Animaton by Judy Colella (online e book reader TXT) 📖

reactions. So now there are strange sparks there, and black spots in the white part of my eyes, I’d better start wearing sunglasses on the rare occasions when I go out.

Ronnie finally gave up on me, I think. I haven’t gotten a single call from him for the past two days; as I’ve mentioned before, I was getting a minimum of six calls and ten text messages from him every day. I really wish I could tell him what’s going on, why I just can’t see him again. I keep texting back and telling him it isn’t his fault, that it has nothing to do with him, that I’m not seeing someone else. But you know, if I were being honest here, I’d have to admit that our relationship had no future anyway. He’s too metropolitan for me.

I used to think I was born without the sophistication gene. Ha! Now I have to wonder if I even have genes any more. And now I’m babbling on paper. Well, it’s infinitely preferable to babbling out loud. I mean, I can actually feel the small pocket located somewhere behind my vocal cords every time I draw in breath to speak. It’s not a pleasant feeling, either. There’s something in there – not lungs – that enables me to suck the air in, but I have no idea what it is. And I’m still taking showers. How stupid. As I noted on Day 6, nothing sticks to this new skin – not dirt, not soap, not even water (figured that one out on Day 1!). But it’s something to do and makes me feel a little less alien.

Anyway, it’s time for me to move again. Some loser came up to me in the parking lot when I went out to get a map from the car, and when I pushed him away, he flew about 10 feet and slammed into the side of some soccer mom’s SUV. What am I? I’m still asking that question, and still have no answers.

THREE

 

She was still screaming. She’d been doing that since early morning, and now it was late evening. Her throat was raw, but not as horribly as it should have been, only she was too mindlessly terrified to wonder about that. The small house seemed to vibrate with the sound, while outside, birds had been startled away, the ground creatures burrowing into their dens with trepidation. She had no way of knowing any of this, yet somehow she did.

Occasionally, a bout of tearless sobbing would interrupt her screams, but then she’d look down at her arms and start again. They were not her arms; her legs were not hers, either, and when she looked into the mirror, she nearly went insane.

The night before had been normal, maybe even more peaceful than usual because of the beauty the sunlight had given during the hours before it. She’d gone to bed smiling, wishing fervently that the next day would be as glorious. And then she’d awoken to another grey sky, and the sudden realization that she wasn’t breathing.

Samantha had sat up quickly, one hand to her chest, unable to feel a heartbeat. Two fingers on her jugular failed to produce a pulse that would indicat life. As for the touch of her own skin – it wasn’t her own skin. It felt like something artificial, room- temperature, too smooth.

And she still wasn’t breathing, nor did she feel any primal urge to do so. Yanking back the covers, she had stared down at herself (being so totally alone out in the woods, she never wore anything to bed) and realized that she wasn’t looking at her own body. Too smooth, too strange.

As an experiment, she’d inhaled. Well, that had worked, but when she exhaled, it wasn’t to breathe but to make a sound, a sound that quickly turned into a long, terror-filled scream. Not caring if this horrible sound brought anybody to check on her, she had wandered around stark naked, going to the windows and screaming up at the dull, impassive sky, sitting at the table and screaming at the sight of her own hands, wandering briefly outside to scream at the trees.

What had happened? She had been so normal – physically, anyway – eight hours earlier. Her confusion went so deep, she had eventually stopped thinking altogether, had stopped asking questions, including “why?” and “how?” and had sunk down by one of the casements, huddled on the floor, and kept screaming.

But now she had decided to stop. Not because she was tired, worn out, hungry, thirsty, or any of the usual reasons why someone would stop behaving in such an exhausting way. She didn’t know why. But when she did, the silence pulsed in her ears, and she stood.

“What am I?” Her voice sounded and felt normal despite the screaming. Of course it did. “What happened to me?” She frowned and decided to take another look in the mirror, determined this time to stay steady in her mind. Maybe this wasn’t such an awful thing, she told herself.

As someone with a lively imagination, she was able, now that she was no longer hysterical, to consider the possibilities. This ability to find the brighter side of things had kept her from giving in to the self-loathing and doubt that might so easily have been caused by the negative way people reacted to her throughout her twenty-one years of life. So she lit one of the lamps and carried it into the small room that held her bathtub, sink, toilet, and mirrored medicine cabinet. Something else to think about was how, when she stood still in front of the mirror, the way she wasn’t moving looked…unnatural. Like she was staring at a photograph rather than a reflection.

Samantha had never been unattractive, a source of extreme annoyance to her family who felt that a girl as beautiful as she should be far more normal. As she gazed at herself, she found some comfort in her appearance for the simple reason that it hadn’t changed, but had only become more unreal. No more pores, she noticed. That was good. Her short-cropped, thick auburn hair shone with golden highlights in the lamp’s mellow light, just as it did in the sun. She had large, wide-set almond-shaped eyes that a friend of her mother’s had described as Wedgwood blue, an attractive nose, full, sensuous lips that stretched into a lovely smile over perfect teeth. High cheekbones and a softly rounded chin gave her a somewhat elfin look, as did her slender form. She was long-waisted, curvy in all the right places, her legs long, slim, and muscular in a feminine way.

All of which was nice because she’d never had to deal with improving her looks, only now it seemed something was doing exactly that. As she stared, she began to notice that she was no longer freckled on the part of herself that she could see, and when she looked back up at her face, realized that slight, asymmetric difference of her nostrils was gone, fixed, as was the tiny shape inconsistency of her eyes.

Had she been able to gasp, she would have, especially when she looked downward again and saw that her breasts were now perfectly even and the same. She took in enough air to mutter, “Oh, my!” And despite her earlier terror, confusion and despair, she smiled. She took in some more air. “Well, Samantha,” she told her reflection, “look at you! You’re gorgeous!”

The smile became a grin, and she danced away from the mirror, feeling magnificent, light, close to weightless. As she whirled into the next room, she realized that she’d left the lamp in the bathroom, only...

“I can see in the dark? Ah! I can see in the dark! Yesssss!!!! Oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, yes!” She took in a little more air than previously and let herself laugh. This was wonderful! She could save on lamp oil and candles, and her electric bill would be non-existent! she thought, giddy with new joy.

Out into the woodland night she twirled, danced with the fireflies, did a few cartwheels, and not once got dizzy, weary, or even a little woeful. Something miraculous had happened to her – why her, she couldn’t have said, but she was grateful indeed. Raising her arms and face to the clouds she shouted, “Thank you! Thank you! I am yours to command!”

Samantha laughed again and sat on her rock, happy, to consider her own words. A tiny frown appeared between now-perfect eyebrows and she began to wonder who or what had given her this gift, and what whoever or whatever it was might want in return. Well, as long as it was nothing evil, she was all right with it, she decided. And if it were evil, why, she’d just tell the Whatever to take it back.

Her thoughts ran on this way for a long time, and it wasn’t until she heard birdsong again that she realized the night was gone and another day had awakened. Everything was as clear to her vision as it had been during the night, and as she stood, she shook her head in wonder. Walking back to the cottage, she considered having some breakfast, but by the time she reached the door, it had struck her that she wasn’t in the least bit hungry.

“I should be, though,” she muttered as she went inside. “And really, I should put something on.” Despite her solitude, she’d never gone for so long without clothing, and it made her wonder if this might not be yet another side-effect of whatever change had taken place – the need to dress was no longer there. She did anyway, in case someone happened to come by. Her personal weirdness seemed to have hit an all-time high, but there was no need to flaunt it in everyone’s face, she told herself with a happy giggle.

One of her favorite items – a long, gauzy dress that was form-fitting from her ribs to her hips, flowing out the rest of the way to her ankles, was her immediate choice. The same blue as her eyes, the gauzy top layer covered a white under-dress, also of soft gauze, giving it a crystalline look. Cap sleeves that moved like tissue and a loosely folded, relaxed bodice made it comfortable in a kind of delicious, decadent way. She added a slender necklace of fine silver chains from which was suspended a silver crescent moon. The dress was her only concession to normalcy, and she refused to put on any undergarments.

She swirled around once, liking the way it moved with nothing between the gauzy material and her new and incredibly smooth skin. “This is beyond lovely!” She went outside with a pad of fresh paper and her pen, sat down on the rock, and closed her eyes.

Something in her told her she was no longer alive in the conventional sense, but rather than be bothered by it, she rejoiced that she was alive in a different, better way. In fact, the way she was feeling, life as she’d always understood it seemed like a slow death. Samantha was more than alive in this form than she’d ever been in the other.

Ideas began to come into her mind,