The light of the early morning sun dissolved through the fog as it drifted aimlessly over a highway in Wyoming, undulating maternally despite the brutal way in which the gray asphalt sliced through the pink and olive hills as if a sharp knife dissecting fresh grapefruit.

The putrid smoke of exhaust faded into the deepening mist of the cool autumn air as a Dodge pickup truck puttered down the highway. The mist had settled in around September, and even several months later had not gone back to its rightful place Elsewhere. At each valley the eyesore of a vehicle would be swallowed whole, only to emerge at the crest of the hill to assault the eyes of passers by once again.

The man driving the truck seemed preoccupied with manipulating his way through the fog—his look so intense he might have parted the mist with the sheer will of his mind. In that one moment of severe concentration he could have easily come across to a casual observer as a discriminating and intelligent individual—had it not been for the little braids he had knit into his deliberately untamed mountain-man beard.

Despite the fashion faux pas of his facial hair, John Highton was a comely man. During shave-free months he was often told that he looked like a man in his late thirties. He was in fact only twenty-eight and had all the personal fascinations of a twenty-nine year old going on seventeen. Among his interests were Highlander movies and the art of crochet, two hobbies that, oddly enough, found uncanny moments of harmony. When the extremity and girlishness of these two interests were brought to his attention, he merely replied that he could, with the right needles and colors of thread, whip up one hell of a kilt.

It was in fact another interest related to his obsession with Highlander movies that had drawn the concentration across his face. He was thinking about how he would later that day face his least favorite human being in a match of swordplay at the Evanton annual Celtic festival.

A sudden explosive chuckle broke his deliberate silence and expression. "You just wait. Just wait, Billy McGee." He mumbled the man's name with a relish, and scratched his beard for theatrical emphasis.

It wasn't as if he really hated Billy or anything—­he found him more a nuisance than an enemy. He had grown up with Billy from first grade onward, and they had developed a sort of rivalry that got started right around when Billy began to spread word of John's first tatting project all over town their third grade year. Of course, John had in response seen fit to let everyone know that Billy liked to pick his nose and flick his boogers in private, most often at sundry windows many a child had pressed their faces against at school. Perhaps it was a combination of these things that had put the two boys out of sorts with one another.

Word spread quickly; Evanton wasn't a big town by the least, and if you weren't careful you might step over the sharp edge of the pinhead where the city limits sign teetered. John had just barely avoided going over the edge himself, many more times than was normal from someone in the rural town. Who knew what lay on the outskirts of healthy Mid-Western sanity and its dutiful American ethics, not to mention its hearty chicken pot pies?

Oh yeah, thought John. I could wrap my lips around one of ma's chicken pot pies right about now.

Like most folks in the Mid West, John's mother's dedication to old-fashioned American principles was about as thick as the thread that held the hem of her thirty-two year old periwinkle mumu in check. A woman of fifty-five, she refused to let her son leave home lest she make the mindful decision of permitting menopause a full claim on her sanity. Who knew what she would do if John left home? She might start smoking cigarettes. Refuse her husband the pleasures only a man can know with his wife. Start cooking French food. He wouldn't put it past her.

And so, out of kind respect for his mother and father (not to mention a healthy respect for the bills they were all too willing to handle), John continued to live at home. It explained a lot about why he thought men in skirts were so manly, especially when they were cutting off other people's heads.

It was a lot for someone of such simple means to think about while on the way to a Celtic festival, but there were long stretches of nothing between every bit of something in the Mid West, and thought was the most convenient matter with which to fill it.

He was running out of things to think about when the valley where the festival was being held appeared on the horizon, thus saving him from a mind absent of reverie. He had gotten off his shift at Wal-Mart a little late and, much to his dismay, the festivities had begun without him.

As he drove into the parking lot, a group of people who were standing by the fence recognized his truck and waved to him. He waved back and smiled his best apple pie smile just before skidding into a parking place, kicking up a mound of dust that settled just as he hopped out.

John Highton was decked to the nines in Scottish garb, or as close as he could get in the middle of Wyoming. Between Wal-Mart and eBay he had miraculously pulled together a reasonable approximation of a Scot. He pulled his sword out of the cargo area and wrapped the belt and sheath around his waist as he approached his companions.

He was beaming, looking forward to the fun-filled day of fantasy—and childish revenge—that awaited him.

He approached a threesome that awaited him by the fence. An auburn-haired girl named Elaine was the first to greet him.

"Hi Johnny boy." Her thinly-veiled crush of twenty years for him tended to poke out in even the most non-descript conversation.

"Anything interesting happen yet?" John asked, hopeful for some tidbit of juicy gossip.

"No, not yet… Things'er just gettin' started." The dusk-haired boy who answered was Will. His hands sat languidly in the pockets of his very non-Celtic Wrangler jeans. The expression on his face indicated that he probably had very sketchy reasons for attending the festival, probably reasons even he was questioning at that moment. However, those reasons were not nearly as sketchy as the reasons why a boy such as himself would still inhabit a city like Evanton, Wyoming. He looked like he might sprout wings at any moment and fly somewhere further West, preferably in a city ruled by punk bands.

Vlad, long-haired and apparently more adamant than even John that "there could be only one" (apparent from the very serious armor he wore that he had won in a bid on Ebay for one thousand dollars more than it was worth) leaned on his sword and added more to the tale of goings-on that John had missed. "Ay, Lad, but Billy ha'been asking after ya." His Scottish accent was horribly butchered, which made complete sense, being that he was a butcher's son. If one knew him as well as John did, one would realize that his need to express his manliness had almost everything to do with the fact that his mother was the butcher, and his father did all the sweeping about the house. Not at all a healthy occupation for a Mid Western man.

It must also be noted that Vlad's name was not really Vlad at all, but was in fact Paul, a joke only his mother seemed to be in on, the proof of which came when she used his real name and almost always laughed soon after. Paul soon began to demand that he be called Vlad by all as an attempt to foil the unknown joke.

John looked around the grounds in an effort to find his arch enemy. Since John had twenty-twenty vision in one eye and a horrible stigmatism in the other, he closed the bad eye and shaded the good one with his hand to fight off the creeping white sun. No sooner had he spotted Billy when he started to notice something completely unhealthy and downright un-American happening on the horizon.

A herd of gazelles was approaching at break-neck speed, growing larger as they drew near. Not only were increasing in size, but they were transforming into some strange creature that, in the end, only bore the original sensuous horns and gait of its preceding state. Everyone at the festival might have thought to look over at this unusual and unwholesome sight, might even have noticed that the prairie brush on the surrounding hills was curling into odd coiled shapes and transforming into hues of burgundy and sunset orange, might have seen the sky turning maize and purple, might have gawked at the bare hint of a second moon hanging in the early morning sky…if something baffling hadn't been happening to all of them at that particular moment.

It was a sad day in the Mid West, as every wholesome value, every stoic attempt to reign in the bestial desires of a people to dream beyond their means, every noble attempt to be something sensible was instantly shattered by the villainous workings of a mysterious and far-reaching magic spell.

John was in fact one of those who had ceased to see what was happening to the surroundings. His distraction was so great that he managed to forget a bit of who he was, or how he had come to be there.

He opened his eyes and took a good look at his hands. Everything seemed intact, but something wasn't quite right.

John Highton had transformed. The fur on his fingers wasn't the hairy indication of manliness. No, it was the hair of something much more sinister. It was the hair of a three foot, two inch tall guinea pig with a strong itch to save Scotland from the Irish.

As he looked out onto the field at the sea of giant guinea pigs in clothing, a feeling washed over him that shouted it was all his fault.

Hadn't he dreamt this before? More importantly, how was he going to explain this to his mother?

And then he realized the most horrible thing of all… He didn't have any patterns for kilts for a giant guinea pig.