“Better get dressed,” you say in your baritone voice as you place your other hairy foot on the ground. Dave was a fast cooker which meant your breakfast would 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 be done in the next few minutes.
You kick your right foot to the side, ready to get up, when you suddenly hit something hard. Looking down you spot a familiar pair of black dress shoes with two white cushioned crew socks sticking out of them.
“Aren’t those the magic socks?” you say absentmindedly, not paying much attention to them. However, the moment those words leave your mouth, you feel everything coming back.
Your eyes are wide open as you begin to remember everything. The magic socks, using them to turn into Jimmy, and taking a random pair of shoes from Jimmy’s bathroom and putting them on.
“What… what was I doing?” You look down at your fat and hairy middle-aged body, now fully recalling that it was John’s (Jimmy’s dad) body, not yours.
Placing a large and calloused palm to your forehead, you feel your mind scrambling as it tries to keep up with two set of memories.
You remember everything about your old life as Mike, but you also seem to have gained another set of memories. According to your new memories, you were still named Mike but you were now John’s identical twin brother. And it appeared that you were now dating your dad… gross.
Looking further into the memories, you see yourself growing up alongside John, the two of you as thick as thieves. However, you began to realize you were different from your brother when you were in middle school, when all he began to talk about were girls while your interests lied further in the attractive high school boy that lived across the street. It was then that you knew you were gay. Yet, you chose to stay in the closet, not revealing the truth to anyone until you got into your thirties. Surprisingly, your brother had no problems with it. In fact, he introduced you to his friend, Dave (your dad), who had just gotten divorced with his wife after discovering his own repressed sexuality. While the two of you started as friends, bonding over your closeted pasts, it began to develop into a stronger relationship. Before the two of you knew it, you had begun dating and moved in together. Now, five years later, your relationship was still going strong. Maybe even stronger than ever. You can recall hearing some rumors that Dave might propose to you in the upcoming month.
The idea brings a blush to your pale face, a fuzzy and warm feeling developing in your chest.
You quickly recoil in disgust and shake your head. Disgusting! That was your dad, not your boyfriend. On top of that, you weren’t even gay. At least the original Mike wasn’t, if you remember correctly.
“Something’s definitely wrong here,” you say aloud, staring intensely at the magic socks poking out of the shoes. The first time you used the socks, you had just turned into Jimmy with no effects on reality whatsoever. But using them again had caused reality to alter. Why was that? You remember doing everything exactly the same: slipping on the socks and putting on your left shoe before your right one, like you always did.
“Hmmm….” You stroke your beard in an accustomed manner and concentrate on the socks further. Were you sure you did everything 𝘦𝘹𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 the same?
When you first opened the socks, you remembered clearly putting the left sock on before the right one. Yet, when it came to putting them on the second time, you couldn’t precisely say which one you wore first.
Maybe, just maybe, that one difference could explain the sudden reality alteration.
You bend down, pull the socks out of the dress shoes, and lift them until they’re in front of your face.
Did that mean putting the magic socks on in a different order was capable of altering reality?
It was just an idea, but it sounded plausible enough; after all, the only thing you could have possibly changed when using them was the sock order. But how were you supposed to be certain? There was no way to know without testing them. Not only that, but how were you supposed to turn back to normal if your old shoes no longer existed in this new reality?