip-height— really, it’s like a chunkier miniature horse. It wears a jaunty purple wizard’s hat.
A helpful name tag designates this capybara as one Mr. Mustard. Felps lets the tag drop from his fingers, reaches up to start gently scratching at its cheek.
“Are you lost, bro?” asks Felps, as if this capybara will understand Portuguese. “Are you taking a shit in my bathroom?”
To both questions, Mr. Mustard shakes his head.
“…Well, I’m not gonna take a shit either,” he says. Mr. Mustard has no outward reaction. “I was just, uh— gonna try and fix my face, yeah?”
Mr. Mustard opens his mouth. Canned applause comes out. Yeah, alright.
“So I’m gonna do that, if that’s okay?”
Mr. Mustard gives one stoic nod.
…Yeah, alright. He’s glad somebody’s here, at least— the house being empty was giving him the damn chills. Felps straightens up, faces himself in the mirror, and:
Well, there’s no face to face, right? There’s nothing there. He has a jawline, the sides of his face, stubby flat little human ears— but there’s just black tar where the face should be. It sort of looks hollow.
Felps, experimentally, pokes a finger in. There’s a little resistance, the kind of give you’d imagine a cheek would have, and then the finger sinks further, and further, and… yeah, he gets the picture. He takes his hand out of his face. Where’s his manners.
Okay. How do faces look, again? It’s easy to get the basics down. He knows anatomy. He knows how a skull is shaped; he forms one. Bone at the high point of the cheek, about a fifth of the nose until it becomes cartilage, two pits for the eyes, the upper and lower jaw.
Well, now there’s just a skull staring at him in the mirror. That’s kind of metal. Or unsettling. He turns to look at Mr. Mustard and gets a stock gasp.
“Good?” He asks. His teeth clack together. Oh, he’s got to get used to having teeth again.
Mr. Mustard tilts his head upwards, to the side, peering at him with both of his eyes almost like the capybara’s making a joke of it. Mr. Mustard makes a canned applause sound again.
“Well, I’m not done, hold your applause,” says Felps. “I need skin. And eyes. Hey, do you remember what I looked like?”
For a second, it feels unignorably weird. He doesn’t remember what he looks like, he should, and he’s asking a fucking capybara about it. Something sticky and sad clogs his “throat”.
…Until the capybara gestures his head to the closed toilet, and Felps sees his damn face on a missing poster that’s just there now.
“Have you seen this man? Please call Cellbit.” Well, damn. He’ll have to ask Cellbit if he got any calls. It’s helpful, though— he snatches it up, props it up between the faucet of the sink and the lip of the mirror.
Felps starts scooping his face into shape.
