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Just Me

I can focus best in a dark room. I sit and breathe. I stretch my arms out and all the worries and stresses are subsumed by the darkness. In a dark room, I can be me.

This morning I was given two roles in the quarterly play for the drama department, as I had requested. It would not be the first time. But both characters would be on stage at once. It had been done before in previous productions with masks and sometimes special costumes or puppets. I had something else in mind for this.

For several years, these strange, gray stones had been sold locally as meditation aids. They caused quite a stir when it was found they could be used to, among other things, draw out parts of one's self and give them physical form. While regulated in sale only to medical institutions, possession of them is still legal and there are means of obtaining them without too much trouble.

In my dark room, I sit with the gray stone before me. I take a breath and set my fingers on its cool surface. After only a few more breaths, I sense a change in my mind. Vivid feelings and visuals cling to my thoughts. Anything I think can be seen, as if projected fully.

At the end of my experimentation, I set on my task. For one role, as I am will be enough. For the other, I need a woman. The men in my family, a long line of actors, have been playing women back into the centuries of kabuki theater in Japan.

I consider first her name. Some obvious variation of 'Toshi' strikes me as dull. I smile when I settle on Kyoko. It is a good name. ----- Kyoko for her. ----- Toshi for me. Only we will both be me.

If only I knew Japanese, like my grandfather, I could mentally organize it with a feminine and masculine "I". The visuals float with half-remembered kanji. I decide it can wait until after she is extracted.

From a name, I consider how she will be. The notes have no sense of appearance beyond the notion that he and she are brother and sister. I visualize my own face before me, then I sculpt it in a way after my mother, my aunts, and my sisters unborn. She inherits my poking nose and my slight, weak chin. Her eyes are set deep with burying lashes. Her hair flows out past the point of comfort. It lies across her shoulder and engulfs her neck.

She is a calculated head shorter. Her arms and legs are brushed clean of the tense little muscles and light hairs of mine.

Her figure asserts itself across her hips and chest. She is a woman, but she is no fantasy. She is just me, only under a different destiny.

Her voice curls out with a hint of my nasal inflection. I breathe and she speaks.

"Why?"

I blink my eyes open. A darkened form sits in front of me, on the other side of the stone. A flick of the light reveals all the details I had seen in my head expressed across her body. What she wears is what I wear, adjusted to her form.

I marvel at her. She stares back and repeats, "Why?"

I shake my head a little. "Why what?"

Her expression is tight and focused. "Why are you a boy? You're supposed to be a girl."

I shake my head firmly. "No. You're the girl me."

She shakes back. "Bullshit. You're tricking me. I remember focusing on making a girl for the play."

I hold my hands out. "You remember it because you came from me. But I did it. I made you…from me." I gesture between us.

Kyoko glares. She avoids looking down at her body. "This isn't my body. I'm Toshi. You turned me into a fucking girl! You stole my body!"

I lean back and assure her. "I just made you. I didn't take anything. How would I even do that?"

Her eyes trace me. "The stone has other powers. Maybe you know how to delete people. All I know is that I'm supposed to be Toshi."

I hold out my hands. "You know that because you're a part of me, only made as a girl. Maybe I did it wrong…"

I approach the stone. She places her hands over it protectively and says, "Nooo waaaay. I'm not letting you erase me. I'm trying it first…"

My heart races. This is outside what I know about the stone. Hopefully, she shouldn't know either and shouldn't be able to delete me. Her hands press against it and she strains. I don't feel any different. She grunts and shakes her head. "What the fuck did you do?!"

I assure her that I'm telling the truth. She still guards the stone as I approach. I place my hands on top of hers on the stone. They feel cold like clay. She arches her knuckles to keep me away from the surface. I'm close enough that I can feel the stone and I focus.

I try to mold Kyoko a little more. She is me, but accepting of her form. She is my female side, fully expressed. The shifting of the air draws her attention. She tries to toss me off, but it's too late. She pulls back and looks at me as she snatches the stone away.

"I don't know what you did. And I still don't trust you. Now…I feel like…at least this body is better than nothing. But no more stone!"

Bowing my head, I accept that compromise. The stone rests in her hands, in easy reach to bash me over the head with. After a moment, she sets it down and sighs before asking, "So, what am I now? Your pet to dance on stage and look pretty?"

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I grimace. "Of course not…you're me."

She stares. "Am I? So, what does that mean?"

I press my lips together. I don't have an answer to give her. I can only say, "I guess we'll find out."

She stands slowly, keeping her distance, and says, "I'll be in the bathroom."

I stand outside and brush at my hair. Through the door, I can hear her retching and coughing. I don't enter. She curses softly.

She speaks through the door, "I feel mutilated."

I apologize, and she curses again. "I feel like my face is gone, but I also feel this strange nudge like…I'm supposed to look like this. Fucking terrifying." I don't apologize this time, but I know I'm responsible for that.

I leave her alone. The house is quiet. Only a few lights scatter their illumination across the bare walls. My family will be gone for a while. I planned it this way. I put the light out in my room for a moment of relaxing darkness.

Kyoko takes a while to finish. She finds me quickly. I offer to turn the light on for her, but she says, "No. The light is better off." We can agree on that. The spill from the hallway is enough to see by.

She sits as far away on the bed as she can. After some silence, she volunteers, "I checked myself as well as I could. I look like…someone took a chainsaw to my groin." She puffs a breath. Quiet follows and she gives a little laugh which flows into a sound between a maniacal cackle and sobbing. But she doesn't cry.

Slowly, she composes herself. "The breasts aren't much better. Make me feel fat. At least they aren't bigger." She eyes me, not with thanks for that omission.

Keeping her gaze on me, she asks, "What happens now?"

"I don't know. Do you need anything?"

"Plenty. Do I get a change of clothes? What about food? Where do I sleep? What's mine?"

I give her some of my old clothes. She tries them on but most fit her awkwardly. I don't have or can borrow any underwear she can use. I wonder on the use of buying clothes for someone who won't be needed after the play's last performance. The horror of that thought hits and I retreat from it.

She sits with a warm box of noodles and eats quietly. I tell her, "You can use my parents' bed while they're gone."

Pausing from eating, she corrects, "Our parents."

I nod. "Of course, our parents."

She wipes her mouth. "What about when they come home?"

The last performance will be the day before they get back. I assure her, "We'll work that out later." She slowly repeats, "Later…"

I ask her if she'd like to do a little practice for the play before bed. She brushes back her hair. "Why not? It's all I'm meant for, right?"

I pass her the script. She reads quickly and notes, "Only a few lines."

"Only a few. Shouldn't be too hard."

She sets the script down and announces, "Later. I don't feel up to it right now."

I move the script aside. "Is there anything else you'd like?"

Kyoko doesn't say anything at first. Then she brushes at her hair again. "I don't mind all this hair, but it would be better with something to hold it back." All I can offer is a rubber band. With that in her hair, Kyoko looks a little more at ease. She still fusses with it.

Even in the relative darkness of the room, I can see her well. I blank on what to say. I leave the room and busy myself with the chores of the house. As I'm tossing out the trash, Kyoko finds me and asks, "Is there anything I can do?"

I hand her the list of chores and she lingers on some. She resolves, "I can take care of these easily."

She works with impressive energy at her chores and actually finishes before me. When I'm done, she's back on the bed with her legs pulled up close. I thank her. She gives me a quiet look. I ask, "Would you like to watch TV?"

Kyoko holds her position a moment and then says, "Actually, I think I'll get ready for bed."

I watch TV alone. Soon, she's standing before the bathroom with a cold shiver despite the warmth of her clothes and mom's towel around her. She paces. I notice but wonder what I can say.

Once she's inside, it doesn't take long for me to hear the water running. I listen, but only a little. Occasionally, I can hear other sounds. With the white noise of the water, it's hard to gauge their feeling. Some seem like cries, others perhaps moans or gasps. I lean away to give her some measure of privacy and turn the volume up.

Later, I hear her walking around. I see her with a faint sheen of moisture. She wears some of my older clothes and appears more relaxed. She tells me, "I'll get some rest. Night."

I wave her goodnight and don't stay up much longer. My shower is uneventful. With the sleep that follows, my rest wavers. At a certain time of night, I feel like someone is watching me in the shadows. It's like their presence is standing over my bed. By the time the sense can turn into action, I see no figures in the darkness. I hear what could be receding footsteps or the house settling. I try not to think any more of it.