Who Looks Back

Louise sits upright in bed. She doesn’t remember sitting up. Or waking up, for that matter. She moves her hand to stroke her chin and is initially surprised, then relieved, to find it free of beard. She kicks out one leg, then the other, stands up, and walks to the bathroom. The mirror shows her a face she knows, but which doesn’t quite seem to fit yet. Upon realising she has taken up position standing in front of the bowl, she takes a small step back, turns round, and sits down.

“So you were in a dude’s body?”.

“No, I was in my body. I was just a dude”.

“Lucky escape”.

“That’s actually how I felt when I woke up. Like I’d escaped”.

“From what?”.

“I can’t…it’s like, I knew when I was there, but now I can’t remember, I just know that I knew”.

“Brains are weird. Sounds like you need to just give yours better sleep”.

“Fair point”.

She decides to put it out of her mind. She says the words out loud, as though to give them more weight:

“I will put it out of my mind”.

She visualises the part of her brain where she imagines the memory of Louis is stored. She pictures those machines they have at the seaside with the sea of toys and a wobbly, three-fingered claw to grasp at the latest franchised plush rip-off. The claw is her power of will, and the sea of toys, her brain. The claw grasps at the little fuzzy caricature of Louis, lifts it out, and throws it unceremoniously down the chute. Louise lets out a satisfied sigh, then catches herself as she emerges from the vision and is sure she sees recognition in the mirror”.

“There. Out of my mind”.

“Excuse me, was this your stop? You fell asleep”.

“Mmmmf what? What’s a Faraday cage?”.

“No, er, that was a few stops back. This is Turnham Green”.

“Oh! That’ll do. Thank you”.

Louise jumps up, suddenly awake, and turns to head towards the door. As the kind lady who woke her, hands her the handbag she is forgetting, she is taken as much by the handbag, as by her own hand reaching out to take it. She mumbles grateful noises and makes the doors just before they close. The cold is palpable. That first lungful of air almost hurts, but feels simultaneously refreshing. Louise looks up and sees an ad for some instantly forgettable, generic beauty product. “Who are you really?”, it demands of her. Louise laughs, shoves her hands quickly in her pockets, and heads for home.

=_=-=_=-=_=

"So what does it feel like?"

"Like, I'm wide awake, just a different version of me. It doesn't feel like a dream. But it's always me waking up that brings me back here".

“So when where you last 'there'?”.

“On the way here actually, I nodded off on the tube”.

“And where were you this time?”.

“That’s the weird thing, in the dream, I was in exactly the same place, as when I woke up. Pretty much everything was the same, except I was Louis”.

“Do you feel much different when you’re Louis? Is it a life you wish for yourself? The automatic privilege that comes with being male? Or maybe a question of gender identity?”

“I honestly don’t think any of those fits. I feel like I’m me. Just a different me. But this time he had a message for me”

“Louise. This is not a dream. We need you to find your sister”