Jay sat on his bed. Well, I say ‘sat’. People who sit don’t usually bounce. He kept picking up his phone and putting it down again, biting his nails, looking in the mirror across from him, adjusting his hair, and having another go at the fiendishly quiet mobile device. He was waiting, of course, for a message from Allison. His behavior wasn’t becoming of a high-schooler, especially considering he was about to graduate college. 

 

All things considered, Jay was a grade-A dumbass. In fact, the only person I might consider to be a bigger dumbass would be Allison. The two of them had been circling each other like a pair of dumbass doves for ten dumbass years, and it had taken the two of them that long to finally accept that maybe what they felt for each other wasn’t purely platonic friendship. Now, I’ll grant Allison this much, she thought she was gay. That’s entirely fair, but even then, Jay wasn’t exactly toxic masculinity personified. In fact, the only thing that had held him back before was his respect for his friend’s preferences.

 

Which, of course, made it so shocking for him when he’d asked her out on a date - “You mean, like a date-date?” - “Like, like a date-date date, yeah” - and she’d said yes. Literally anyone could have seen that she would have agreed, except for the two of them, because unbeknownst to him, after that phone call had ended, they’d both made a squeal of the exact same tone and pitch, a freak occurrence so serendipitous it took exactly five stars and three planets to align just to get it to happen. And nobody appreciated it.

 

So there he sat, the dumbass with his phone in his hand desperately waiting to hear from his date. He was waiting for her to come over and pick him up - because, obviously, he didn’t know how to drive, and what kind of lesbian would Allison be if she didn’t know how to park a U-Haul - and he was running out of clothes to check and teeth to brush and re-brush. He was, all things considered, a mess. 

 

Tonight they were going to get dinner, together, as a date, for the first time, and contrary to what sitcom-writers have been taught, people who have been friends for a decade actually make wonderful conversation partners if you actually get along with them, with only the minimum amount of awkwardness if you accept the mutual attraction. It was going to be an absolutely wonderful evening where they would finally be able to explore their mutual feelings, and everyone they knew would breathe a quiet “fi-na-lly” and congratulate them both. They were just that good for each other. 

 

His phone went vweep-vweep because what kind of person doesn’t have their phone on mute, and Jay tapped the screen so quickly he was scared he might have cracked it. It was, of course, Allison, there to let him know she’d been standing by his front door for at least a minute, and that it looked like his doorbell was broken.

 

Jay’s doorbell had been broken for six years, and he knew this, but in his enthusiasm he’d completely forgotten about that. He practically jumped up, and sprinted out of his room, bumping into both the door and the doorframe and bruising both of his shoulders. 

 

As he ran to the landing he texted her back that he was on his way down to open the door for her, so excited his foot missed the first step down the stairs completely. He lost his balance and his inner ear did that thing where it screams at you that, yes, this is exactly how you die. Then his monkey brain retorted and told his lizard brain that, no, this isn’t how they were going to die, damn it. 

Sadly, evolution was not on either of their side. As Jay fell down the stairs, he didn’t have the time to realize that his lizard brain was absolutely correct and that, yes, this is how he was going to die. I doubt he would have appreciated the humor of it, honestly.

 

---

 

I sat next to the pile of misery that had, until very recently, been Jay. It wasn’t a pretty sight, so I tried not to pay it too much attention. Leaning against the front door, I held a small soul in my hand. It was small and purple and very bouncy. Obviously, this was Jay. I’d expected it to be stronger or redder somehow, but here we were.

 

“Where am I?” he asked. A dumb question, but whatever.

 

“You’re dead, Jay,” I said. I like saying that, because nothing hits quite as hard as telling someone they’re dead. I do it to living people sometimes just to get a rise out of them.

 

“What do you mean I’m dead?”

 

I sighed and grabbed the little soul with two fingers, and turned it around to look at its own body. That seemed to work.

 

“What the Fudge!?” Jay’s soul flickered to life a bit more, purple flames now tinged with an angry blue-ish, having all the threatening qualities of an angry candle.

 

“Tut-tut, language.”

 

“Go funk yourself.”

 

“You’re going to hurt yourself. Calm down.” The little purple flame grew a little smaller again.

 

“I’m gonna do you a solid here, Kkiddo,” I said. Being condescending was part of the appeal, honestly.

 

“You died, right? But I’m kind of invested in you and ehh…” I jerked a thumb at the door. 

 

“So like, your body is dead. Gonezo. Over. Kaput. But!” 

 

Dramatic pause. 

 

“But I can put your soul into another living creature. It won’t be easy, but you can still live a full life. What do you say?” 

 

“What creature?”

 

“You’ve got a cat, right?”

 

“Pancakes licks his own ass and throws up when he farts in his own face!”

 

“Fair. What about your dog?”

“He eats what Pancakes throws up!”

 

“Alright, fine, if you’re going to whine about this, I’m not giving you a choice then.”

 

I snapped my fingers. I’d been plenty patient, but like, you know, I got my limits. He’d have to figure it out from there.

 

---

 

He woke up with a start. He wasn’t dead. That was something, at least. He was standing. Also good. Not lying down. No broken bones. He moved his head left to right. No broken neck. Excellent. It was a little cold but that wasn’t too bad. He moved his fingers. His hands worked too. He was even holding his phone, still. That was good. Maybe it hadn’t shattered in the fall.

 

He opened his eyes. There was his front door, just like he remembered it. Except that the lighting was all wrong. It was too bright. And the wrong way ‘round. He was staring at his front door from the outside. He looked down, at the grubby band shirt, at the phone in the pink case in the hand with the nail polish, and most of all, he looked at the pair of breasts.

 

“Oh, fudge,” he said with Allison’s voice, like a dumbass. 

 

“What the funk,” Allison said inside their head.