The woman stared at Matthew as they sat across the kitchen table from one another. Neither of them seemed to quite know where to go at this point. It seemed the woman, this ‘Saga’ girl’s mother, knew some English, but was a bit rusty. Meanwhile, Matthew only really knew how to say ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry’ in Swedish, so was even worse off.
The woman muttered something to herself that he swore included a word that sounded similar to ‘psychiatrist’ in it. He wasn’t sure he liked the sounds of that.
Whatever the woman was planning next was interrupted by the phone ringing.
The woman got up and walked over to answer it. Then her face filled with confusion.
“Sa—Saga?” the woman asked.
Well, that was probably a good sign for Matthew’s goal of not getting locked away in an institution. (Did they still do that? He wasn’t sure…)
As the woman held a rapid fire conversation over the phone in a language he didn’t speak he did notice the way she seemed to keep looking at him with ever more suspicion in her eyes.
Right, because if he wasn’t her daughter having a mental breakdown he was a guy with access to her daughter’s body. Which meant she’d be suspicious of him. It was just basic expectations and gender norms.
They didn’t really thrill him, but he was used to it by this point.
Eventually, the phone call ended, the woman nodding and hanging up, before turning back to Matthew.
“She says she will be here soon,” the woman said, her English slow and determined.
“That sounds good. Maybe she’ll know what’s going on,” he replied, trying to smile in a friendly way.
He really hoped his cluelessness bought her sympathy. That it proved he didn’t know why this was happening and hadn’t asked for it.
It mostly just seemed to confuse her. Though, he slowly realised, maybe some of the suspicion wasn’t about him as a man, but about still not being sure if what he and this ‘Saga’ woman said was the truth. It was probably more believable that her daughter and some friend decided to pull a strange prank than to think people had actually switched bodies. He barely believed it, and he was one of the people who’d switched.
His efforts to prove it was actually a dream and he was still asleep weren’t going very well, though. So he was slowly finding he had no choice but to accept it.
Just as the awkward silence between him and the older woman was starting to get unbearable, there was a knock at the front door. Both of them hurried over to answer it.
Matthew was relieved to see his own body standing at the door. It was nice to know where it was.
The older woman, however, seemed very concerned by the sight, and asked something in Swedish. This quickly turned into a full conversation, leaving Matthew to just stand there confused and lost once more. Eventually the person in his body turned and asked him… something. It was also in Swedish.
His initial response was to make a confused noise. Then he remembered he could speak.
“I don’t speak Swedish,” he said.
Saga blinked, staring at him. “Du…you don’t?”
“Sorry. I just moved here for work a couple days ago,” he replied, feeling quite embarrassed.
“Oh… well, there goes the plan to try to cover up what happened until we figure out how to fix it.”
Sitting down and talking with the man now in his body, Sten had to reassess several aspects of his plans. The other man couldn’t cover up the situation by pretending to be Sten with any level of convincingness. Though his not having any real friends or family in the country did mean there were few people they would have to tell on that side.
The other man was also a better person than the first impression yesterday had given, showing a shyness towards the fact that he needed to go use the washroom. Sten waved off the concerns, saying they’d have to get used to it.
Though, Matthew leaving meant Sten was now left alone with his mother, who was tearing up while talking about how her ‘poor daughter was being so strong’ and things like that. He was free from physical dysphoria, but the social angle was still finding a way to crop up.
« Mother, it’s fine. He seems nice, and, hey, it’s kind of nice to be tall for once, » Sten said, to comfort her.
« Still, you poor thing… I can only imagine how awkward having the wrong body like that must be, » she replied.
He fought down a grimace, barely covering it with a smile, when Matthew came back in.
“You’re the grad student from yesterday,” he said, pointing back towards the toilet.
“You hadn’t realised that yet?” Sten asked.
“I hadn’t looked in a mirror until now,” Matthew replied with a shrug. “Your mother dragged me down to the kitchen and tried to talk ‘sense’ into me.”
Sten gave a slow nod. He supposed that was understandable. It was just quite different from how his discovery had gone.
“Well, either way, we’re going to have to head back to the university. I need to do more research… which means we will have to tell my supervisor what happened,” he said.
“We—why? Shouldn’t we try going to a doctor or… something?” Matthew asked.
Right. He hadn’t explained that thought he’d had.
“There was an artifact I was studying yesterday. Before your tour group came by it had twenty-six small painted indents on one side of it. After your tour group left I saw that it had twenty-eight,” Sten explained. “The two new markings seemed to have the same paint in the indents. It was never out of my sight, no one touched it.”
Matthew nodded a few times. “And, since we’re two people who just had something seemingly supernatural happen, you think those dots represent us?”
“Yes. I know it sounds far fetched, but, well… so does waking up in the wrong person’s body,” Sten replied.
“I suppose it’s more than I had to go with,” Matthew said. “I’ll go get dressed and we’ll head out.”
With that, Matthew went upstairs, leaving Sten alone with his mother once more. Which meant more reassuring her that he was, in fact, fine. He could ‘handle’ being in this body for a bit longer.
All while hating that he was actually enjoying it. That this stolen body felt so right and so comfortable.
Thankfully it didn’t take too long for Matthew to return in some of Sten’s normal baggy clothing, looking rather self conscious.
Right, because he’d just had to undress.
“You… you don’t have any skirts or anything?” Matthew asked in a quiet voice.
“…No. Why?” Sten asked, quite confused.
“I just thought… well, since I’m… I don’t know if I’ll be very convincing as a woman, so I thought going all in with clothes would help cover my not knowing how to act,” Matthew replied quietly.
“Oh,” Sten said, while slightly screaming internally. “Don’t worry. People aren’t as observant as you think. A few folks might think you’re a lesbian, but that’s about it.”
Matthew nodded, before following Sten towards the nearest bus stop. Which did lead to a bit of a discovery as it turned out Sten was walking at full speed, used to having short legs and having to keep up with everyone, while Matthew was used to having long ones and being able to go at a slow pace. Thinking it over, Sten had made it home faster than he’d expected.
The bus came along shortly, dropping them off downtown only a few blocks from the university history department’s building a few minutes later. Another walk where Sten went too fast and Matthew had to run to keep up followed.
Once they made it to Saga’s supervisor’s office, Matthew quickly found himself lost in another sea of rapid Swedish once the initial introduction with Dr. Engström was finished. After a few minutes of talking he found himself hurrying after the others as they packed up the artifact and headed downstairs. They went a few blocks across the city center, towards a newer looking building that was apparently where several labs were located. Matthew awkwardly flashed Saga’s ID to get himself in, while Dr. Engström got permission for the actual Saga to follow them into the labs.
Matthew hung back, doing his best to hide between the two larger people in the group as they talked to the lab technicians. That seemed to go well enough and no one tried to talk to him.
Then, to his surprise, they headed off towards a third building. This was one of the university’s libraries. Matthew continued to feel useless as the others hurried around looking for books to consult. All he could do was sit in a chair and text his own work, telling them he was feeling rather ill as an excuse for not getting much done that day.
Eventually, however, he found the feelings of uselessness too much, and headed over to where the other two were reading through quite thick and old looking books.
“Um… since I’m not really contributing, should I just go back to my apartment? I have some design work I should be doing,” he asked, keeping his voice quiet.
“You can do that from home?” Saga asked, looking up at him.
Making eye contact with his own body sent an odd shiver down Matthew’s spine, but he nodded. “It’s mostly a work from home type of job.”
“I suppose that’s fine, then,” Saga replied. “We’ll let you know if we find anythi—right, we need to exchange numbers.”
“Right,” Matthew said, pulling out his own phone.
Actually getting home, Matthew was rather annoyed to find that his drawing efforts felt clumsy. The stylus was too thick in his hands, and some of the shoulder muscles he used for drawing ended up aching faster than usual. He still had the eye for how things should look, and knew the theory behind it all, but… it did confirm there was a physical side to the work.
Frustrated, he opened up his window, letting the cool and fresh autumn air into his apartment. It helped calm him down and ground him. Things were frustrating, but he could manage.
At least he was pretty sure his end products were looking up to his usual ability. They were just taking him longer than usual.
