Chapter 13 - Epiphany

She eased her way into the seat, half ducked under the table, and looked at her salad. She continued, “All this hair is kind of crazy. I like just having a little plume. But it kind of looks good on this. But I try to think of my face and I still have a big honker. Trying to compare it though like you saw it…do you remember everything?”

I gave “Brian“ a few looks, but I didn’t pay an enormous amount of attention to all his features. Motioning over my own nose, I managed to translate the things she didn’t have words for. She focused on me intently, before slumping again.

“That’s it. That was me. And that feels like the dream. So weird. I keep expecting to wake up again and everything is shuffled back. Did it happen the same way for you?”

I drew a breath in and it flowed like liquid nitrogen through my joints as I nibbled my way through the sandwich. “I wanted something like this in my life… But there was no warning of anything.”

She shifted the core of her salad with a plastic fork and nibbled at the meats. ”That’s good. I don’t think I wanted this. But like it’s like a horse that’ll go its own way. Like I’m so chill talking about my diet and thinking about my bras and other stuff, even though it’s Calliope‘s thing. It’s like Calliope is just me now and she’s simply replacing all the stuff that used to be me. I’m not scared though, maybe that’s because of her. I just acknowledge that I am a girl and it’s just living. Not much I can do about it.”

I could’ve told her about my little thought yesterday and how maybe I was responsible. But that was just guessing and felt like the craziest thing of all as I chewed on it in my brain. I wasn’t God. I didn’t have control over reality. Right?

The very notion felt like an unreachable itch I needed to smother. Something was going on though. Maybe it was infectious? Now I really didn’t want to see the game store.

“So, you’re alright? Emotionally?”

She shrugged. “Surprisingly alright. Like I wasn’t the manliest dude or anything. I was just fine with myself. Not dating anyone, not really feeling anything that might suggest this. Although, it’s a little complicated now.” She looked me in the eye for a lingering moment before returning to work on her salad.

There really was no way to ask yet except to just plop it down in words for her, “Are you completely female or is it a mix…that kind of complicated?” I had a hunch what she meant, but this was probably the only way I was going to even approach the question without dying a thousand screaming deaths inside my brain. That was still going to happen, but I could feel enough recklessness in that moment to at least put it out there.

As I could’ve expected, she treated my question with immediate surprise flashing over her features. “I guess. I mean I’ve known some women in my life well enough… and everything seems right. It would’ve been nice to hold onto at least a little something, when it comes to the restroom. But it’s more because I have a shit-tier tiny-ass little bladder now… and excuse me a moment.”

She popped out the door, scampering over to the women’s restroom. I immediately seized this opportunity to make progress on my sandwich. The tree trunk had the ambitions of sequoias, and I was grateful for the table between us. A slight notion of a restroom trip occurred to me, but it had also dammed the river. I wondered how far these little mental wood analogies might last me as I got to the halfway point of gobbling up the footlong.

Calliope returned a few minutes later with a long, slow puff of a breath. “I didn’t even hesitate for that ladies’ door. It’s good that I can manage, but it’s still freaky.” She slipped back into her seat.

I didn’t even hear my own brain screaming at me as I responded, “I’d like to help you however I can, even if it’s just talking or listening or buying enough books so you have a job. I don’t understand everything because I was only changed… in some ways. My restroom situation is also complicated. A lot of things are. But I’d really like to help.”

Maybe it didn’t need to be said, same as with Camille. Maybe it was way too much information in a sensitive situation. Maybe I should’ve been more reticent about my anatomy. Maybe I shouldn’t have even come to the bookstore at all. But here I was, there it was, and here I am. If it all went south from here, then at least I got out my most earnest words.

Calliope listened intently even as she ate. At a certain moment, it dawned on her. Her eyes widened even more and her thin lips dipped open with the oval of her mouth. A trickle of drool spilled from it and she furiously wiped her mouth with her hand and then a napkin from her salad bag. She was relatively pale, so the bright red accent of her cheeks was easy to see.

Frantic little sounds swarmed behind her hands flailing over her face. She soon said, “I wish I had a longer break. Not like..oh my geez. Oh boy goodbess… goodness. I’m so sorry. This is such a freaky day. But yeah I ...yeah I mean I… I think… I would appreciate any help and it’s really amazing to talk to you and not feel as crazy as I have since I woke up. Anyway, before I lose my mind, can we trade information?”

She explained that she hadn’t really used her phone yet. It was slightly bigger than mine with the fancy camera stuff I didn’t bother with and adorned in a lovely case. Calliope explained that she had a clear one before but she actually liked her female self’s pick. Brilliant spiral galaxies traded globular plumes against the dazzling void of space. I would’ve liked it for myself.

It surprised her that Calliope had an active Instagram account along with several other apps that Brian never bothered with. Fortunately, all the passwords were tied to her fingerprint, which the phone had no problem with. I added her to as many things as I could and started a silly little message thread where we just said “Hi” to one another a few times.

After that, it was back to the business of trying to finish our food within the allotted time. When I got up, it was impossible to miss her eyes checking me out at waist level for a lingering moment. I had enough looseness in my shorts to preserve some degree of mystery.

Seemingly in return, she bent over and lingered that way by the trashcan when cleaning up. Of course, I glanced too. She locked eyes with me and gave a quick smirk. I smirked back and didn’t look away.

If this was a porno, then the action would’ve started there. But I just helped her tidy up and followed her casually to the front as she unlocked the front door and removed the little sign explaining it was lunch break.

Before we parted and I had to rush home to teach, we had a little chat where I explained my work and she mentioned that the bookstore was still hiring. The caveat was lower pay than I was receiving for tutoring, very few benefits aside from food at one of the nearby places, inconsistent hours, and the smell and tedious weight of books that needed to be toiled over. She ticked a few more points, mostly nitpicks, before countering, “But there can be so many interesting people you run into, who change your perspective and life. And I haven’t even gotten into the music events haha.”

I had to go though if I wanted to have any chance of starting my class on time. As a last thing, she threw ten bucks at me as an apology that I had to pay for my sandwich and go get her salad. I wanted to tell her it was fine, but I was out of time to protest and just told her I would hold onto the money and other incoherent word fragments before I waved and dashed out the doors.

Traffic fought me trying to make a left and the slowdown of ever-present summer construction spread to the route back. Fortunately, I was so close to home that time, no matter how tight, wasn’t going to be a problem. The problem was getting my head in one place once I was seated in the couch with my laptop and materials before me. Susanna had the first questions and I had plenty for her that I couldn’t possibly ask. Why didn’t she remember? Who was responsible for her change? Was she as accepting as Brian/Calliope?

And this session had to be iterative from the previous one with all those same trappings of feeling less spontaneous and organic. If only I had some measure of an actor or actress, able to re-position themselves in the right headspace for each performance and tackle it as something new. At least, that was how I envisioned the acting process. The fortunate variables were those precious students who broke through the leagues of sullen resignation to actually ask questions. Because each existed as their own island joined by the stream, it was in many ways easier, at least it seemed, for them to treat this as a one on one tutoring session. Simultaneously, those who were never going to speak up and treated the camera like some thing to listlessly stare at until they were released, then it was exactly the same as clinging to the back of the class and waiting out the suffering. The whole situation had been shit since it started and it kept erupting into new layers and floods.

The most shameful era. And entire generations of my students would suffer its worst effects. Shame. We did our best together. but I oftentimes felt an empathetic pool of their distaste and apathy towards the nugget of what I had to transmit to them. Making it palatable was like cooking a meal that needed a dozen flavors, all of them good. Mustering up energetic enthusiasm took practically everything and hitting upon spontaneous, creative inspirations for how to teach were beyond me. All I could do was dance the familiar steps.

The word we invited was “mucklings”. It was an inspired concept from a little group that lived together on the same block. Basically, it was their term for when you put all sorts of little words in between the words you really want to say and they muck up the meaning from being direct and understandable. I dug it, as something I needed to watch just as well. The word they tossed was “mood” after a furious debate that included some of the candidates from the earlier class. Only once I’d dealt with lingering questions and private follow ups, did I let myself rest.

It would be so easy to sprawl across the couch, especially because I now had several additional inches of space. A glance through the fair-peach-toned drapes revealed that the baked and furious morning and noon had fallen to a bitter breeze. Clouds blunted the mottled traces of branches. And illusory, subtle odor, less like dust and more like moist earth, found my nostrils. I knew another bout of rain so soon was impossible, but the valley inversion layer haze, and all sorts of other vague meteorological buzzwords that flowed out of the local news, at least blunted the heat.

Opting for a stretch on the bed with the dogged reminder not to fall asleep before I heated up some leftovers, it wasn’t long before I realized I left the Reddit notifications unseen. What kind of responses did Calliope get online? It was a pointless thought.

And there was no point in torturing myself. I opened up the app and tapped over to my messages. Four.

One was a bot message. The responses I got were “ha ha”, “cyute”, and “okay”. I knew it was fruitless to search for any sort of validation of myself through strangers online. It didn’t matter the media. It didn’t matter how well I made myself up in one way or another. Validation was on me.

That was an easy thing to just spout as some holistic truth. Still sour grapes out of reach. At the same time, I could keep chasing the right venue, the right title, or the right moment. So much effort just to catch a few, feeble beads of recognition.

A parting of vague clarity slipped through my thoughts. Who exactly was I making these for? I felt like I never really understood men that well. And random girls considered me a curiosity, at best, between being oddly drawn in ways I never noticed. It was slightly easier for me to talk to Calliope than Camille though. We shared a lot in our current situation. But what about when all that was depleted?

Would Calliope still be a friend, or more, when the initial waves of all this wore off? What of Camille when the fond reminders of her youthful crush met adult reality? The truest me was exposed for all to see and was that person inside enough to be loved? Could I possibly approach love in a real way?

There were times I felt like and people told me I was an old soul, but other times I felt like a child with a radiant heart but also a deep, tender wound. I’d been stifled by family, by circumstances, and by myself. How could I possibly find a way to love someone else when I didn’t share such love with myself? Fervently, and in opposition to the miserly attitudes of once family when it came to love, I would spill forth every well of adulation for someone else, but that was also the problem. Someone who tries to love like that can never get back what they give. And that breeds contempt and contempt sours that sentiment.

I understood all of this in the most methodical fashion, and I desperately wanted to be better. Maybe these days came because I was finally willing to internally accept something for myself. The changes of others were so easy because of my willingness to turn whatever this was on others long before me. I knew there were things out there in the world I didn’t understand.

Everyone had theories and so did I. I deeply believed that the enabled will of a single human being could move reality. A small group of people with just a little bit of engagement had the potential to change the entire world, if they could convince others. It was probably New Age crap, but at the same time I suspected there was actually something to it. Stuff happened before and so many things existed that didn’t quite fit. In some terms, I cast a spell on the world, myself, and people around me.

Why didn’t I get the validation that I wanted through the Internet? Maybe, because I didn’t actually want it. Such developments led to uncomfortable questions, people responding negatively, and things I couldn’t even imagine.

I was such a whiny little bitch. Yeah, I heard me. A whiny fucked up little bitch. I professed such grandiose notions and revelations and determinations, yet I still crawled into an emo little ball and gave myself a private pity party. You want to transform people? Just fucking do it. Brian/Calliope is surprised by it all, but she’s actually fucking enjoying it. Meanwhile, all you can do is run endless fucking emotional, psychological, existential diatribes about how you’re a lowly piece of shit and then in the next turn you think you’re some kind of God?! The only blessing upon the world is the hope you are not in control of it.

Even this fight with yourself is so pointless! Get off your ass and enjoy the world! So some random shitheads online don’t like a photo you put there. Fuck ‘em! Did you have fun making it? Do you have any creative ideas that you would like to try out next? Make yourself happy with what you can do because you can’t control what other people think about what you do and who you are. Just do your best for yourself first, as sincerely as possible.

Write fun things to Calliope, joke about her titties, maybe make a silly quip about erections. Make her smile as you make yourself smile. And go have fun with Camille too, tell her about this friend you met at the bookstore, go naval gaze to her about existence and what this all means with Calliope, and ask her what kind of swimsuit she’d like to see you in. But, more than anything, don’t waste time adding to your own suffering. Face whatever you want to face without regret or fear that you’ll fuck it up. Because you’ll feel like you fucked it up one way or the other eventually. Do it first and apologize later if something you did went too far. Come on, girl! Get your ass in gear already!

That pep talk washed over me like a bracing, cold tidal wave. I don’t know how much of it got in me, but I was definitely coughing up metaphorical seawater.

Despite the call to action inherent in it, I just wanted to find a comfortable spot on the bed and sleep the evening away. However, my imagination had other ideas.

Imagination is so fickle. An unending wellspring of ideas, thoughts, and words could be flooding forth, day after day after day, hour upon hour, seemingly without end until physical exhaustion punched me out for the night. And then suddenly it could be as much of a desolate desert as the landscape that surrounded me on all sides with the bent bowl of mountains towering above. No thoughtful rain to quench my thirst, no flutter of puffy clouds to quell the intense sun, and not even any wind to stir the remnants.

I could sit there and just let every flicker of thought fade away and pass in night and then into another day, when the frantic, tardy student of my creativity barreled down imaginary halls and called for just a minute to fill in an idea that suddenly emerged. But I wouldn’t have a minute or all the other minutes that were required for this flash of inspiration, rather it would pass like the glimmers after dreaming when you find yourself in the restroom not entirely sure where you are but with vivid, visceral mental images playing inside your head like a dozen, different channels flicking through all at once.

I could let this go for days or weeks or months without answering the call, without feeling a hunger to do something creative. But ultimately, it would be like holding in a natural need. As surely as I consumed life, as swiftly as experiences and moments pass through my senses, my mind would be ready to expel what it crafted from that.

But determination of self to break away from darkness and then stand in the light as though about to perform was just the act of preparation. Now I was on a stage of my own making… What do I do?