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Part 1 of a multi-parter. Dreamscape 1 By Diana Kimberly Heche No, this isn't right! None of this is. I stopped in mid bite, then chewed the pancakes more slowly, straining my senses to search for the qualities that I loved in them so well. Nothing. It was not that they were bland in the traditional sense, they were completely devoid of taste altogether. Impossible. I picked up the glass of orange juice and brought the pulpy liquid to my nose, inhaling vigorously for a smell. Also nothing. I examined the glass in my hand. I noted it sweated with condensation yet, it did not feel wet nor was it cold to the touch. In fact I felt no temperature at all! With growing alarm I sipped from the glass, it was utterly without taste. There was not even the elusive, yet tangible, neutral flavor associated with water. What was going on here? A diffused white light poured in from the kitchen window, too bright and unfocused to come from a single source like the sun. The light emanated all at once from the entirety of the sky. With a growing consciousness that all of this was unreal, I stood up and looked around the small bright room. It was a chaotic hybrid of kitchens, which existed, throughout my life. On an old Sears refrigerator, out of commission since I was fifteen held twenty year old drawings of my childhood that were flung crazily together with last week's scribblings given to me by my nephew. A long discarded microwave from college sat next to stainless steels pots from an old girlfriend's home. I was uncertain how long I had been existing in what was surely a dreamscape, but a renewed sense of time made me suspect it had been a long while. At the same time, a creeping awareness filled my mind making me realize that I had spent the entirety of my time here unwilling to leave the kitchen. Why? I walked through the kitchen door into the living room cautiously. Centered in this massive room, perfectly frozen in its last moment of explosive violence, were the twisted remains of my roadster. Two bodies, un-harnessed at the time of impact, were flung far from the car's demise, speaking to both the speed and severity of the accident. The first body that was thrown into the treetops, was a woman I recognized vaguely, but was unable to call fully to memory. The second body that was twisted in a comically grim contortionist's pose was clearly mine. It wasn't simple curiosity which made me approach the accident - quite the opposite, I was too horrified to look a moment more - yet I was compelled to edge toward the wreck as if by force. I moved to the corpse that was mine, squatting before it, examining closely. It as devoid of being as the so-called food in the kitchen was of taste. My body was broken, lifeless and cold on a level transcending temperature. I looked up at the woman's body in the tree. It was warped in the tragic pose of death, but unlike mine, which was dashed to the ground, only the small gash on her head indicated why her life had drained away. "Touch her." I was startled at the sound of own voice for I was certain I neither thought nor had spoken those words. I glanced down quickly at my accident mauled self, face shoved angrily into the ground. No, it was not he. Somehow it was I. Looking around, reminiscent of a boy stealing cookies from an elevated cookie jar, I stood on the hood of the smashed vehicle, raising my hand toward the woman wedged in the branches. Where my accident thrashed body was cold and harshly empty, hers had a warmth still glowing from it. Straining myself onto the tiptoes to reach her dangling fingers, I made contact. Part 1: Awakening They stood above me in green uniforms of a designation I did not recognize, perhaps Metro Transit, perhaps some other transportation related field. Whoever they were, they were incongruous to my surroundings, which I knew immediately to be a hospital room. I was not fully connected to my senses - my thoughts slogged through the murky like swamp of a brain emerging from a deep sleep - but I suspected I was coming out of a coma or long concussion of some kind. Beside me, tubes housed by a massive machine that pumped fluids in and out of my body. My limbs were weak and ached with disuse. At least, I could surmise from the pain, I was not paralyzed. But I knew little else. The green clad men's voices came languidly into focus as though my ears were draining fluid from days underwater. The taller of the two, a dusty haired twenty-something with a nametag, which read "Arnie", read aloud from a book while the other, not listening, busied himself with a magazine. I tried to speak, ask where the hell I was, but only a whisper-like croak emerged from my dry throat. Upon hearing my voice, "Arnie" dropped his book and whipped his head in my direction. In a whirlwind of excitable motion and energy, he snapped his fingers and yelled wildly for the second man to track down a nurse. He rushed to my bed, his face completely wet with tears as he wept openly. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he held me in his arms, rocking me back and forth, repeating over and over, "It's a miracle." It was indeed a miracle! But not in a way I think either of us was ready to comprehend. For as he pulled me into his arms, I felt the sensation of a breast, my breast, pressing against his chest even as I looked down to see a body that was decidedly female. My scream came out as a low-pitched moan. I tried to push him away from me with all of the force my mind engulfing terror felt, but I was too weak. I could only lift my arms toward him limply, before allowing them to flop back to the bed. In a few short minutes, the hospital room was filled with doctors pouring over my equipment. The curtain around my bed was pulled, two nurses massaged my body vigorously, undoubtedly to bring blood flow into the limbs. I watched the nurses rub life into limbs that could not possibly be mine. I fought back an overwhelming urge to throw up. "How do you feel?" Three doctors stood above my bed. The speaker was a well-groomed silver haired gentleman. He was classically handsome, as if pulled from Hollywood's central casting, carrying his profession in his bearing. Judging from the way the other doctors deferred to him with their body language, he was the head of my case, if not hospital. I held my hand to my throat and croaked as though I couldn't speak, which was probably still true. I was not ready for him or his questions. I was absolutely panicked! The impossibility of my situation had jammed my mind. I didn't trust myself to do or say a single thing. My entire body pulsed with amplified anxiety, all I could think was that I needed to flee from here until sanity returned to me or the world around me. I shook uncontrollably. I wanted desperately to be alone to think this through, to make sense of my circumstances. But, I was having a hard time even focusing on a single thought. Any momentary clarity of my thought that resumed, they were quickly destroyed by the electric shock of disbelief. The doctors attributed my current, obviously tumultuous, emotions to shock. I had awakened in an unknown place, uncertain as to how I got here, and this level of disquiet was extreme, but natural. The lead doctor sat on my bed, very calmly explaining the situation, "You have been in a car accident. Do you remember the accident? Nod if you do." I nodded. Bits and pieces of the accident swirled in my head, but I was unable to put them firmly in place. I remember having a couple of drinks with Lucy Maya to celebrate her new job. I vaguely recall driving down Canero Road, a little fast but far from racing. I can remember the back wheels of my roadster losing contact with the pavement making the roadster go into a spin. I saw a flash of something ... a bus, maybe ... before I found myself here. "Good, that's a good sign. Physically you are okay, but you took a nasty knock on the head and have been in a coma for six days. There appears to be no brain damage from the tests we've run so far, although we will have to do tests over the next several days. Nod if you understand." I nodded again. His face changed making a dramatic pause in his speaking of one who was used to delivering bad news, but no longer cared about its content, "I am sorry to have to tell you that the driver of the car was not as lucky. He was not wearing seat belts either and was killed upon impact. I promise you he didn't suffer." He rose. "I am going to leave a nurse here right next to your bed. She will get you anything you want. However, she is also going to keep you from sleeping for at least 16 hours. Until we understand a little better why your circuits went dark, we think that's best." He smiled what, I was certain he considered his doctor-patient-winning smile, but to me it rang hollow, "You're a lucky young lady, Lucy." At the name Lucy, panic overtook me again. All I could do was thinking about racing out of here. *** Over the next few days, my panic eased in moments, but it never fully left me. During moments of quiet, or while I slept, I would be jolted by a bolt of fear and confusion. This would be followed by hours holding myself, crying, rocking back and forth trying to make sense of that which I could not. My mind was unable to make a fundamental shift to accept everything I knew to be real, was not. Because of it, I often questioned my very sanity. Being in this woman's body, feeling her shell wrapped around my being was just too overwhelming. Frequently I was consumed with the idea that I had somehow perverted the laws of the universe. Any moment I would be greatly punished for it. I thought much about the accident. I thought much about heaven and hell. During these moments, I wavered madly between grasping organized religion and rejecting it utterly as a cruel joke. In other dark moments, knowing I was supposed to be dead, I fought the urge to kill myself. Somehow I felt that may set the cosmic balance right. Then there was the engulfing grief. I grieved for the loss of my life. Craig Morton, the person I had spent my life to become, would never breathe another breath. He was a twisted corpse, probably days under the ground by now. I had lost both my parents in a boating accident some years ago, their funerals had been extremely hard on me, the loss - the outliving - of someone that close always is. No one could possibly have prepared me as to how hard it is to outlive yourself. How could they? The feeling of loss and grief is incredible. I was filled with the sense of incompleteness, regret and helplessness. All of those people I wish I told I loved, all of those things I wish I had done with my life; all the places I'd never gone, all the things left to do, never to be fulfilled. Over those few days in the hospital, I was presented with overwhelming evidence; I had come, with great trouble, to believing that I was in fact Lucy. Or somehow looked like her. The fact that it was Lucy whose body I now occupied made my situation a hair less stressful. I knew her fairly well and, at the very least, would not be hurtled completely into the unknown. She lived alone, had no boyfriend that I knew of, and was starting a new job that I could do in my sleep. If forced to, god forbid, I could navigate the basics of her life using the excuse of the coma to mask inevitable confusion. And there would be confusion. I may know where she lived and worked, for instance, but would not know her mother if she sat next to me on the bus. I also spent a great deal of the hospital hours working with physical therapists. I discovered walking again would not be so easy. It had been six days, my legs had been messaged continuously, so it was expected they would quickly recover. But for me, it was far beyond that. My brain constantly demanded strides for my former male body, which my far shorter female legs were uncomfortable with. My center of gravity and balance were all wrong. My first trials I wobbled about like a newborn before even getting the basics down. Other simple functions created problems as well. I went to grab things to realize I didn't have the same reach as I had before. I would accidentally jab one of my, surprisingly sensitive, breasts. I had to learn to urinate properly, figuring out, when needed how to hold in my pee. I was forced to adjust for the diminished strength of my female form, even figuring out how to keep the hair out of my face. Everything I had taken for granted was all slightly off. On the third day, I gathered my mental strength dropping my robe in front of the mirror. The stranger that was looking back at me, moving as I moved. She was an attractive woman, well formed and in shape. I had noted that about Lucy even before I found myself wearing her skin. Her legs were lean and athletic. I reached up taking the time to feel her/my breasts. Smiling, I realize her perfect c cups were implants - the first amusing thought that I had in days. Once, years ago, I thought about what I would do if I could be a woman for a day. It was a largely masturbatory fantasy about teasing men, dressing as sexy as I wished all women did. But standing here now, still breathing in anxious gasps from the sheer impossibility of it all, I didn't feel that way at all. I just felt disoriented... I felt cursed. The panic began to rise in me again. I took a deep breath to calm myself. I needed to hold myself together until I figured out what to do. Whatever that would be. *** After the accident they had cut my clothes from my body looking for external wounds. Upon leaving the hospital, I was provided with jeans, a bra and t-shirt in my size. The heels I had worn at the accident were still good, but I chose to wear the hospital slippers. I was quite certain I would not be able to navigate in pumps while still learning the ins and outs of just walking. I was given a purse - I quickly examined its contents, then tucked under my arm like football. I was not comfortable carrying something with that much money on straps hanging loosely from my body. I took a cab to Lucy's home, I had no car available and the hospital wouldn't have allowed me to drive in any case. Standing outside of the hospital, I considered heading back to my old place, but realized that was probably not possible. Not only did I not have a key, but also much of what I owned was surely boxed up and on its way to my brother's. I arrived at the front door of Lucy's apartment, fumbling to find the keys in the purse. In the hallway beside the door, was a large bouquet of flowers. The card read simply, "Let me know if there was anything I can do. Take care, Arnie." It took me a moment, but my mind went back to the first moments out of the coma. The two men, who had been in my hospital room that day I awoke, and a portion of each day I was in my coma, were Arnie and Brandon. I was correct about the green uniforms. They were transit workers. Arnie had been driving the bus, which struck us when we spun into his lane. He had been cleared quickly of the blame, but was understandably traumatized by the incident. Learning I had no one else, he and his friend Brandon came down to read to me every day in the hopes it would "pull" me back from the other side. Arnie, as I learned later, was quite a spiritual man. Even though this was "my" apartment, I swung the door open cautiously. It smelled of food gone bad. "Hello, hello!" I yelled into the empty confines. I looked around the apartment, vaguely familiar of it from my handful of visits. It was my intent to search this place inside and out looking to see if it held a clue as to how I could still be alive. How could I be alive in Lucy's body? I suspected she knew as little as I did, but I was far beyond the point of taking anything for granted. How could I? An entire myriad of things I once considered to be nonsense, may hold the key to my change. I walked around the apartment taking heed of my surroundings. The place was decorated in earthy tones, which accented the various South American and African artifacts placed carefully. From the lack of dust, everything was carefully taken care of. My mind immediately leapt to thoughts of Voodoo and other dark rituals, before halting and remembering Lucy was a fairly strict Catholic. She collected these because she was an art major in college and was particularly fond of native carvings. I went through her closets and drawers. I noted she was a conservative dresser during the daylight hours, her work wardrobe were stylish suits and blouses, hip without going over the top, conservative without being dowdy. Lucy's nighttime and weekend wear was far more adventurous even playful. She was fond of platform high heels, hip hugger pants, thongs and fairly skimpy skirts. There were two size bras in the drawer as well, double-A and the current c-cup which lead me to guess that her cosmetic surgery took place shortly before I came into the picture seven months ago. Her nightstand drawer was full with condom and toys, which told me she had an active sexual life. The drawer also revealed a strap-on dildo with a well worn harness, she was not adverse to the kinky. A two-hour search of the apartment left me with far more clues to who Lucy was, but not a single clue as to why I was occupying her body. If she had a darker secret than she occasionally strapped on a dildo, I couldn't find it. I sighed aloud. I had expected to uncover doorways to the supernatural or maybe a pentagram painted under her bed. Anything to make sense of this madness. All I found was a neat apartment which perhaps needed a few windows opened, its ice box cleaned of rotting vegetables, a girl who appeared to be completely normal with a dollop here and there of kink. Weary from days of unending stress I sat down on the couch, after giving up after a futile search for the television remote, fell asleep. *** The mist lifted from my eyes. I felt strangely not as one feels first entering sleep, but as though I had been flying. I found myself in the huge living room of the dreamscape I had been on before emerging from my coma. I was lying on the grass, a couch from my old apartment sat beside me to the left; the car wreckage from the first dream was beside me on the right. Overhead a single bird circled. I felt oddly hopeful this place would hold the secret to this body switching madness. Sitting across from me in the grass was Lucy. I quickly held up my hand in front of my face, hoping for a moment that it would be the hand of Craig that we had switched bodies back somehow. It was not to be. Two Lucy's now sat on the grass facing each other. Her voice was strangely detached, emotionless, in direct contrast to the circumstances at hand, "You wear it well," she said indicating my essence in her form, "you are a great deal thinner than I remember me however. But again, I have never had this vantage angle." I coughed, "You were in a coma ... six days, the liquid diet..." She waved her hand in a bored gesture, "I realize that. I realize a great many things," She leaned forward bringing those weary haunted eyes to bear, "Now ask your questions before an alarm or doorbell takes you from your sleep." As instructed, I cut to the chase, "I am sleeping aren't I? But it's more than that, isn't it? What is this place? A dream? The afterlife? Why am in your body?" She looked at me with that same detached look although I thought I detected a bit of sadness. "When we were in the accident, you were killed and I was in a coma. Our destinations were different, but we were traveling together. You were headed toward that place commonly described as 'the light'. I was to exist on a dreamscape, a world of my dreams on the cusp of death and life. Like most that end up in a coma, this was to be my place of respite until I died, ejected into the world of death, or recovered, and returned to my body. "There are many here who refuse to move into the light or get lost along the way and occupy these plains of nothingness. A group of those spirits roaming the after life caught me on my journey and held, for lack of a better world, my soul captive. You have to understand the glow of life among the dead stands out here like a fire on an arctic plain, it is warm, alive and reminds them of what they left behind. They covet the feeling of being near it. "It was your proximity to me in traveling the after life that allowed you to escape death. The Universe demands balance. My body was destined to come out of the coma, coming back to life, the balance of the Universe was not going to allow a body to come back to life without a soul. So while I was held captive for the amusement of those who wander the nothingness of the dead, you were sucked into my dreamworld, the one that was supposed to hold me. When I was ready to come out of my coma, you were attracted to my life force and that is why you were compelled to touch me - my body needed a soul." "So what is to become of you? Why are you here?" "I am here, because it - this dreamscape - was created for me, even though as you can see, it has been largely altered to suit you. But it's mine. Once those out there on the plains of the dead grew bored with me releasing me, I came here, but it was too late. You were gone, the chance to enter life through my body was gone. Now that you have occupied my body, I have no chance to come back to life. But instead of going back out there into the chaos of the hordes that refuse to except death, I chose to remain here." "I'm sorry, I didn't..." She held up and hand. "Don't apologize. Time moves differently here, I have been here a long, long time. What are mere days for you have been eternities for me. I have long since dropped the bitterness I have toward you. I am so far removed from my emotions of life, I can barely remember how such emotions feel." Her gaze steeled, as she looked me in the eye, "Listen to me. It may be traumatic waking up as another person. I understand that. But what you have to do for me is forgo any thoughts you may have of death or suicide. Yes, I know, I can feel your emotions in here. Further, you must forge onward in my life. I was to have a purpose, which is why the balance of the Universe chose for me not to die in the first place. You are going to have to fulfill that purpose, whatever it may be." She reached out and grabbed my hand in hers. "Promise me." I was uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable with the fact that I was talking to the dead. I was uncomfortable with the idea she was asking me to live out her life. I was uncomfortable not knowing fully if this were a dream or not. But I did it, I promised her. "It will not be easy. I will be here in your dream world to help guide you, but nothing I tell you will remain with you on a conscious level. It will be just like you don't remember being here prior to the coma, you won't remember being here now. You will have to guide yourself largely through your feelings and intuition." And with that, my eyes snapped open *** I woke up in this strange apartment in this strange body, for the first time since the madness began, while not calm per se, I did not feel the lung crushing block of panic seated on my chest. Perhaps a little sleep was all I needed to calm my nerves. After all, wrong body or not, I had cheated death. How many could say that? I may not be able to finish the things that Craig Morton, now dead, had started, but I may be able to carve out a decent life for myself right here. I paused for a moment puzzling over my sudden change of temperament. I do not come upon emotions lightly, especially something of this magnitude. Everything seemed to change floating away from a couple hours of napping. I pushed those thoughts from my head. Dwelling on this would trash my tenuous mental stability again. I finally felt like I had something resembling a grip on my mental state. Walking about the apartment, picking up things, examining them and putting them back down carefully - as though the actual owner were not myself and would be upset to find them moved - I came to a decision. To live at all in this world, I would have to go seek out what was left of my Old World... Craig Morton's world ... and accept the death, clean up what I could and get some closure. I would start by paying a visit to my brother. *** It took a full twenty minutes for me to find Lucy's car in the parking lot. The symbol on her keys identified it as a Toyota, but that was all I knew. Once I arrived in the parking garage structure of her massive apartment complex, I was presented with scores of Toyotas. If any security had been present, I surely wouldn't have gotten away with trying my key in no less that fifteen cars before finding the right one. *** My brother lived in the Valley, in a house that was considered large in the hyper- inflated housing market of Los Angeles. It was typical Spanish style, having a well kept lawn and garden, albeit very small. He lived here alone with the exception of the occasional girlfriend who set up camp for a few weeks before his patience grew thin. He had been married, had a son and was divorced by the time he reached the tender age of twenty-four. Now that my brother was thirty-five, he had sworn off steady relationships altogether. Because he was born so many years before me (he was ten years older) we were never really close in the traditional manner. At least, until my parents had died. I was twenty at the time I wasn't sure how I was going to get through it. He stepped to become both part older brother part father, but I should have expected that from him. His fatherly skills showed in his care for his son, who, despite the 20 miles between them, was a constant fixture in his life. Alex, my brother, was not surprised to see another stranger in his doorway. This was unfortunately not a new drill for him. As the oldest when my parents died, and now as the sole surviving member of our family, he knew all about receiving visitors as well as getting phone calls of condolence. He looked greatly fatigued, his normally straight shoulders drooped with an unseen weight. Upon seeing me, we stood awkwardly in the doorway. I fought back tears of joy at seeing him wanting a familiarity and a brotherly hug that would not be acceptable from this person he in no way knew. He took my hesitancy to be no different than that he had been facing all week. By that being from people who want desperately to express the right sentiment, but not knowing how to do so. He quickly glanced at my clothing, I felt a touch of embarrassment. For a visit of this kind, I was very casually dressed, too casually; slacks, flat open toe sandals, and a T-shirt. I was wearing no make up. Lucy's more formal clothes, with the skirts, heels and hosiery, was just a little more than I could deal with mentally or logistically right now. I shook his hand, "I'm Lucy Maya." His expression changed. My casualness was forgiven in his eyes as he realized I was the woman who was in the accident with Craig and had spent the last week in a coma. "Come in, please," he bid. I walked in and sat down where I usually did. I looked around his apartment for signs of his son. It was quiet and he didn't appear to be around. "Is Alex junior around?" He was taken aback for a moment. "No, no he's not. Can I get you something to drink?" Alex asked politely. "If you still have one of those home made beers, I could sure use one." He stopped, looking at me again for a puzzled moment. I quickly realized I was making mistakes of familiarity. I admonished myself, forcing my mind to remember that Lucy has never been here, doesn't know his son, and he was longer my brother. After a moment his face cleared. A wry smile crossed his lips, "So Craig mentioned my home brew? He always was a big fan," and he walked into the kitchen. He returned with the beer, having one himself. We talked for a while, a great deal of the conversation was, of course, about my former self Craig. Alex was full of questions on what Craig's last day was like. He seemed to be very interested in Craig's state of mind. It seemed very important to him that Craig went out feeling good about life. After a time he paused. He had been making polite conversation for awhile now, but he seemed visibly uncomfortable. I was beginning to wonder if coming here was a mistake. "I know this may be a bit too personal," he began as he took a deep breath, "but how close were you and my brother? I know you said 'decent friends' and you didn't really spend a great deal of time together but..." He paused again, realizing he was treading in personal territory, "you have taken on a lot of my brother's mannerisms and speech. I mean... A LOT. It's a bit freaky. I know very few people in this world, who calls beers 'brewsters' for instance, twist their watch in circles around their wrist, or rub the spot behind their ears. And I know of no one who does all that other than Craig." I sat back, wondering what to do next. A part of me screamed to confess to the madness, the warping of the laws of the universe that placed me in Lucy Maya's body sitting across from him. But a part of me knew that no amount of explanation or evidence to the contrary was going to bring him around. It took me days of living it before I could come to terms with the reality of my new life. I couldn't imagine how simple words could do the same. No, anything I told him about the truth would be simply a sick joke. But maybe there was a way. I sat up, rolling my shoulders to take the stress away from my neck, a very particular Craig Morton habit. Alex's eyes narrowed keenly at the act. "Actually, there is a lot I know about Craig. More than you would believe, to tell you the truth..." I continued in a rapid fire manner, "When he was six, you used to lock him in the closet to toughen him up, the closet smelled like a leather football. He had a crush on your first girlfriend Candice. At his first baseball game, you let him sneak a sip of your beer. You forged his absent notes when he skipped school. Your son calls him 'Unc'; he used to draw pictures for him that he kept on his fridge. The last picture he drew was of a Pokemon. You let Craig borrow sixty bucks when he forgot his wallet at dinner three weeks ago. He paid you back the day before he died. The first time he ever saw you cry was when your parents died. Your parents never did find out that in junior high you used to sit on the roof and smoked. After the divorce, you considered moving out East - " Alex leapt off of the couch, standing half bent over like he had been punched. He held one hand up to indicate for me to stop talking. He placed his fingers on his forehead as if fighting off a headache. He slowly stood up, turning toward me. Wordlessly he examined me for sometime. The wheels of his mind spun visibly. Slowly he began to speak, "The name of our hamster, which died after only two days?" "Sparks." "My favorite band right before I left home for college?" "Tough call. It's a Toss up between The Clash and Springsteen. Although, I'd give the edge to Springsteen because of the posters on your wall. Oh, wait! The fan club card you carried in your wallet; definitely Springsteen!" I shouted this, proud of my ability of recall, but realizing instantly how weird it was for it to come out of a stranger that way. "How about Craig, then? What about the middle of his senior year in high school? Why did he call me to pick him up from school after he ran off campus without telling his teachers?" "Well, his mom made him go to school, because it was a test day ...geography and trig actually ... and even though he was sick, she thought he was faking. It turned out he wasn't, he ended up throwing up on himself outside in the bushes between classes. Before anyone could see him, especially Jen Cantor the girl he was over the moon for, he ran off campus, calling you to save him from having to go back in the building..." He walked over to me and knelt beside me, grabbing both my shoulders with his hands. With his face a few inches from mine, he looked into my eyes searchingly for a long while. I didn't move or say a thing. I didn't dare to. He stood back up, walked around the room silently, shaking his head, muttering to himself. He looked back at me, "This is going to sound crazy. However, I think your subconscious Lucy, for some reason -maybe guilt over his dying in the accident - has taken on much of my brother's personality. I mean you are acting, moving and talking just like him." Again, I sat still and said nothing. It was so much more of a plausible explanation than the truth, that for a moment I wondered if I could be completely insane and only believed that I had once been Craig. But the reality of my situation could not be pushed aside so easily and I dismissed it quickly. He was in deep thought and continued to sort his ideas slowly and aloud, "But all the memories ... I guess he could have told you..." He turned to me again, "but why would he tell you something as ugly as throwing up on himself in high school...?" "Because he was definitely leaving out the part where he had diarrhea, burying his underwear in the woods before you picked him up. Because no man tells a woman he crapped and threw up on himself when he was eighteen. Especially to a girl, like me, whom just a few weeks ago told you he was going to try to 'transition from a friend to a little more' and asked your advice on how to do it. Of course you said, 'I'm over relationships. You're barking up the wrong advice tree'." "Craig?" He was pale. His face was a mixture of questioning shock as he waited for my answer. I could palpably feel him preparing his mind to reject all that he once understood to be the rules of reality. With a deep breath of teary relief I said simply, "Yes." He dashed to me and bear hugged me. He too was teary. Over and over he said, "Somehow I knew it. Somehow I knew it." *** His mind was apparently far more flexible and understanding than mine. But, there was a big difference in accepting that your brother had somehow come back in the body of a woman, than actually being the one to find yourself as that woman. As a youngster Alex was a voracious reader of science fiction, as an adult left behind the well worn path of our Presbyterian upbringing to reach out examining alternate spirituality and religions. While the reality of my situation was mind boggling, to say the least, he was better prepared for it than most. Even after having accepted that I was Craig Morton in Lucy Maya's body, doubt would cloud his mind. He would ask further questions testing me, before apologizing, restoring his faith. "It's quite alright," I told him after one slide backward into disbelief, "I would be more frightened if you took this at face value without ever doubting yourself." "I know you said you don't know, but I have to ask again. Don't you have any clue what made this happen? Any clue at all?" He had asked the same question in several different ways over the past half an hour. "Not sure really. I figure it had something to do with her going into a coma at the same time I died. Maybe she was supposed to die and I wasn't. Who knows? I am also coming to believe it has something to do with my dreams. I can't remember them any more - I used to remember them all the time - but when I wake up, I feel like something important has gone down. It's hard to explain. The other day I was panicked beyond belief that this body switch was a trick of ... I'm not even sure ... some cosmic jokester or Satan or something. Then after taking this super deep sleep nap, I felt better about the whole thing. Like answers had been given to me, even though I can't remember them." Alex considered this for sometime before speaking again. "Can you feel her, like inside you anywhere?" "No, not really. Unless she is lurking about in those dreams I can't remember." He got up to grab another beer. After only a few beers, I could really feel the effects. I made a mental note that Lucy's body had neither the weight nor tolerance for me to drink much without going over the limit. Isn't drinking bad for women anyway? "So, what are you going to do? I mean you can't step right back in as Craig. You're not Craig. And what about Lucy's whole other life?" "Well, as I said before, I'm not going to tell anyone else. They'll just think I'm nuts. And even if they don't, I fear that something bad would happen to me by some zealot. My very existence could bring the concepts of heaven and hell, maybe even organized religion, into doubt. No thanks." Alex nodded as if to say "makes sense". "What I am going to do is throw my life at being this chick. Maybe not as she was, but the best I can do. As fucked as it is for Lucy, it is a second chance at life for me. I have to take it." Pausing a moment longer, I said, "It's more than that. I feel, somehow, that I owe it to Lucy ... somehow she wants me to ... carry on, to complete her life. I think there's something left undone that I am supposed to do." [To be continued]