Nobody remembers exactly when the Distension began.

Some say it happened gradually. Others insist it happened overnight.

There are stories that people began to change when they lied too much. Others say it was caused by vanity, greed, guilt, innocence, curiosity, or simply having too much of something inside them.

Whatever the cause, the people began to swell.

Faces widened. Cheeks expanded. Noses twisted. Mouths stretched. Features folded into one another until the people no longer looked quite like the people they had once been.

Strangely, nobody seemed particularly concerned.

They continued with their lives.

They argued. They lied. They judged one another. They fell in love. They cheated. They watched. They pretended.

Eventually, they gave themselves names.

There was The Innocent, who claimed never to have done anything wrong.

There was The Witness, who had seen everything but remembered nothing.

There was The Liar, who insisted that he had never told a lie in his life.

There was The Writer, who insisted he was only recording what he saw, even though none of it had ever happened.

There was The Poet, whose verses grew longer each year until they wrapped around him like vines he could no longer escape.

There was The Collector, who gathered secrets the way others gathered coins, stuffing them into himself until his shape betrayed every one.

There was The Penitent, who apologized for things no one remembered, and for things that had never occurred, and for things he was certain he would do someday.

There was The Judge, who passed verdicts on strangers, friends, and reflections, yet claimed he had no authority over his own life.

There was The Mirror, who reflected everyone perfectly except himself.

There was The Pretender, who wore so many faces that his own had stretched thin from the strain of holding them all.

There was The Listener, who heard every whisper but understood none of them, and whose ears had grown wide from the effort.

There was The Keeper, who stored memories in jars, though the jars were empty and the memories were not his.

There was The Proud One, whose chest swelled so enormously with self‑regard that he could no longer see the ground beneath him.

There was The Guilty, who confessed constantly, though no one could determine whether he was remorseful or simply addicted to confession.

There was The Curious, who opened every door, even the ones that led nowhere, until his eyes bulged from seeing too much.

There was The Silent, who said nothing at all, yet whose mouth stretched wider each year from the pressure of unspoken words.

There was The Believer, who clung to ideas that contradicted themselves, and whose head had grown tall and narrow from trying to hold them upright.

There was The Doubter, who questioned everything except his own doubt.

And there were hundreds of others.

They lived against the remains of an old world whose once-brilliant surfaces had become scratched, tarnished and worn with age.

Yet somehow, they became more colourful as the world around them deteriorated.

Perhaps the colour was celebration.

Perhaps it was camouflage.

Perhaps they simply couldn’t bear to look at themselves without it.

Nobody knows.

The Distended Grotesques have never agreed on what happened to them.

And if you ask them, each will give you a different answer.