Microstory 2129: Eat All the Things

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Today was a fun day for me, but will make for a pretty boring post for all of you. My new company gave me both a signing bonus, and an advance. I’m not a millionaire or anything, but I have enough money in my bank account to start taking care of myself. After the pre-onboarding paperwork and meetings that I had to go through—which I can’t talk to you about—I went shopping. I bought groceries, as well as other necessary new belongings, like a nightstand to put next to my bed. I got a lot of walking done today, because I don’t have a car, and I had to make separate trips, since I didn’t want to be carrying all of the bags around. For the larger furniture, like that nightstand, and a rug for the dining area, I had to make a whole separate trip each. Fortunately, I’m in a really convenient area, so it’s not like I had to travel for miles and miles to get to these places. I have this problem when I go grocery shopping, especially if I’m starting with very little, or in this case, almost nothing. I buy everything that I feel like eating that day, but that’s too much food, so I have to choose one for my next meal, and save the rest for later. Or I don’t wait, and eat all the things. That’s how I gained so much weight even after leaving college. The way it worked in the dorm cafeteria was that I could eat all the food I wanted every time I swiped my card, and I felt like I had to take advantage of the savings by eating extra, because my parents were paying for it. I thought that this sort of behavior would stop once I moved into an apartment during my last year, but by then, I was used to binging, and couldn’t help myself. That’s never really stopped, even when I’ve been able to lose weight, which is what happened when I became immortal, but it’s coming back now, so I have to be really careful. Anyway, I’m sure you don’t wanna hear any more about my eating disorder and weight issues.

Microstory 2014: Utah

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Promontory University is a college in Utah that’s near Salt Lake City, to the north. The city is named that because it’s next to the Great Salt Lake, which is a really big body of water that has salt in it, like an ocean. It actually has more salt in it than the oceans. I don’t understand how it works, but Mrs. McKinney told me that she’s going to teach us the water cycle in a couple of months, so we’ll probably all learn more about it. Anyway, after the big trip in Europe, my papa decided to go to Promontory University. My grandma said that it was only about 2 and a half hours away from where they lived. So he was able to be out of the house, and learn how to be an adult, but he could also drive back home, and then back to his dorm in only one day if he really needed to. I don’t think he ever had to do that, though. He loved being at school. It’s where he learned the skills that he used when he got a job. That would not happen for a long time, though. After he graduated, he joined the military, but we’ll talk more about that in a few slides when I talk about Rhode Island. At Promontory University, he studied Architectural Engineering. That’s what people use to draw out buildings before other people build them. But he didn’t do much with buildings. His work had more to do with vehicles. That will come up again later too.

Microstory 1871: Soft Peddle

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I’ve never done drugs in my entire life. I drink a little, just to kind of chill out at the end of the day, but I don’t like to party, or anything. Some of my customers have asked me how I can conduct business if I’ve never used the product myself, and I don’t think it’s too crazy that I don’t partake. A lotion salesperson probably hasn’t used every single type of lotion in the store; or perfume, or whatever. And caskets, what about caskets? Not a single casket dealer has ever used one of their own models. Or rather, they haven’t used it for its intended long-term purpose. I suppose there are maybe a few freaks out there who get down like that, and that’s what draws them to the industry. The way I see it, I don’t need to know what it feels like to take a pill of certain properties. I just need to understand my clientele, and what they’re looking for. My business came out of nowhere. I had a lot of emotional problems when I was young, and my parents had the idea to just throw mind-altering drugs at everything. I took this, and I took that, and I tried cocktail after cocktail. Nothing helped until I delved deep into my issues, and focused on getting better through traditional therapeutic techniques. But then I had all these pills left over that nobody—nobody—asked me to dispose of. I guess I was simply expected to take the initiative to drop them off at my local pharmacy. Well, I didn’t, so I just kept everything with me, and when I went off to college, I didn’t bother sorting them out. I grabbed all of my medicine, and threw them in the top drawer of my desk in the dorm. Some of it I still needed, like my allergy meds, generic over-the-counter pain management, and melatonin. But it was all in there, in the back, and one day, when a neighbor asked me if I had something for his headache, a business was born.

He saw what else I had, and told me I was crazy for just sitting on them. I could make some serious money if I started peddling it to other students. It wasn’t the most insane idea. I mean, a few of those things could really help them focus on studying, and taking tests. Still, I was hesitant, so I closed the drawer, and dropped it. The other guy didn’t drop it, though. He started spreading word around, and somehow, without me even making a single sale, people were starting to call me The Pharmacist. They were in such need, and I wasn’t, so who was I to stop them? They were all adults capable of making their own decisions, and if this was what they wanted, fine. I didn’t truly understand street value at the time, so I didn’t charge them very much, but I had so much volume, so I made a huge profit, because I didn’t pay for any of it myself. As time went on, word spread farther beyond the dorm, and across campus. I was the guy to go to if you were looking for a little help, and didn’t technically have some stuffy doctor to agree to it. By the time I ran out of my supply, I was approached by a real life drug dealer who wasn’t happy I was taking business away from him. I apologized, and said I wasn’t in it for the long haul, but he wasn’t hearing it. He said I had to go talk to Fartle. I didn’t ask him where Fartle got his nickname. Or the spider tattoos. Or the gun. Fearing for my life, I agreed to start selling for him, as long as I never had to sell anything that had to be injected or snorted. He was fine with that, so that’s what I did. I didn’t call myself a drug dealer until the first time I went to jail, and the judge made me say those words, or he would double my sentence. When I got out, I found myself free of Fartle, but I still felt compelled to sell. I’m too good at it, so I’ve been doing it for ten years. I regret nothing.

Microstory 1847: First Husband

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Let me preface this by saying that I’m not a slut. I try to tell people how I met my first husband, and they get hung up on the first part of it, which sort of throws off the flow of the rest of the story. Did I have relationships prior to him? Yes. Did I have relationships after him? Yes. I would ask that you kindly hold all questions until the end. I would rather just not bring it up at all, but it’s kind of important, because you’ll otherwise wonder what I was doing in that hallway in the first place. So. I don’t remember the guy’s name. It was Brad, or Gad, or something dumb like that. He had to go to class, but he said it was cool if I slept there. I knew it wasn’t going anywhere, but I’m really bad about waking up, so I took him up on his offer, and stuck around for the next couple of hours. When I was finally ready to go, I stepped out of the door at the same time as the guy across the hall. We smiled politely—I recall it being quite obvious what I was doing there, but also how totally nonjudgmental he was about it. We kind of had this moment when we didn’t quite realize how hard it was going to be to get down the hallway at the same time. We happened to be moving at the same pace, so right there, I would say it already would have been a meet-cute. Except, like I said, I wasn’t ever going to see the other guy again, so maybe we wouldn’t have even exchanged information. We certainly had time, though, after the next development. We both froze when we saw the same thing. There was a giant snake in the middle of the hall, blocking our way. I don’t know what kind it was, but it was one of the ones that wraps itself around its victims, instead of biting them. Or maybe it bites them too. Or maybe they all bite; I don’t know. I’m just saying it was freakin’ huge. It was surely someone’s pet that got loose and got lost. So we probably weren’t in too much danger, but neither of us knew one way or the other.

The only safe way to react was to get ourselves on the other side of a door. I remember thinking days later how strange it was that there wasn’t an emergency stairwell at the end of the hallway. It just ended at someone else’s room, and I don’t think he was there at the time. Neither was the dude I had just spent the night with, and the locks were the kind that automatically pop into place when you close the door, key or no, so I couldn’t get back in. Being the gentleman that he always was, my future husband, of course, let me sit in his room. You might ask why we didn’t try to call for help, but first, yelling down the hallway seemed counterproductive, because what if that freaked the snake out? He seemed pretty chill, but again, we couldn’t know that. Secondly, this was the early eighties. Lots of dorms installed phone lines in individual dorm rooms by then, but not all of them shelled out the money for it, and my school really wanted to budget for academics. I admired that back then, and I still admire it now. We generally didn’t need phones. The payphone by the front desk was good enough for the era, because most hallways weren’t infested with snakes. We got to talking, and found out what we had in common, and what we didn’t. It was nearly an hour before we heard a commotion outside. A couple of guys were a lot less nervous about it than we were. They picked it up, and carried it up to the third floor together. Evidently, they knew who it belonged to. And us? Well, as you know, we eventually got married. He will always be my first love, and if there’s an afterlife, I honestly hope we meet again, because I know that he and my second husband would get along so great.

Microstory 1754: Under the Microscope

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I slam the microscope down against his head. He doesn’t even apologize now, but smiles at me, and tells me that she belongs to him, and he’ll never let her go. I hold it over him, waiting for him to give me a reason to set it back down carefully. I pick it up. I look around the room for anything to use as a weapon, but only find a microscope. Now that I have the upperhand, I take my opportunity to place my heel against his, and force him to the ground by the chest. He gets one more good shot in, but it seems to wear him out, at least for a moment. We struggle with each other, neither one strong enough to gain some kind of advantage. He thinks that will be the end of it, but he just sent me into fight or flight mode, and I always choose fight. Deciding that he would rather make the first move, he punches me in the stomach with both fists, knocking the wind out of me. Both of us realize that this argument is going nowhere, and that it’s about to get violent. We continue to argue. He doesn’t care. He won’t even admit that what he did was wrong. He won’t apologize for what he’s done. We begin to argue. I accuse him of sexual assault, and he doesn’t seem concerned. I approach him with obvious aggression, but he just sits there calmly, confident that all will turn out okay. I walk up to his lab, and open the door without asking, glad that it’s Saturday and the place is empty except for him. I step out, and try to remember why I’m here, what I’m hoping to accomplish, and how I can avoid this all getting out of hand. I stay in the car for a few minutes, afraid to actually go up there, but knowing that it’s unavoidable. I arrive at the science building.

I know that if I don’t, no one else will. I take the scenic route back, because I’m still not sure that I want to do this. Not really, but it feels like I could. I almost tear the car door off its hinges, I’m so mad. I walk out of the police station, having just been proven that justice isn’t simply blind, but actively hides from the truth. That would be ironic. I turn away in a huff, worried that I’ll be the one behind bars if I say what I really want to say to them. They say that can’t compel her. They keep their voices low, explaining that she’s old enough to answer for herself. I’m nearly at a scream now, begging them to see that she’s too young to make her own decisions. They tell me they’ll look into it if anything changes, but until then, this is how it has to be. They ignore the conjecture, and tell me that there’s nothing they can do. I tell them it shouldn’t matter; that she’s obviously just too scared of him. They tell me she’s changed her statement, and that she had every right to do so. I relay what she said to me, but they’ve already heard it. I walk in and ask to speak to someone important. I walk out of the dorm, and drive to the police station, feeling useless to do anything else. I respect her wishes, and leave her room. She asks me to leave, and I realize it’s because I’m a man, and she doesn’t need that kind of energy right now. I assure her it is, and she did the right thing. She says she wasn’t even going to tell anybody, because she isn’t certain it’s illegal. She says he didn’t touch her once. She says it was over quickly. She says she didn’t feel safe trying to get away. She says he made her watch. She says he touched himself. She says her much older ex-boyfriend came by yesterday, and locked the door behind him. She breaks down crying, not wanting to tell me, but needing to unburden herself. She doesn’t seem okay. She says she’s okay. I ask her if she’s okay. Something seems off. I drive out to visit my seventeen-year-old cousin, who is at a weeklong music camp at the college.

Microstory 781: Sawbuck

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Jane Brown hated her name. At least if she had been Jane Johnson, or Jane Jones, it would have been alliterative, but this was the most boring combination her parents could have come up with. She suffered through it her whole childhood, witlessly playing into her own insecurities on the matter, which only convinced those around her that she herself was boring. She ended up being admitted to a college on the other side of the country, though, and decided it was high time she reinvented herself. So, she took a gap year to earn a little extra cash, and start the relatively slow process of legally changing her name. She knew it would take a long time in her case since she would have to convince the court to allow such an unusual change. She had landed on the name Sawbuck, for no particular reason, except maybe she saw an advertisement for a sawhorse earlier that day. She would never know for sure, but it sounded perfect for her, because she wanted to become someone interesting; someone people talked about, and asked after. By the time her first semester started, she had completed all the paperwork, and was fully approved. She was now Sawbuck. Sawbuck Honeyglider. Her classmates and dorm neighbors would ask her about it, and she would never tell them that she made it up. She came up with a lie to explain where her family came from, and every time she told the story, she’d add more and more flourishes. She never contradicted herself, though, so if her victims spoke to each other about it, they wouldn’t catch on to the fib. She got so good at it that she realized lying was her true passion. If she could weave this one incredibly intricate story about herself, maybe she could do it with some other story. So she sat down at her computer, and got to work. She came up with plausible falsehoods, but she didn’t incorporate them into a novel or short story. She didn’t write films or plays. She just wrote lies, and she found a way to spread them on the internet. Using what she had picked up on about law when she changed her name as a foundation, she taught herself how to set up false identities, and plant information in such a way that it looked like her characters had always existed, and that they had gone through all these harrowing or tragic experiences. She created an entire secret history of the world, all from her laptop, generating belief amongst even the most skeptical in the world in random, pointless, and sometimes innocuous things. Her reputation began to spread along with the lies themselves, and certain underground peoples began asking her for her help. This was how Sawbuck ‘Plain Jane’ Honeyglider turned herself into the infamous Fabricator.

Microstory 438: Floor 4 (Part 1)

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Babies! I love babies. That hasn’t always been true. My parents had a second child when I was pretty old, and I was expected to help raise my little brother. He grossed me out, and I never got used to it. It seemed to never end either. He’s needed raising through his adult life. He’s not a bad person, but simple tasks often vex him. He should be able to drive himself to the store and buy a new shirt. I used to resent him for this behavior, but now we’re starting to think he's autistic. I’ve been trying to convince him to go get tested, but he’s very reluctant. He’s less worried about being diagnosed, and more worried about not. He’s scared to death that there’s nothing wrong with him and that he’s just an asshole. I know he’s not, and I think deep down he knows this as well, but that’s not making life any easier. Anyway, back to babies. When I was in college, a massive hurricane hit the Gulf Coast. I remember watching it on the news and feeling a deep need to contribute to recovery from one of the worst natural disasters in history. I knocked on my friend’s dorm room door, and we just have each other this look. We both knew what we needed to do. We dropped all of our classes that semester and contacted the Red Cross. We had flown down to Louisiana by the end of the week, and started volunteering at a shelter. Things were crazy and chaotic. No one had dealt with anything like this before, but we were all there to help, so we figured it out together. This 18-year-old kid was the kitchen manager even though he didn’t know how to cook. A young woman provided spiritual guidance to residents in need. And me? I ended up taking care of the children. Parents would often have to leave the shelter to get their affairs in order, or look for new or temporary work. I didn’t ask for the responsibility, but I took it, because that’s what the universe was asking of me. I developed a newfound appreciation for the work, and when I came home, I began training. I’ve been working at various day care facilities ever since. Analion is just my most recent position. It’s looking like the company as a whole isn’t long for this world, though. I better go look for new babies.

Crossed Off: Students (Part II)

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When Starla woke up the next morning, the first thing she did was complain about Alec lying to her. “You had the entire rest of yesterday to tell me that you’re planning to drag me to Kansas City.”

“I was trying to choose my words carefully.”

“Yes. You are known for not speaking clearly when you don’t have the whole night to think about it.”

“We’re doing this, Starla.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what normal people do; they go see their friends, physically. They get in a car, train, or plane, and they move through space in real-time. I think you kind of need to see what that’s like.”

“That sounds incredibly exhausting. I don’t know how you get through the day like that. I’m fine the way I am. I won’t kill myself, I promise.”

“If you think that this trip is only about that then you obviously don’t understand what friendship is.”

“It’ll be rather awkward, won’t it? I just met Kathleen, and now we’re going to visit her brother four states over? What’s your cover again? How does she think you even know Tristan?”

“We told her that we met at archery camp.”

“You haven’t picked up a bow in your life.”

“I’m thinking about picking it up. Tristan makes it sound interesting.”

“That he does. He doesn’t care about anything but Kathleen and archery.”

Kathleen came back into the room with a towel wrapped around her still dripping body. “What’s this?”

“Uh...what?” Alec asked.

“This door isn’t very thick. What did you say about not doing archery?”

Oh no. Alec and Starla tried to come up with excuses for what they had meant during the conversation, but nothing sounded plausible. They ended up breaking down and just telling the truth about Starla’s ability to switch bodies with people. Kathleen was surprisingly open to the idea, and requested proof politely, which Starla obliged. They would have called her healthily skeptical.

“This is going to make things a lot easier, isn’t it?” Kathleen asked. “Not having to tiptoe around me anymore? I did always found your relationship with my brother a tad bit suspicious. I didn’t think too much of it, though. He’s always been into younger guys, but doesn’t think I know, so I figured you were together, or at least had been before.”

“No,” Alec laughed. “We’ve actually never met in real life.”

“Well.” She slapped her knees with finality. “I’m going to get dressed first, and then spend the next few days going to classes. Then we’ll all go up together. It’ll be a fun road trip!” She dramatically pulled her towel away and finished drying off.

She’s taking this a little too easily, Starla said to Alec telepathically.

You’re so hesitant of people, Alec thought back to her. Just because you didn’t read her thoughts—and you definitely shouldn’t do that—doesn’t mean she has something to hide.

I don’t read people’s thoughts anymore, Starla countered. You taught me how to stop that, and I haven’t anymore. Don’t judge me.

Kathleen eyed them curiously while she was putting on her shorts. “Are you two talking to each other?”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

“Were you talking about me?” Kathleen asked.

“No,” Starla replied. “We were discussing the events during yesterday’s sports competition.”

“Oh yeah?” Kathleen put her hands on her hips. “What sport?”

Starla thought about it for a second. “Vector?”

Kathleen laughed and looked to Alec. “How has she not yet been caught? She’s a terrible liar.”

“Could you teach me?”

Kathleen stopped getting dressed for a second, assessing the situation to make sure they were no longer joking before she answered, “I most certainly can.”

Starla spent the next few days attending Alec’s and Kathleen’s classes as a prospective student. Kathleen was particularly interesting in bringing her to a special lecture on neurobiology, targeted at students interested in pursuing the subject after completing the general requirements. They sat next to Kathleen’s gracer, Denton. The first thing the guest speaker did was throw up a slide with an image of a human brain in the middle of surgery. “This is a brain,” Magnus Shapiro said. “More specifically, this is my brain.”

A young man covered his mouth desperately with his hand and struggled to leave the room.

“Lost another one I see. If you can’t handle this, you are in the wrong field of study. Neurobiology, and really biology of any kind, is not for you.” He paused to let people leave as they needed, but no one else did. “The human brain is the most powerful machine in the universe. It is highly efficient, potentially limitless, and shockingly underused. You are all idiots. Evolution gave this gift of an intelligent mind, and you fail to utilize it properly. Don’t be sad, it’s not your fault. Because biology also placed roadblocks on your mind. If you could fire your neurons to the absolute best of their ability, there is no telling what you would do. Possible results of a less hindered mind include accelerated learning, control of normally involuntarily biological processes like breathing and heartbeat, superior body temperature regulation, and even possibly the subversion of death. If you could somehow...” he gathered her words “...tell your body to regrow limbs, repair damage, or fight off a disease in a certain way, you would never reach death.”

A girl in the front row raised her hand and Magnus Shapiro called on her. “Magnus, if we were all immortal, the planet would be overpopulated, and we would run out of resources.”

“Would we?” Shapiro asked rhetorically. “Before we reach that level of intellect, surely we would have solved other problems. Food, land space, and construction materials are only restricted by our current situation. There are hundreds of billions of stars in this galaxy alone. It is estimated that there are 500 million planets capable of supporting life to the level of ours, and many more with other resources. All we have to do is figure out how to get there. One man can do that. Just make one man smart enough to solve these problems, and ask him for his help. He’ll lift everybody else up.”

Starla looked over and saw that Denton was enamored with the lecture, almost like he was in a trance. Kathleen looked between him and Starla, like she had a secret of her own. She smiled and nodded to Denton. Starla shook her head, unclear what she wanted. Kathleen just urged her on, and continued to motion to Denton. Did she want her to possess his body? Assuming that to be her intention, Starla closed her eyes and prepared to jump into Denton’s body. She had to think about it beforehand, otherwise she could choose the wrong method and give herself away. She took a deep breath and jumped, leaving her body looking like she was only sleeping, continuing to listen to the lecture from Denton’s point of view. The experience was fascinating. Denton was eating up the Magna’s words. He was processing the information at a rate that she had never felt before. He seemed to be gathering information from other people as well, even though they weren’t speaking. He wasn’t reading their minds. It was more like he was absorbing their knowledge. Had she met another avatar? Could he teach her to do the same?

“...who knows what kind of powers a hyperintelligent human being might have,” Shapiro went on. “Is telekinesis possible? Could someone be so empathetic to others that their own body can be altered on a glandular level?” As he was scanning the crowd for their reactions, he stopped on Starla and Denton. He watched them for a second, causing the students to wonder what was going to happen next. “Could a person use their mind to see what life is like from another person’s perspective? The literal manifestation of walking a mile in someone else’s shoes?”

Out of fear, Starla quickly jumped back into her body and gasped for air. Everyone looked up at her. “Sorry, I’m fine,” she lied.

Magnus Shapiro kept looking at her for a moment before moving on with his speech. He looked back up to them every once in a while, especially when he hit points that were eerily relevant to Starla’s ability. After it was over, Kathleen said that she had to get clear across campus quickly, and asked Denton to take Starla back to the dorm room.

“I can do that, but I was hoping to speak with the magnus first,” Denton said

“I’d love to do that as well,” Starla said. “So that works out perfectly.”

Other students had flocked to ask Shapiro questions, but he was pretty much ignoring them. He was staring at the two of them as Denton was wheeling Starla towards him. He waved his hand to the rest of the students. “I’ve stolen Magnus Björkman's office for the rest of the week. I’ll answer any questions tomorrow.” The students didn’t know what to do. “That’ll be all. Thank you very much,” he clarified. They finally took the hint and dispersed.

Denton nodded with respect. “Magnus.”

“I’m pretty hungry,” the magnus said to him. “Could you recommend a nice quiet place to eat in this town?”

Denton smiled. “I sure could.”

“Great.”

“Would you have room for company?” Denton asked.

“I hate to eat alone.” He looked down at Starla. “As long as you’re coming too.”

She was a little anxious, but she had to understand not only how Denton’s special mind worked, but also how the professor was somehow able to sense them. “Sure.”

“Wonderful.”

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Crossed Off: Locked In (Part I)

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Very few people were aware of Starla Wakefield’s ability to possess the bodies of other people. She first discovered her gift at a very early age, but instinctively knew that she had to keep quiet about it. The first person to find out about it was her best friend, Alec who was also the first person with whom she switched bodies. He was a couple years older, and was always there to help her with homework and bullies. While she was freaking out about being in the body of another person, he seemed pretty happy about it. He liked to watch movies about superheroes, and saw this as a chance to live one out in real life. He insisted that she would one day grow up and become a superhero herself, and that he would be her sidekick.
Together, they learned how to use her skills both accurately and responsibly. They discovered that she was capable of switching places with anyone in the entire world. She could also possess them without allowing them access to her body; she could see through their eyes while they remained in control, so that they were completely unaware that anything was different; and she could share a body with the owner. After some research in the library, Alec decided to nickname her Avatar, based on the idea that she could cross over from her place to another. Over the years, she collected seven other confidants from around the world, mostly accidentally while testing her limits. She spent her time learning about other cultures, and going on instant vacations. Her favorite switch, however, was in the body of a retired conservationist who spent his days interacting with the feral horses of Cumberland Island, which was only a few miles away.

Soon after Alec headed off for college, Starla began to show unusual symptoms that were almost certainly the result of her ability. She started losing control of her own motor functions. At first, her limbs slouched for minutes at a time, but she was eventually able to regain control. But things were getting worse. The doctors had no clue what was happening with her. After all, how could they? They tested for a stroke, multiple sclerosis, and ALS, among a few other things. Despite showing a number of common symptoms, the neurological degeneration simply was not there. Her brain was sending signals throughout her body, but they were somehow blank messages. There was some kind of loss in translation during transit that current medical technology could not explain.

After several months, Starla found herself forced to remain in a wheelchair. For the most part, she had retained control of her upper body, but her legs didn’t move at all. Every second she was left alone she took the opportunity to take over the body of someone somewhere else who happened to be asleep at the time. That was the only time she had when she could move around freely. She felt bad that these people would wake up the next morning feeling fully unrested, but she had given in to the dark side of her personality. Her worldwide confidants offered to give her temporary control of their bodies, but she felt even worse about that since she knew them.

Starla couldn’t move all of her body but, unlike a paraplegic, she could still feel everything. Sitting in the chair all day was extremely uncomfortable. One day, when she was visiting Alec in his dorm room, his lovely roommate, Kathleen let herself be late for class so that she could lift Starla into the bed. Once she left, they were able to talk freely. “It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” he asked.

“I’m going to die.”

“Don’t say that. This doesn’t have to end like that, or even be permanent. But you have to stop what you’re doing. I have a theory that the body cannot exist too long without the mind. Switching consciousnesses is probably okay, but if you leave the brain without any purpose, then I imagine it starts to decay.”

“I don’t mean that this is going to kill me. That’s the problem. It’s probably not. I’m going to be stuck like this forever, and my only chance would be to possess some poor schmuck permanently. I know myself, Alec. Without you, I would have abused this in so many ways.”

“I do not agree.”

“Well, you would be wrong. You said it yourself, I need to stop taking over sleeping people’s bodies. I can’t help myself. It’s far too tempting. The only way out of this is to take myself out of the equation.”

“And how exactly would you do that,” Alec asked. “Sorry to be blunt, but you can barely lift a toothpick. How would you lift a gun, or a knife, or even a bottle of pills?”

Fortunately, Starla could still shrug, so she shrugged. “I could make someone else do it for me, literally.”

He nodded, pretending to see her point. “And what if you die while still in this person’s body? Hmm? What if you get stuck there? What if the only reason you can switch bodies is because this body is still a valid origin? Maybe you wouldn’t be taking yourself out of the equation; you would just be killing the one thing that keeps you in control of your ability. Without it, you could doom that person to spend the rest of their life unable to actually live it.”

“I’ll have him stab or shoot me in the chest. That will give me plenty of time to jump back before getting stranded.”

“Okay, but then you’ve just made that person a murderer. There he is, standing over the body of a young handicapped girl. Amnesia doesn’t hold up well in court. They would be put on trial. If they’re bad, they’ll probably do something stupid and get caught. If they’re good, they’ll turn themselves in because they’ll assume they were the culprit, just like everybody else will.”

“You said something about pills?”

“I said something hoping that you would give up this quest based on logic. I see now that that tactic is not going to work on you. So let’s switch to your heart, which is hopefully not as damaged as your crazy nutso cuckoo brain. What about me? I love you, and you’re just going to leave me?”

“I don’t see any other choice.”

“I just gave you a choice. Stay put,” Alec suggested. “Don’t use it at all. It might mean years, or it may only take a few weeks, but your condition may go away. You don’t have a disease. There’s nothing wrong with your tissue. There’s no reason this isn’t reversible. Perhaps you haven’t gotten better because you haven’t given yourself the chance.”

“I’m sick of arguing about this.”

“So am I.”

“Let’s talk about something light. Your new roommate seems nice.”

“Kathleen is great, yeah.”

They sat in awkward silence before Starla slumped over. Alec lifted her eyelids and checked for the signs of body switching, but found her pupils to be normal. She had just fallen asleep, so he took the opportunity to go down the hall to access the payphone. “Hello, Tristan,” he said into the mouthpiece. “No, Kathleen’s fine. Thanks for putting us together. I don’t think I could have handled another semester with the horrible guy the school paired me with.—No, I’m calling because Starla is having bad thoughts. I have a break coming up, and I was hoping to come up to Kansas City to meet you. I think seeing one of her confidants in person will be good for her, and you’re obviously the closest one.—Yes.—Yeah, that would be the plan.—Okay, I’ll figure out how I can convince her. Thanks, bye.”

Little did Alec know that Starla often accidentally slipped into his mind when she fell asleep. She had heard every word.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 25, 2018

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Mateo fell asleep again after catching up with his parents. A lot had happened over the course of the year. They continued to make up stories about his adventures overseas. He had reportedly spent the bulk of his time in Africa, but had recently begun work in Central Asia. Kyle was released from the facility, but still received some care, and was not at 100%. Frida started a relationship with a man she met at Veterans Affairs. He was particularly helpful with providing her father with the medications and services that he needed. They didn’t think he would live to see Christmas, though.

In the morning, Mateo sent Frida a text message, asking for Leona’s address. He snuck out of the house to speak to her. His parents wanted to figure out what they were going to do about it together. She had been unrealistically receptive to their lies that he hadn’t really disappeared; that she had been dreaming, or even hallucinating. He didn’t know her at all, but something told him that she was faking her acceptance. He just didn’t know what she was planning to do with such information. She lived in the dorms of a college that was only about an hour away, having graduated from high school a semester early. His car had been repossessed by the bank during his first disappearance, so he stole his father’s truck and drove off.

“I’ve been expecting you,” she said after opening the door. “My roommate is in class. We have plenty of time to talk.”

“What do you think you know?”

“I may be bad at math, but I can do simple arithmetic,” she explained. “You disappeared one day, and were reported back a year later. Then you weren’t seen for another year. And then another. And then one year ago I saw you pop out of existence in your living room. I’ve done my research. That’s called timeslipping. It’s when you travel through time but don’t use some kind of machine or device, and have no control of it. The fact that you return exactly one year later suggests either a superior intelligence, or this weak theory I have regarding the Earth’s revolution around the sun. Despite the solar year being one of our primary sources of mapping out and making sense of the cosmos, it has very little to do with the organization of the universe as a whole. The fact is that the most likely culprit responsible for your condition is an unfathomable entity, like God.”

“Wow. When you say you’ve done your research, you’re not lying.”

“You’re the reason I’m taking both physics and a religious studies course for my first semester.”

“You don’t have to do any of this, Leona. This isn’t your concern.”

“It’s going to take...” she started to say, “well, it’s going to take four days, but I will figure out how to explain this. I may not be able to stop it, but we will at least understand the physics.”

“Leona...”

“And in only three days, I won’t be too young for you, and you’ll be able to stop looking at me like a lost puppy dog.”

“But you just said it. Three days. This has been plaguing my parents for years, but it hasn’t even been a week for me. I don’t even know your last name.”

“It’s Delaney.”

“Right. That’s all I needed. Crash course on Leona Delaney. Now I tell you all my secrets, and let you waste four years of your life getting a degree in a field you’re not actually interested in.”

“I’ll study physics and philosophy if I want to. And you can do literally nothing about it.”

“We’ll never be together. And I think you know that. You may even like it. Being a hung up on a guy you can only see once a year. Pretty romantic. Like a fairytale. It ends only with your death. Don’t let yourself be alone when that happens.”

“If anyone else had said something like that to me, I would kick them out of my room. But I have 365 days to get over it, and only a few hours to see you. I’m not going to waste what little time we have. I don’t care how you feel about me, and I can’t help how I feel. Hell, you may wake up tomorrow and find me married to someone else. So what does it matter to you what I do now? You have an unavoidably distorted perspective of the world.”

He had no response.

“Great,” she continued. You wanna get some breakfast? I’ll tell you about how the apes have taken over the world, and how sea otters can talk now.” They spent the rest of the morning getting to know each other. It could have been incredibly awkward, but it wasn’t. She was refreshingly easy to talk to, and it was certainly a relief to have an open conversation with someone other than his parents. She talked about what the current president was doing, the latest celebrity nonsense, and the subtle advances in technology. Automated vehicles were gaining some heavy ground, with legislation already passed in the majority of states, allowing some level of hands-free driving.

Randall and Carol were not happy with his decision to handle the “problem of Leona” on his own. But they were most upset about losing half a day with him. They had a late lunch together, and invited Frida and her boyfriend over for dinner and games. It was a well-deserved break from all the drama. By having those two there, they were forced to pretend like their lives were perfectly normal. No timeslipping talk at the table.

Leona came over just after eleven o’clock and assured them of her kindhearted intentions. They had a late-night snack of ice cream, and stayed up talking until 11:58. They then hugged and said their goodbyes. Just before the strike of midnight, Leona planted a passionate kiss on Mateo’s lips. He was gone before he could react. One year later, he jumped back into the time stream, only to be quickly overwhelmed by a second kiss from her. Sneaky snake.

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