"Canned"

They say 'Be careful what you wish for'. It's a warning that the thing that you want might not be how you receive it. Much like the monkey's paw, you may have intended one thing and you may receive something so far in the opposite direction, you'd wished you had never longed for it to begin with...

    It had been years since I had seen my friend Chuck. He was probably the smartest person I knew, but he was always so consumed with his work that visits became fewer and fewer as he strived to perfect his projects.
    You see, Chuck was something of a scientist. I forget the exact scientific name he called himself, but he was interested in the idea of transporting things from point A to point B. I'd always joked that he had seen too many science fiction movies, but he was convinced that it was possible.
    He believed that it was possible to break down someone's atoms and reconstruct them elsewhere. At one point I heard he tried the experiments on some rats he found creeping around his home. I guess that's one way to get rid of pests, right?
    But he swore to me that he was close to a breakthrough and that he needed a bit more time. But that was several months ago. I'd tried talking to him since and he didn't so much as even read the messages. I didn't know whether he stopped caring to talk to me or if he was really that busy the entire time. But I tried to not let it get to me.
    And with all the time he remained distant, I thought it was strange what he had left me on my front porch. It was a twelve-pack of canned orange soda. The top of the box was simply marked "From Chuck. Be careful when opening." Almost immediately I knew this was a part of his weird experiments.
    I brought the case inside and sat it on my kitchen counter. I ripped open the box and grabbed a can. It was weirdly warm. I popped the tab on the top and peered inside. What I saw made me drop the can and stagger back in horror. It looked like it was filled with flesh of some kind. What kind of a twisted joke was this?!
    I'm not sure why but I kept opening the cans to see if they were all filled with flesh and sure enough they all were. What was wrong with him?!
    I grabbed my phone and was about to dial his number when the cans began to shake. Some of them fell over and hit the ground. Then, the flesh looking goop left the openings of the cans and started to form together in a random spot in mid-air in front of me. As more flesh came together, it started to form a familiar figure.
    As it stopped and the figure fully formed, I was looking at Chuck. A very naked Chuck. I looked away, disturbed. I heard him shuffle around and grab something from one of my cabinets. What the hell was even happening right now? My mind was still reeling around the image of the ball of flesh that spewed from the cans.
    "It's okay to look now," said a familiar voice. I turned to him. He was wearing a black trash bag from under my sink.
    I looked him up and down to make sure it was actually him and it was. But something was off. I didn't want to tell him. I didn't know how. His body looked deformed. He still looked like himself, don't get me wrong. But it was like his arms were both different lengths. His legs different thicknesses. Even his face was deformed as a part of it was shifted higher on his head than it should have been.
    I didn't know how to tell him so I shone a shy smile. I hoped he was able to reverse engineer what he had just done, whatever that may be...