Oliver slowly opened his eyes to the bright sunlight of a new world, filtering in through his window blinds. The dream that he’d had last night flashed before him in disjointed fragments: the station, the train, the light. And that was the last thing he remembered.
The boy took stock of his new body, finding it almost identical to his old one. At least he and the former Oliver of this world wouldn’t be getting too freaked out at their little swap-a-roo…for now, anyway.
Getting up, he reached out for the pullstring that would raise the window blinds. His eyes blinked into the bright sun. Below him the world was bright but cloudy, the dark sky collecting and dispersing the light and turning the sky into a white-gray vanilla. The ground below him was covered in cold, white snow. A few hardy souls were already out and about on the sidewalks, thick winter coats bundled around them. A few light flurries landed on his windowpane and melted into water almost instantly. Winter. Okay, he thought. I’ve got no problem with winter. I mean, it’s not great, but I’ll take it. I mean, Christmas, New Year’s, skiing and snowball fights and bonfires…
Anyway, Oliver went through his usual morning routine as best as he could, though he was surprised to find the odd pair of panties or bra mixed into his underwear drawer or the odd dress or skirt hanging up in his closet. And he tried his best not to think about the boxes of tampons and Maxi pads that he knew from his previous world were definitely not his mom’s brand.
When he finally made it downstairs, he saw his family (Mom, Dad and little brother), exactly as he’d left them in the other world, for now. He interacted with them in the same way he always had, and they responded in kind.
That is, until his mom pulled a colorful sheet of paper off the front of the refrigerator and placed it down in front of him.
“Now, Ollie, I hope you haven’t forgotten that the next cosmic transition point is coming up soon, and you promised to take your little brother along this year. As for your father and I, we’ll be staying around the house that night and…getting reacquainted with our changed selves.”
She wiggled her eyebrows at his father, where he stood drinking a mug of coffee next to the percolator. And then she smacked his ass and growled flirtatiously.
To keep himself from losing his breakfast, Oliver tuned out his little brother’s excited chattering and looked down at the flyer.
“New Year, New You” Festival, it read. It featured clipart of a boy and a girl, dressed in winter gear, hands clasped in prayer in front of a bonfire, underneath a starry sky.
Apparently, the solstices and equinoxes were treated as an excuse for a holiday get-together in this world. It seemed to be a sort of social party/religious festival, in which prayers and rituals were offered up to the universe, in the hopes that one might either increase or decrease their odds of spontaneously changing their gender during the meet-up itself.
Oliver opted to spend as much time as he could Googling more of the particulars before the big event.