A Whole New Role
“In a word, the world is all transformation, and life is opinion.”
Marcus Aurelius. (c. 180 CE). Meditations.
Jacob's hands gripped with white-knuckle tightness upon the tarnished, bronze ring. Thoughts, fears, anxieties, and doubts all danced through his head. If only there was a way he could be different … life could be different … everything could be different. If only he could re-live a few years, change a few bad choices, re-shape his present life into …
… and without warning, Jacob found himself indoors.
The bright light of the afternoon sun had been replaced with the dim glow of an overhead, incandescent bulb. Dirty pink wallpaper with some kind of twee floral pattern surrounded him. He was sitting now – no longer standing. And the discolored ring of bronze or brass or whatever … it was gone.
Jacob pushed his chair back from the small, wooden desk he'd found himself facing. Rising to his feet, he took stock of his surroundings: a twin bed with rumpled, unmade covers … a wooden dresser, painted pink-and-white and plastered with stickers blazoned with the logos of bands, movies, and TV shows Jacob was unfamiliar with … a white, plastic laundry basket was overflowing with a stale-smelling mound of clothes …
… and waitaminute: these aren't just clothes.
Jacob held his breath and peered closer at the disarrayed heap of sloppy, straggly, slightly stained garments and clearly spotted more than one pair of multicolored panties and brassieres amidst the more mundane shirts, socks, and pants.
He was in a girl's bedroom.
Jacob's heart leaped into his throat in a combination of panic and embarrassment.
What the hell had happened? Had he blacked-out or something? He had no memory of coming in here. In fact, he had no idea of where “here” even was! This wasn't his fault. He couldn't be blamed. But still … think of the humiliation in trying to explain his presence here if someone suddenly stumbled in and discovered him like this! God forbid this girl, or her parents, might open the door at any moment.
And that's when Jacob made his next discovery.
On the side of the bedroom door facing Jacob was a full-length mirror: a thin, silvery rectangle reflecting passively every little facet of reality that danced before it. And at the moment, the mirror was displaying the living, moving reflection of thirteen-year old Kaitlyn Johnson … Emily's sister.
As Jacob moved, the enantiomorph of Emily's little sister mimicked his motions with eerie echopraxia. Jacob looked down at himself: he was still a chubby, greasy, hairy, teenage boy. But he now realized he was wearing the “Attack on Titan” t-shirt and overall shorts he'd last seen on Kaitlyn. Bizarrely enough, the clothes seemed to perfectly fit his larger, more muscular (but mostly flabbier) frame, despite clearly being designed for a younger, smaller, and decidedly more female wearer. Glancing back up into the frightful mirror again, Jacob again saw the heterochiral likeness of Kaitlyn now gazing back out at him with eyes wide with panic and fear.
“That's me,” he said softly, pointing at the mirrored effigy of Kaitlyn Johnson.
She obliged and pointed right back.
“I've switched lives with Emily's kid sister!” he gasped, as the full impact wrought by his foolish daydreaming while holding that stupid, metal doughnut slowly began to sink in.
Running to the window (and wincing in shame at the fuzzy pink ankle socks on his feet), Jacob glanced out on the Johnson family's front yard. Emily was just getting into the car of that stupid jerk, Michael Jones. But where was Jacob?
“Shit. I'm Jacob,” he had to remind himself. “I should be looking for Kaitlyn. This is all her fault. Hopefully she still has that dumb metal ring and change us back.”
But try as he could, Jacob could spot no one else outside.
“Kaitlyn?” came a muffled, adult voice from outside the bedroom door. “You'd better be doing your homework, young lady. I'm serious about you knuckling down and taking school seriously. You've had your head in the clouds for too long. Until your grades improve, you're grounded. And I can promise you this: you won't be leaving your bedroom at all tonight – not even for dinner – until you get that schoolwork finished. Do you hear me, missy?”
Jacob's eyes darted about the room in fright. He stole a panicked glance down at himself and saw his own male body wearing all the clothes of Mrs. Johnson's youngest daughter. Then he looked back to the mirror and was greeted by the horrified expression of a terrified teenage girl. He supposed Mrs. Johnson would see him as Kaitlyn, but at the moment he didn't dare take that risk.
Clearing his throat, Jacob managed to mutter a weak reply to the woman on the other side of Kaitlyn's bedroom door: “Y- Y- Yes, mom!”