At the house that was apparently ours in the world we ended up in, we took the opportunity to wash our clothes, and we looked through papers to try to see how we lived on this world. It looked like we had a handyman business.

Rose, Kick That Leg High

Well, it all started about eight months ago, I had been working in Vegas for a little over a month, a transplant from Southern Arizona. I came up here to try and further my career as a dancer. Of course, the chances of getting a job professionally are quite low, but dreams and ideals spur you on to keep trying. It makes it twice as hard when you are a male dancer. The majority of the dancers working in Vegas are female, buxom semi-naked females.

Ellen and I were both handy with tools, but only doing odd jobs. To take a chance at something better, we entered a do-it-yourselfer reality TV show. This type of thing wasn’t for everybody. We had to be able to spend weeks on location in Key West (because it was billed as an “island getaway” to draw in viewers), and even more time there if we won. So it was ideal for people like us with no steady work.

Caden wakes with his arms folded across his chest, fingers digging into his own ribs. A dull ache pulses beneath the skin — persistent, like the ghost of a bruise. He rolls onto his back and hisses as the sheets drag across his nipples, rough against skin that had turned traitor overnight. The pain isn't localized; it radiates outward in concentric circles, tightening with each breath. He presses the heel of his hand against his sternum, testing. The pressure sends a jolt down to his navel.

Keith and I had decided we were going to try to go together into what would be my eighth life and his second. But deciding on another world to make was harder than we thought.

Lynnette; Following Her Lead

I earn my living as a dance instructor, not my first choice, but the choice that pays the bills. I would much rather make my living writing, but so far no publisher has shown any interest in anything I put a pen to.

The dance instructor job came as a result of a college friend that got into a bind. Lynn had started the dance school to help pay her way through college. It did that and a little bit more, and after graduation she decided to see if it could provide a living for her full time.

The dial tone buzzes in his ear like a trapped wasp. Caden taps his fingers against the desk — once, twice — before the receptionist finally picks up. "First available is Thursday at two," she says, the words clipped. He books it without asking questions. The phone clicks back into its cradle with a finality that feels heavier than it should have. Petra's number glows on the screen beneath it, untouched. Data first. Then emotions.

That was a lot of work, but it worked. There seemed to be a real world now that I lived in, with me the cartoonist Barbara and my husband Keith. As I had depicted myself, in my seventh life I made a living drawing The Watsons. But a lot had changed.

Michelle, Life As A Manicurist

I was very apprehensive when I called my sister Melissa since this is the third time I had asked her for money. She knew I was having a rough time of it, but also very good about not rubbing my nose in it. She had repeatedly tried to warn me about the choices I was making with regards to career, and apartments. Of course, she was right, but being the stubborn male that I am, I could never see it her way.

"Four weeks," Caden mutters as the gravel crunches under his tires, the cabin's wooden sign swinging slightly in the wind. He parks, kills the engine, sits for a moment staring at the pine trees crowding the driveway. The tour contract is signed, the advance spent. A short drive from Denver, no distractions. Just the work.

I was behind schedule, so I was up all night trying to draw the most detailed version of Cindy I ever had for the cover of her book. I think I pretty much had her done when I passed out in my chair in front of the drafting board. When I woke up, I was looking at my work. But not the oversized drawing I’d just been working on. Had I fallen and knocked other work out of my desk?

When I cleared my eyes, I realized it was more than that. 360 degrees around me was comic book art. I looked down at myself. I was Cindy.

The ward bathroom. You are standing at the mirror with your shirt off and you don't know how long you've been standing here. The bathroom is empty except for you. The strip light hums above. Your hands are pressed flat against the sides of the belly, which is — large, is the only word, enormous compared to the last time you looked, the navel pushed outward, the skin taut and marked down the center by a dark line you didn't put there. You have been doing the inventory.

Allison, A Token Transsexual

It had all started with the bathroom debate and assorted legislative bills. I am sure most of it was strictly political, a way for a local representative to gain some political clout at other people’s expense. Just another way for a legislator to correct some imagined injustice, although its correction often far worse than the original problem.

A bathroom stall. The ward bathroom — three stalls, the strip lighting humming above, the particular echo of hard surfaces. You are sitting on the toilet and you don't know how you got here. Early morning from the light under the stall door, the ward not yet fully awake. The gap between whatever came before and this stall on this morning is blank and featureless as the gaps always are.

"We can’t, Mistress, not here.” Jake pleaded with a whining note, breathing out heavily, as Leah made a daring, groping move towards his crotch.

He had Ten Thousand Men

The Duke may have had that many men, but the pub where I worked, of the same name, would only fit a few dozen of them in the front bar, if they were friendly. There was a lot more room over the three floors and the beer garden. We catered to a very wide range of drinkers, from social groups, office after-hours groups, shoppers from along Oxford Street, and tourists drawn in by its eighteenth-century ambience.

With eternity to explore, improve our bodies, and learn, we did everything. Hundreds of new games were invented and shared over the internet, using equipment that could be easily acquired.

We found there is an organized group spreading a link to a forum on Reddit called dollcrisis. They are using that as a central place for activities people are working together on. And it’s mainly about these facilities, because the other stuff like rescuing all our people and making alphabet pads for people who can’t speak, people mostly figured out already.

Soon it got dark outside, and the group kept going. One thing I noticed was that nobody got hungry or thirsty, and as it got quite late, not tired either. Apparently, freed from our human bodies, we did not have those issues anymore.

CAUTION: This story is based on a COVID conspiracy theory. I do not personally believe in any such theories, but I’m sharing it anyway. The story was written in the early months of the COVID-19 quarantine, and this was the kind of dream I had some nights during that time.

We didn’t realize what the virus was really doing until it was too late.

Altered Fates: The Pretzel Becomes the Princess - Part 1 of 3
By Marie7342231 - marie7342231@yahoo.com