![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
halfshellvenusBecoming Multitudes
Idol Wheel of Chaos | Week 15 | 2091 words
Head to Head: Use another author's two entries from last week as a springboard. Mine weredrippedonpaper's Ambuscade and A Nail Driven Out By Another Nail.
x-x-x-x-x
I was five years old the first time I changed.
One minute, I was looking at a bluebird and wondering what it would be like to fly. Suddenly, the grass was up to my chest and the rest of the world seemed far away.
I was so startled that I changed right back again.
I wasn't sure it had actually happened. How was it even possible? I decided that I must have imagined it. I kept on believing that until six months later, when it happened all over again.
It was such an innocent thought: do puppies know their tails are wagging? And then I was nose to nose with our puppy, a happy little brown dachshund who'd never met another dog she didn't like. We chased each other around the yard for a long time, running circles in the grass and racing in and out of the flowerbeds. When I stopped to catch my breath, I remembered who I was and just like that, I was Annie again. Coco jumped back and yipped, but was just as happy to see the Annie version of me as puppy me.
After that, I started to wonder if changing was something everyone could do.
"Mommy, do you ever change into other things?" I asked her.
"Like what?" she said.
"Like a bird, or a doggy?"
She just laughed and hugged me. "What an imagination you have!"
I guessed that meant No.
I asked my friend Sophie whether she had ever been something else. "A cat once, maybe?" she said. "In a dream?"
As I got older, I learned to stop asking. Nobody else could do what I did. That either made me special or weird. Maybe both.
I learned to change when no one was around. Sometimes I would turn into a cat in my bedroom. At first, I couldn't get the fur or the nose quite right–the mirror showed me that. But I got better with practice. I loved being a cat. My legs were so strong! I spent hours jumping on and off the bed. Chasing my tail and curling up into a little ball were fun, too. I was afraid to leave my room, in case Coco attacked me, but I had a good time being a cat, a lizard, and a tiny little mouse.
I really wanted to try flying, but Mom was always watching whenever I was in the backyard. I didn't get a chance until I was almost eight.
First, I imagined myself as a robin, and then I was. I stood there on the patio flapping my wings as hard as I could, but I didn't go anywhere. Then I tried jumping up and flapping, and I sort of fluttered above the ground for a while before I got tired. Being a bird was harder than it looked! But with more jumping and practice, I was able to fly around the yard. It was amazing!
Sometimes, I snuck behind a bush at recess and changed, and then flew over the playground or hid up in a tree and watched everyone else. Other times, I tried changing into one of the kids on the other side of the schoolyard, just to see if anyone could tell I wasn't really them. That was how I found out that boys didn't talk as much during recess as girls did, and that some of the girls weren't really my friends. That was sad. I cried until it was time to go back to our classrooms, and I couldn't tell anybody why.
As I got older, I just couldn't believe I was the only one who could do stuff like that. One night at dinner, I asked Mom and Dad whether anybody in the family had any magical powers.
"What?" they both said.
That was disappointing. It meant there was no one I could turn to for advice.
I tried reading about shapeshifters in books. I knew the books were fiction, but what if there was some truth in them? I didn't have any other sources who could help me..
One book said that shapeshifters changed back when they were asleep, so I tried that out a few times. It was a lie. Another said that shifters sometimes got tricked into turning into things that weren't alive, and then got stuck because objects have no thoughts and they couldn't find their way back.
That made sense to me. I was glad I'd never done that.
But mostly, it seemed like nobody really knew anything. There was no one to talk to about what it was like, or how lonely it sometimes got.
Changing meant I could be almost anything. Whatever was needed for a situation, I could create the appearance of it– though I couldn't make myself smarter, more talented, or athletic in human form. But with all that changing, I walked a lot of miles in other people's shoes, and I learned a lot about other people's feelings and motivations. I became very good at reflecting what other people wanted from me, and at avoiding uncomfortable situations by disappearing into someone else.
I didn't understand how much harder that would make it for people to know me, or even for me to know myself.
I never suffered the physical awkwardness of adolescence. I was always a smooth-skinned acne-free version of myself, proportionate when others were gawky. Only my family saw me as I truly was, in all my blemished lack of glory.
By high school, I was masking my appearance every day. It wasn't by much, but I'd quickly learned that the real me wasn't good enough. I was nice-looking, but unremarkable and easily overlooked. That's a harsh thing to find out about yourself.
Fake me was more popular than I ever would have been. Being prettier gave me the confidence to become a little braver and more outgoing. Deep down, I knew that it was all a lie. But I wasn't brave enough to drop the disguise.
Part of me knew that it was the wrong way to go through life, but I was young and I thought there would always be time to make it right later.
I graduated from college with a degree in psychology, putting all those years of empathy to use. I spent my days helping other people to overcome their fears and hesitations even though I was too scared to do that myself.
The irony wasn't lost on me, but the truth was that while I'd always liked other people, I just didn't trust them very much.
Even my boyfriend knew that.
"It's like there's this wall between you and the world, and you won't let me in. I don't even know who you really are."
Those were the last words he said to me before walking out the door. And I couldn't deny it–everything he'd said was true. But I just didn't know how to let my guard down, even if I'd wanted to. I'd thought David was The One, and that we'd spend the rest of our lives together. Instead, I was all alone once more.
I was thirty-three by then, still waiting for my life to start.
I wanted children, but I'd always thought they'd need a father. With all of the years I'd spent ducking challenging situations, who was I to take up the charge of raising them alone?
But then I realized that I couldn't guarantee ever finding the right person. The only thing I could be sure of was me. So, if I wanted a future where I had a family of my own, I had to finally become someone different on the inside. I had to grow up enough to face difficult situations head on, and learn from them.
The first step was to stop changing. Stop hiding.
I was a little shocked to see my real face. I'd been adjusting my appearance for so long, always based on who I'd started being in high school, that I had no idea what I really looked like anymore.
I was a little more wrinkled, a little less perky, a little less… I was just less, overall.
I had the urge to change it all right back, but I'd made a promise to myself. The fact was, I wasn't unattractive. The bloom was off the rose, yes, but nothing catastrophic. It wasn't ideal, but I could live with it. I could even live with that nose.
I took a deep breath, and decided to go grocery shopping.
It wasn't terrible. In fact, it was about the same as always. I was polite, other people were polite, nobody attacked me in the produce aisle. It was encouraging. I picked up my dry-cleaning on the way home, and the woman behind the counter even seemed to recognize me.
On Monday, I went to the office still looking like the real me. I got a couple of double-takes, and a few people told me I looked tired, but that was it. I wasn't treated like some ugly duckling, and I wasn't accused of being an imposter.
When I thought about it, it was really the other me who had been the imposter anyway.
I went out for drinks with my friend Chloe on Friday night. "You look different," she said. "More relaxed. Finally feeling better about the breakup with David?"
I smiled. I did feel better. Losing David was the end of a very specific dream, not the end of all my dreams.
"I guess we weren't quite right for each other," I said. "I didn't see it at the time, but I wasn't comfortable being myself."
That was more about me than about David, but I realized that I'd never had that problem with my closest friends. Maybe there was something to be learned from that.
At work, I felt as if I had a greater rapport with my clients. A few of them opened up more than ever, and we started making real progress. My job had never been so satisfying.
But I needed to stretch myself more. I decided to volunteer at a children's home.
The kids there had been through tough times, but they were so resilient. The younger ones were still hopeful, the older ones were more cautious but still longed for a happy future. And why shouldn't they? They were great kids, and they deserved good things. My job was to make sure they knew that.
Had I come far enough for me to be worthy of being a parent? I wasn't sure, but I knew I was making progress. The fact that I'd had good parents myself was a huge help.
October arrived, and with it came the urge to fly. I'd spent many a full-moon night as an owl, roaming the skies and feeling the wind whistle past my wings.
I could do it, I decided. Changing into animals had never been my problem– it was hiding who I was as a person that had kept me so stunted. I needed balance in my life, just like everyone else. My balance was just a little different from most people's.
My night flights made me even happier. I understood then that I deserved good things, too.
"You're nice," a little girl named Hailey said to me at the children's home one day.
"So are you," I told her. "I think nice people attract other nice people."
"Me too!" Hailey said.
I hadn't known I believed that until I said it. Somehow, I'd managed to surprise myself.
"There's someone I want you to meet." Hailey took my hand and pulled me toward the kitchen. "He's new."
There was a tall, brown-haired man standing by the coffeemaker, who smiled when he saw us. "Hello."
"Hi, Sam!" Hailey said. "This is my friend, Annie!"
"Hi," I said, and reached out to shake his hand.
He smiled even bigger, and my stomach flip-flopped. "Hello, Annie," he said. He had a firm grip, and a twinkle in his eye that made me grin.
The puppy inside me wanted to be playful with this man, and the cat inside me wanted to feel his touch.
"Care for some coffee?" he asked.
"I'd love some," I said.
I was ready, I realized.
Ready for this, and for anything else the future might bring my way.
–/–
If you enjoyed this story, please vote for it here.
Idol Wheel of Chaos | Week 15 | 2091 words
Head to Head: Use another author's two entries from last week as a springboard. Mine were
drippedonpaper's Ambuscade and A Nail Driven Out By Another Nail.x-x-x-x-x
I was five years old the first time I changed.
One minute, I was looking at a bluebird and wondering what it would be like to fly. Suddenly, the grass was up to my chest and the rest of the world seemed far away.
I was so startled that I changed right back again.
I wasn't sure it had actually happened. How was it even possible? I decided that I must have imagined it. I kept on believing that until six months later, when it happened all over again.
It was such an innocent thought: do puppies know their tails are wagging? And then I was nose to nose with our puppy, a happy little brown dachshund who'd never met another dog she didn't like. We chased each other around the yard for a long time, running circles in the grass and racing in and out of the flowerbeds. When I stopped to catch my breath, I remembered who I was and just like that, I was Annie again. Coco jumped back and yipped, but was just as happy to see the Annie version of me as puppy me.
After that, I started to wonder if changing was something everyone could do.
"Mommy, do you ever change into other things?" I asked her.
"Like what?" she said.
"Like a bird, or a doggy?"
She just laughed and hugged me. "What an imagination you have!"
I guessed that meant No.
I asked my friend Sophie whether she had ever been something else. "A cat once, maybe?" she said. "In a dream?"
As I got older, I learned to stop asking. Nobody else could do what I did. That either made me special or weird. Maybe both.
I learned to change when no one was around. Sometimes I would turn into a cat in my bedroom. At first, I couldn't get the fur or the nose quite right–the mirror showed me that. But I got better with practice. I loved being a cat. My legs were so strong! I spent hours jumping on and off the bed. Chasing my tail and curling up into a little ball were fun, too. I was afraid to leave my room, in case Coco attacked me, but I had a good time being a cat, a lizard, and a tiny little mouse.
I really wanted to try flying, but Mom was always watching whenever I was in the backyard. I didn't get a chance until I was almost eight.
First, I imagined myself as a robin, and then I was. I stood there on the patio flapping my wings as hard as I could, but I didn't go anywhere. Then I tried jumping up and flapping, and I sort of fluttered above the ground for a while before I got tired. Being a bird was harder than it looked! But with more jumping and practice, I was able to fly around the yard. It was amazing!
Sometimes, I snuck behind a bush at recess and changed, and then flew over the playground or hid up in a tree and watched everyone else. Other times, I tried changing into one of the kids on the other side of the schoolyard, just to see if anyone could tell I wasn't really them. That was how I found out that boys didn't talk as much during recess as girls did, and that some of the girls weren't really my friends. That was sad. I cried until it was time to go back to our classrooms, and I couldn't tell anybody why.
As I got older, I just couldn't believe I was the only one who could do stuff like that. One night at dinner, I asked Mom and Dad whether anybody in the family had any magical powers.
"What?" they both said.
That was disappointing. It meant there was no one I could turn to for advice.
I tried reading about shapeshifters in books. I knew the books were fiction, but what if there was some truth in them? I didn't have any other sources who could help me..
One book said that shapeshifters changed back when they were asleep, so I tried that out a few times. It was a lie. Another said that shifters sometimes got tricked into turning into things that weren't alive, and then got stuck because objects have no thoughts and they couldn't find their way back.
That made sense to me. I was glad I'd never done that.
But mostly, it seemed like nobody really knew anything. There was no one to talk to about what it was like, or how lonely it sometimes got.
Changing meant I could be almost anything. Whatever was needed for a situation, I could create the appearance of it– though I couldn't make myself smarter, more talented, or athletic in human form. But with all that changing, I walked a lot of miles in other people's shoes, and I learned a lot about other people's feelings and motivations. I became very good at reflecting what other people wanted from me, and at avoiding uncomfortable situations by disappearing into someone else.
I didn't understand how much harder that would make it for people to know me, or even for me to know myself.
I never suffered the physical awkwardness of adolescence. I was always a smooth-skinned acne-free version of myself, proportionate when others were gawky. Only my family saw me as I truly was, in all my blemished lack of glory.
By high school, I was masking my appearance every day. It wasn't by much, but I'd quickly learned that the real me wasn't good enough. I was nice-looking, but unremarkable and easily overlooked. That's a harsh thing to find out about yourself.
Fake me was more popular than I ever would have been. Being prettier gave me the confidence to become a little braver and more outgoing. Deep down, I knew that it was all a lie. But I wasn't brave enough to drop the disguise.
Part of me knew that it was the wrong way to go through life, but I was young and I thought there would always be time to make it right later.
I graduated from college with a degree in psychology, putting all those years of empathy to use. I spent my days helping other people to overcome their fears and hesitations even though I was too scared to do that myself.
The irony wasn't lost on me, but the truth was that while I'd always liked other people, I just didn't trust them very much.
Even my boyfriend knew that.
"It's like there's this wall between you and the world, and you won't let me in. I don't even know who you really are."
Those were the last words he said to me before walking out the door. And I couldn't deny it–everything he'd said was true. But I just didn't know how to let my guard down, even if I'd wanted to. I'd thought David was The One, and that we'd spend the rest of our lives together. Instead, I was all alone once more.
I was thirty-three by then, still waiting for my life to start.
I wanted children, but I'd always thought they'd need a father. With all of the years I'd spent ducking challenging situations, who was I to take up the charge of raising them alone?
But then I realized that I couldn't guarantee ever finding the right person. The only thing I could be sure of was me. So, if I wanted a future where I had a family of my own, I had to finally become someone different on the inside. I had to grow up enough to face difficult situations head on, and learn from them.
The first step was to stop changing. Stop hiding.
I was a little shocked to see my real face. I'd been adjusting my appearance for so long, always based on who I'd started being in high school, that I had no idea what I really looked like anymore.
I was a little more wrinkled, a little less perky, a little less… I was just less, overall.
I had the urge to change it all right back, but I'd made a promise to myself. The fact was, I wasn't unattractive. The bloom was off the rose, yes, but nothing catastrophic. It wasn't ideal, but I could live with it. I could even live with that nose.
I took a deep breath, and decided to go grocery shopping.
It wasn't terrible. In fact, it was about the same as always. I was polite, other people were polite, nobody attacked me in the produce aisle. It was encouraging. I picked up my dry-cleaning on the way home, and the woman behind the counter even seemed to recognize me.
On Monday, I went to the office still looking like the real me. I got a couple of double-takes, and a few people told me I looked tired, but that was it. I wasn't treated like some ugly duckling, and I wasn't accused of being an imposter.
When I thought about it, it was really the other me who had been the imposter anyway.
I went out for drinks with my friend Chloe on Friday night. "You look different," she said. "More relaxed. Finally feeling better about the breakup with David?"
I smiled. I did feel better. Losing David was the end of a very specific dream, not the end of all my dreams.
"I guess we weren't quite right for each other," I said. "I didn't see it at the time, but I wasn't comfortable being myself."
That was more about me than about David, but I realized that I'd never had that problem with my closest friends. Maybe there was something to be learned from that.
At work, I felt as if I had a greater rapport with my clients. A few of them opened up more than ever, and we started making real progress. My job had never been so satisfying.
But I needed to stretch myself more. I decided to volunteer at a children's home.
The kids there had been through tough times, but they were so resilient. The younger ones were still hopeful, the older ones were more cautious but still longed for a happy future. And why shouldn't they? They were great kids, and they deserved good things. My job was to make sure they knew that.
Had I come far enough for me to be worthy of being a parent? I wasn't sure, but I knew I was making progress. The fact that I'd had good parents myself was a huge help.
October arrived, and with it came the urge to fly. I'd spent many a full-moon night as an owl, roaming the skies and feeling the wind whistle past my wings.
I could do it, I decided. Changing into animals had never been my problem– it was hiding who I was as a person that had kept me so stunted. I needed balance in my life, just like everyone else. My balance was just a little different from most people's.
My night flights made me even happier. I understood then that I deserved good things, too.
"You're nice," a little girl named Hailey said to me at the children's home one day.
"So are you," I told her. "I think nice people attract other nice people."
"Me too!" Hailey said.
I hadn't known I believed that until I said it. Somehow, I'd managed to surprise myself.
"There's someone I want you to meet." Hailey took my hand and pulled me toward the kitchen. "He's new."
There was a tall, brown-haired man standing by the coffeemaker, who smiled when he saw us. "Hello."
"Hi, Sam!" Hailey said. "This is my friend, Annie!"
"Hi," I said, and reached out to shake his hand.
He smiled even bigger, and my stomach flip-flopped. "Hello, Annie," he said. He had a firm grip, and a twinkle in his eye that made me grin.
The puppy inside me wanted to be playful with this man, and the cat inside me wanted to feel his touch.
"Care for some coffee?" he asked.
"I'd love some," I said.
I was ready, I realized.
Ready for this, and for anything else the future might bring my way.
–/–
If you enjoyed this story, please vote for it here.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-16 12:39 am (UTC)When your character asked her parents if others can change into animals, it reminded me of a time I was telling my son about a friend who had synthesia (in this case, could "see" music as colors.) My son replied, "Can't everyone?" and it turns out my kid could too. I had never thought to ask (it's pretty rare) and my son had never mentioned it, as he thought everyone could so why talk about it.
Your story is so great. I think it would make a good book (hint?)
no subject
Date: 2025-11-16 01:45 am (UTC)My son replied, "Can't everyone?"
Wow! Though how could he know that it was rare, and he was just one of the lucky ones? Though I read a children's book about kids with synesthesia, and one thing the author included from her childhood was trouble with math. Numbers were different colors to her, and she would often get pulled in by the color rather than the value and screw up the arithmetic! I hope your son didn't find himself in that position.
I enjoyed both of your original entries, and I felt lucky to be able to make something of them for this entry without risking treading on your toes. AFAIK, Gary doesn't write stories, so the possibility of offending or hurting another author by using their work as a foundation doesn't seem to set off red flags for him. I personally think it can be risky.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-18 11:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-11-19 12:35 am (UTC)There was another contestant years ago who also had it, and she used to drive her kindergarten teacher crazy because she would eat crayons. Like, a box of 128 crayons was 128 different flavors to her! Whereas for most people, they would all taste like wax. :O