The reflection in the mirror was not that of Max but that of a kangaroo. It stood there watching its reflection with perhaps a curiosity but little else.
"Did I turn on a nature channel or something?" Max asked.
The kangaroo was still looking at him. For a fleeting few seconds, Max felt a warmth at his back. He *was* that kangaroo! It all seemed perfectly natural and clear. He wanted to know who the other roo was. An intruder? Competition for *his* females?
A blink and Max was back in his bathroom still looking at the kangaroo. Had he just been a kangaroo? It had all seemed natural as though he'd being a kangaroo was as natural as being human.
Another blink and the warmth was back.
This time, it was different. Max was that kangaroo looking at the mirror. He knew that the other kangaroo was he. The fact that it did what he did was evidence enough.
Max turned around and hopped away. He'd done it without a second thought. Then he realized it. He felt like he was wearing clothes but in fact, he wasen't. This body, this *animal* body was his.
This was right, wasen't it? Max's kangaroo half was confused. All these new memories and knowledge made little sense to him yet at the same time were familiar. Was he one of those people that looked at him? Now they had a name ... human. But why was that name so familiar? It wasen't like he was learning it for the first time as much as it was as though he were remembering a fact he'd long forgotten.
However, now Max remembered a world outside where he was. Before all he remembered was this place and this life. He now had comprehension that he had a feeling they never intended him to posses. He wasen't born a kangaroo. However, this form and existence it felt natural, too natural. It was as though this were another path his life could have taken. It was difficult for him to tell which memories were from which life.
Then it hit him! He remembered a time when he was a child, eight years old. In his two sets of memories, both were more or less the same up until that point. He'd gone to the zoo with his parents and wandered off. A strange man had tried to lure him. That's where things diverged and became entangled.
In this life, (his real life didn't seem an appropriate way of putting it, more this life) the man had taken him into a building and given him a drink. Max remembered feeling his body change as his clothes were torn and/or fell from him. Then, things went fuzzy and he coulden't seem to remember much he'd learned in school. Soon, he coulden't concentrate and even started to forget he was ever human.
In his other life (the one that he was certain he belonged in), he remembered seeing Pinocchio as a kid and remembered the dangers of going with strangers. He'd learned that one's first mistake could be their last and had run from the man. There was times he'd wondered what could have happened had he gone with the man, the so called road not taken. Now, it seemed Max was on this road.
As a way to confirm this reality, Max leaned down and wrote his name in the dirt. Something he'd long forgotten how to do. No, he knew that in this path he'd forgotten! It was hard to tell the difference.
The question Max had to ask himself was, what was he to do now?