Unique Node (Part 1)

Chloe nervously walked to the front of the lecture hall after class. Professor White thought he had gone over the heads of everyone with his parallel realities theories, but he was glad at least one student was brave enough to ask a question.

“Do you think it’s possible to travel back to a previous reality?” Chloe asked nervously.

Professor White laughed, “The amount of energy to travel to a random universe in the first place would be near incalculable, and returning to an exact point would be like landing a rocket ship on the head of a pin.”

“What if you could reduce the entropy? By matching a deterministic state with a resonant quantum signature?”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying we figured it out. In my reality. You and I did. But I was the only one who could. Because Chloe lived my life. I was never born here. My parents adopted her. It was as close to being identical without being identical. And she was the only one. But my real name is Steve. Steve Johnson.”

“And so Chloe is a unique node for you?”

“Yeah.”

“But that means there are an infinite number of Steve Johnsons. And no way to know which one is you.”

BFFs | The Halloween Episode

View the Body Swap Episode of BFFs

Before/After

It was a challenge not to imagine what this woman’s life was like before the Great Shift, before I swapped into her body. I didn’t know why she was on our street at that time, and many people often didn’t believe who I really was.

My wife was actually the first person to believe me, which was a relief on a lot of levels. All of her clothes fit my new body -- though her love of floral patterns and pastels certainly contrasted with my new body.

I could accept the fact that I was a woman now, but the tattoos were harder. I wanted them removed as soon as possible; however, with the Shift closing down all non-essential business and the sheer number, it would be a long wait and a long process. Until then, I woke up each day looking at this woman, and I still couldn’t believe she was me.

Is It?

“She’s kinda fat,” Matt said while looking at his post-Great Shift reflection in the mirror, “I didn’t know Asian women got fat.”

“That sounds hella racist,” His roommate shouted back from the other room.

“Is it? I’m technically Asian now. Can’t I say things like that?”

“It still seems wrong when you were the most generic white guy on the planet two days ago.”

“Fair enough, but I don’t think anyone is going to say that about me now. I just had a mindset about Asian women, and this isn’t it.”

“Yeah, Dude, that’s racist...”

Hormones

Choking on a spoonful of ice cream probably wasn’t the worst situation a person found themselves in as a result of the Great Shift. And, believe me, some of my friends had absolutely disgusting stories about the positions they ended up in. But all those things a body was doing or experiencing at the time didn’t just go away just because someone else was in control.

Along with the ice cream, I was also feeling all the hormones and sadness and crying this body had been going through at the time of the swap. I didn’t know her boyfriend had just broken up with her, but I also couldn’t seem to stop the impact on a dime. I kept eating the ice cream and watching the trashy romcom she had on; I couldn’t explain why. I would’ve never done these things as a guy. I wasn’t even sure if they were helping or sending me further down a spiral.

It probably messed me up in some ways, but, again, far from the worst situation...