Chad Tanner had a very specific morning ritual.

He liked to wake two minutes before his alarm. Lie there with his eyes closed, listening to his own breathing. Feeling the softness of his bedcovers, the Egyptian cotton, before the rush of his white noise machine switched into life. It launched him into life like a jet engine, sitting up straight in bed and eyeballing the blank wall opposite.

Then he would step out of bed and perform 50 squats, 100 lunges, and 50 press ups, his way of showing the day who was boss. Each exercise had to be executed perfectly to feel the true effects, and he did this without music, only the white noise, which sharpened his thoughts.

He did not look at his phone or even touch it until he had showered, shaved and dressed, and then only to check if anyone important had contacted him. Everyone claimed their ask was urgent, but few were. Those who got his attention had it fully and unreservedly. The rest, he left with lesser men, or his PA, a leggy blonde girl who he trusted completely with his schedule, and prayed would never get pregnant like the rest of them seemed to.

This was the way Chad Tanner liked to greet the world before the clamour, before the noise, gripping hold of life before it gripped him.

He would swallow no more than toothpaste and black coffee until midday, knowing his nutritional requirements almost as intimately as his bank accounts. It was important to show self-control in these things. He had sailed far beyond the comfortable, middle-class softness of his suburban childhood to the sharp, clean lines of wealth.

Only last night, he’d had the funniest dream.

He’d woken up, but not in his bed. There was no Egyptian cotton, no white noise machine, no neutral shades and memory foam. Instead, he was half drowning in a fat, billowing cushion that seemed to take up almost the entire world.

Chad scrambled to get himself upright and found he could not. The surface he’d been lying on was too soft and squidgy and it was going to become his tomb. He tried to scream but the noise that came out of his throat was alien and much too high.

Then he’d sat up, bolt upright, panting for breath. He was in his room again, his safe, minimalist bedroom with adjoining walk-in wardrobe, kitted out in dark, backlit wood. He had to get up and walk around the entire space, touching every item, just to be certain of its existence.

The unexpected mid-sleep awakening had thrown off his ritual, so he did not lie there that morning, waiting for the white noise machine. It was the sound of the cleaner switching on the hoover on that threw him into consciousness.

He’d overslept by two hours.

Chad Tanner was a commercial predator, so he didn’t panic. Instead, he reached for his phone to message his PA, telling her his anticipated arrival time so she could rearrange his schedule for him. Her response was almost immediate.

‘The board meeting, sir?’

It was irritating to have to address this; she ought to instinctively understand him. Perhaps the woman was beginning to lose her touch? Maybe he ought to find a replacement…

Ignoring this wrinkle in the smooth, clean sheets of his morning, Chad performed his workout, then showered, shaved and dressed. Nothing was missed from the routine, yet it all felt a little off. The ridiculous dream had ruined his circadian rhythms.

Still, Chad did not divert from the path set out before him. His driver was waiting for him in the underground car park, in exactly the same place as always. He greeted Mr Tanner in the usual polite manner, before driving in silence.

Chad pressed his head against the BMW’s headrest. The quiet of the drive was a part of the day he typically relished, but today it pressed against him, and against all better impulses, he found himself attempting to fill the vacuum with small talk.

‘How are you then, …?’ Chad paused, the bubble of the forgotten name expanding, as if to emphasise the barrier between himself and his employee.

‘Quite well, sir,’ the driver replied politely. ‘Yourself, sir?’

‘Fine, fine.’

Another heavy bubble of silence followed. The driver, seeming to realise that he was being called upon to play his part in the forced drama, remarked.

‘There’s a lot of traffic today.’

‘Oh, is there?’

‘Some kind of accident. Sir.’ The last word was added quickly, as if it were a talisman to avoid bad luck.

‘Right,’ said Chad.

The awkwardness ballooned further and Chad distracted himself by looking out through the tinted glass at the streets drifting past. The air in the car felt stuffy and stale. He had a sudden, bizarre impulse to stick his head out the window.

Come on, man, pull yourself together.

His phone vibrated in his pocket. Thank God, he thought.

Reading his PA’s latest message, he allowed himself a single tut of irritation. While he welcomed the distraction, he had no idea why on earth was this woman was insisting on bothering him with every little problem this morning. So what if some journalist was hanging about? Throwing annoying people out of the building was the job of security guards, not CEOs.

He shut his eyes, trying to forget about the morning’s irritations, allowing stillness and silence to enter his soul.

But all he felt was a tightening noose around his throat.

The driver parked the car and Chad got out without a word, which seemed a relief to them both. Chad entered the shining glass offices via the private car park, and felt rather than saw his PA waiting for him, her tall angular presence almost a personification of the building itself. One could almost see oneself reflected back in her eyes in ghostly form, pale and cold.

‘They are waiting for you in the boardroom, sir,’ she said, in a voice that could only be described as coolly appropriate.

Chad nodded and stepped into his private lift. A woman was standing in it.

Chad was so surprised he almost stepped back out again, but the doors had already closed and they were whistling their way directly to the 49th floor.

He stared at the woman, this perfect stranger who’d forced her way into his personal domain. She looked ordinary, perhaps a little too ordinary, with a mousey brown ponytail and a dark blue business suit, her handbag black and shiny. A cheap version of professional.

‘Who are you?’ he blurted out.

‘I’m from The Timegraph. And I have some questions for you, Mr Tanner.’

Chad Tanner blinked slowly. No one ever spoke to him in such a blunt, direct manner, not even the shareholders.

‘Mr Tanner,’ the woman continued. ‘How would address allegations of financial irregularities in your company?’

The air in the lift grew thin. Chad Tanner pressed himself against the deep dark wood of the lift. He pressed the buttons behind him, knowing that this lift, his personal lift, was express and only travelled straight to the top floor. How the hell had this woman got in here, he thought desperately. Why had no one stopped her?

‘Mr Tanner, there are suggestions that you have been using company funds to enrich your lifestyle. How would you respond?’

Chad was drowning. He was dangling, suspended high over the water, the clear cool delicious water he’d swum in, his mouth chomping on some pale fatty maggot, and he was drowning, drowning in air.

He caught a little smirk on her small, plain face. He was a fish on her line and his mouth was well and truly hooked.

Only he wasn’t on a hook, dangling in the air. The sea of pink from his dream surrounded him, sucking him downwards into a soft, squidgy prison.

Chad Tanner blinked. The small, plain face with its ponytail had been replaced by a much larger and ruddier one, rounder and older with dyed blonde hair and too much make up. The face smiled at Chad, reaching down with huge hands.

Chad felt himself rising, before being dropped onto an almost savannah like surface. He spun in a circle, trying to take in his surroundings, but something kept getting in his eyes, thick and white like trails of cotton fluff, and he shouted out for help.

Down came the giant hand, pressing hard against Chad’s head and speaking in soft tones. He couldn’t understand a word, but against all his better judgement, found himself soothed.

The woman stood over him, smiling. ‘I know what you need,’ she said. Then she opened her palm.

Chad stared at the circular biscuit object. He never ate biscuits. Never had even the inklings of desire for refined sugar, which he had purged from his diet ten years ago, alongside refined carbohydrates and processed foods. If anyone complained about losing weight in his presence, he would bring up this fact, and use it as an example that anyone could sculpt their bodies to their wills, if they had a mind to it.

But Chad Tanner needed that biscuit. It was the sole object of his focus. The centre of his world.

Stop this, Chad screamed at himself. You don’t need a stupid biscuit! But it was like being locked in a soundproofed room inside his own brain, while some other dumb-witted consciousness lumbered about, pressing all the buttons.

Chad snaffled up the biscuit from her palm. He could taste her skin, the slight sweatiness mixed with something chemical, and then, oh glory, that meaty, salt, umami fattiness, crunching over his tongue. In a second it was gone, and he let out a little melancholic cry.

‘Chad! Chad!’

Chad blinked awake. Faces were leaning over him. Normal faces, The Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and even his PA, all frowning in concern.

‘Are you alright, Chad? You were…’

The Chief Financial Officer glanced at the Vice President, who gave a terrified little shrug.

‘You were whimpering,’ said the PA, matter-of-factly.

Chad got to his feet. There were too many people in this lift, his lift, and he was thoroughly fed up with the way his PA was speaking to him, as though they stood on an even footing. She seemed to have picked especially high heels today, so she was ever so slightly taller than him.

‘Emma, you are fired. Please collect your things and leave this building immediately. Vincent, David, with me.’

He pressed the open doors button and walked out smartly, without looking back.

The boardroom had frosted glass walls that gave the impression the room was filling up with smoke, as it might have very well have done a generation ago. The Board members were all there, men and women sitting in their chairs, scrolling on their phones or reading papers, the empty water glasses and coffee mugs demonstrating that their waiting time had been substantially significant.

Chad sat down in his chair. He did not apologise for his lateness. That would look weak. Instead, he carried on as if the meeting was not over an hour behind schedule, and his tie wasn’t loose, and his mouth wasn’t filling up with saliva.

A little sound came out his mouth, involuntarily. An undeniable whine.

The Chair, a red-faced man in his sixties with the moustache and expression of a British military general, looked up from his papers and glared viciously at him. The Chief Operations Officer, a bland, 40-something with the unidentifiable face of a corporate brochure, frowned slightly. Everyone else did their best not to make any eye contact.

Chad swallowed the saliva down. ‘And now, David…’ he croaked.

Fortunately, the Chief Financial Officer dutifully took his cue. He stood up and began to give his report in a dull, droning sort of voice, like a Dickensian lawyer. It was enough to soothe the room and Chad found himself drifting.

‘Chad… err… Chad…?’

Chad realised his mouth had slacked open. His tongue lolled heavily from his mouth and a pool of drool seeped into his shirt, a chill damp patch on his torso. He tried to clamp his jaw shut, to gain some control over the situation, but his mouth seemed inoperable from his brain.

‘Let’s take five,’ said the Chief Operating Officer quickly, walking over to Chad.

Chad regained control of his jaw. He snapped it shut and glowered at his inferior. He always knew the man was gunning for his position, and here he was, shamelessly acting as if he were in charge. ‘What is it?’ he hissed.

The Chief Operating Officer’s cheeks flamed the exact colour of his inappropriately pink office tie. ‘Sir, go grab some coffee and sober up. Please.’

Chad lurched from his chair and staggered from the boardroom. He knew what it looked like, and he wished it was true. Better to be drunk than… than… than whatever this was.

Has someone poisoned me, he thought ridiculously. Am I being drugged? Perhaps his PA, in revenge for being fired… or the COO, climbing his way up the greasy pole. Or even his polite, quiet driver, secretly harbouring a grudge after all these years…

Mind blurring with mad thought, Chad elbowed his way past a couple of junior Directors lurking in the corridor, then broke into a run. Even in his constricting suit, he could outmanoeuvre the rest of the Board easily. They were all unhealthy and slow, corporate types, holding him back on the path to greatness. The hunger for more tasted like metal on his tongue. He should leave them all behind, he thought, throw off the CEO shackles and start something new, in another country perhaps, one with less restrictive tax laws.

As he ran down the corridor, he felt the world grow larger around him. He wanted to make it to the end of the corridor, and with a surge of energy, he burst forwards, feeling the heavy lumbering footsteps of his pursuer through the floor.

‘You naughty boy, come back here.’

Chad kept running. The corridor seemed to go on forever, his feet a blur beneath his body. He didn’t know why he kept going, only that he couldn’t stop.

‘What’s wrong with you this morning?’

‘If only I knew,’ Chad wanted to scream, but he only had breath for running. His body had never felt so alive, even after cold laser treatment. Every sense sparked, a rush of smells and sounds that crackled through the air, a dazzling network stretching across the universe. With a sudden rush, the door rose above him, impossibly high.

Chad didn’t stop running. He made a running jump, his body smashing against the hard wooden surface. He tried again, scrambling for purchase, desperately trying to reach the handle – but it only winked far above him.

He collapsed in a heap, moaning.

‘Chad…’

A soft voice, next to him. There, crouched down, holding a large cardboard box with, of all things, a potted spider plant in it, was his former PA. The overhead lighting softened her angular face, granting her an angelic halo.

‘Chad… why are you trying to get into the cleaning cupboard?’

Chad looked blearily at the locked door in front of him. It was a completely normal size.

‘I… I don’t know.’

He looked down at his perfectly manicured, unlined hands. He’d spent a lot of money on these hands, this skin, and yet it looked so wrong, unnatural almost.

He looked back at Emma. He wanted to say he was sorry for firing her. That he hadn’t meant any of it.

That all he’d wanted was to be a good boy.

Her voice faded away. Large hands held Chad’s body. For the first time in long time, he felt… safe.

Something ran through his hair. It was hard and hurt a little and he let out a little noise. But then it began to feel soothing. Like having a head massage.

Chad began to wriggle but the giant woman held him firm. With one hand, she yanked the comb through his hair so hard his eyes watered, and with the other, she snapped the bow on top like the clapping of irons.

It felt so awfully feminine… though for the life of him, he couldn’t think of why that mattered.

The woman picked Chad up, and held him to the mirror on the wall.

Gone was the masculine jaw line with its defined stubble, the arched brows, the leonine face. Gone the squarish dark brown eyes, the thin lips, the white teeth and short, well-trimmed hair. Gone the expensive Italian cotton shirt, with the muscular torso beneath it. Gone the trousers ironed so crisp you could cut your finger on them, the brown brogues.

All vanished. As if they had never existed.

In its place dangled a white candyfloss puff. Tiny piggish black eyes stared back from underneath long white locks. A black round nose, flat, white paws, and a throat constrained by a sparkling, diamante collar. And, crowning it all, so pink you could almost smell it, was a giant ribbon, done up in the cutest bow.

The tiny Maltese dog shut his eyes and opened them.

He could feel his mother holding him, her familiar smell wafting from her oversized body. He wriggled a little, and was placed once again on his mother’s lap.

He made a little yapping noise, listening to Mother’s coos. She had a strange way of talking, but the animal could feel the attachment in her voice, and loved her, despite her size, and her strange, hairless face.

He felt a soothing hand on its back and shut his eyes, falling into yet another one of his strange dreams. He dreamed he sat on a cold, black chair, and that he had no hair except on his head. That creatures that looked like mother, but didn’t smell like her gathered around him, making demands in their odd, booming voices. That they wanted to know about returns and meetings and share prices, concepts he had no understanding of. But when he opened his mouth, he spoke back the same nonsense in return.

He woke with a start, making a whining noise of horror, and Mother held him close again. ‘Oh, my precious baby,’ she cooed. ‘My sweet angel. My handsome prince.’

Mr Chuffleton relaxed, and allowed the nightmare of being Chad Tanner to fade and completely disappear, forever.

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