Missed Connections

Island Life

The Great Shift occurred when Rich was on vacation, and everyone was surprisingly chill about it. People just explained to each other who they really were, and everyone just got on with their lives. Rich had swapped with a local woman, but his vacation mostly continued as normal -- despite having to borrow some clothes to fit his newly feminine form.

Of course, when he returned to the mainland, he soon discovered that reactions to the Great Shift weren’t quite as relaxed as they were on the island. People were (still) in a panic, and it often seemed like society was on the verge of collapse now. He wished they could take some lessons from the island atmosphere that just sort of went with the flow of all the changes.

Self-Conscious

It didn’t take Glen long to learn many of his expectations about swapping bodies with a woman were wrong. There was nothing particularly gratifying about the experience.

He thought he’d be wowed by amazing curves; instead it just felt different and weird. In fact, he felt like his new butt was somehow both too big and too flat, and he took great lengths to hid it by tying a sweater around his waist. The pants didn’t even seem to fit right. He thought the fact that they were tight might make him feel good about the shape of his body, but it only served to make him feel worse.

There was nothing about his new form that didn’t make him feel self-conscious.

Dark Thoughts

George sat on the beach where it happened, where his body had been found washed ashore. The police were unwilling to declare it an accident as they couldn’t rule out intentional suicide. George hated how he understood this feeling. He had struggled with low self-esteem and depression throughout his life. A lot of that seemed to transfer to him in the new female body he ended up in after the Great Shift, but he wondered if all those thoughts and insecurities lingered in his own body as well. He hadn’t been happy before, but he wasn’t happy like this either.

He thought about how his body had been found the day before the government announced a new technology that would allow people to swap back to their original selves. That was obviously not in the cards for George anymore, thought its not like he thought that would make him feel any better.

He looked out into the ocean. He could throw himself into the abyss as well, but instead he turned aroun and walked back up the beach. He was down, but he could still fight the dark thoughts.

Shoulder

I blinked several times as I pushed down the shoulder of the leather jacket to rub the smooth skin on shoulder. I think I may have injured it in the fall, but it was the least of my concerns; I was just as concerned about the slender shoulders I now possessed and the leather clothes I now seemed to be wearing.

It was all new to me -- these clothes, this body. I’d come to learn this happened because of a body swapping event that the media dubbed “The Great Shift,” but at the time I just remember being confused and disoriented. Suddenly being in new body was what caused my fall and subsequent shoulder injury.

My mind was dealing with the fact that I was now a woman on top of all that. And yet things were strangely calm and quiet.