Lucy

I did not want to wake up. This is how every morning began; with my first glimpses of consciousness filled with regret, then mourning the brief escape I had, and finally accepting that I had no choice but to rise out of bed and start the day.

The abnormality with this morning was that in addition to the heaviness of my chest, I felt heaviness from down below. I reached down curiously to feel if some object had fallen onto my lap over night. And that’s when my fingers wrapped around the new snakelike projection there. It took me a few moments before I realized what I held in my hand.

I sat up, screaming; but this scream was deeper than the one I know.

I quickly got up and stole to the mirror. And there I was; but not me. It was some man staring back at me. He had my blue eyes and my nervous smile. But my long dark brown hair was now short, my breasts were now flat and I was about six inches taller.

I stood there, paused in time for a moment before I decided to move with my new body. And even these movements were new, my arms swinging wider and my footsteps louder.

“Hey Doris, I’m going to take the day off.”

“Sorry who is this?”

“Oh, I, sorry I’m calling for Lucy.”

A gasp on the other end. “And who may I ask is calling?”

“I’m...well, I guess Lucy’s boyfriend.”

“O-okay.” She hung up the phone.

I suspect that Doris is probably now depositing this information - quiet, reclusive Lucy now impossibly had a boyfriend - throughout our boring cubicle office.

An hour later, I’m wearing an oversized sweater that my mother used to scold me for - too manly she would say. Now with my new shoulders and chest the sweater fits very well. A little burst of excitement as I walk out the door and down the stairs onto the street.

Creepy homeless Larry today does not leer and call me dirty nicknames. Instead, he pays me no attention. I make my way to the diner across the street where the waitress, Genevieve, who normally pretends not to notice me until

I have been sitting at the bar for fifteen minutes immediately rushes over.

“Good morning, sir. What I can get for you today?”

“A milkshake and the sausage omelet,” I say.

“Sure thing,” she says, scribbling down my order obediently. Normally she just stares at me blankly and interrupts me to yell the order back to the chef.

My food arrives quickly, piping hot and for once Genevieve hangs around, asking me if there’s anything she can do for me

Once I am full, I give her my always tip of two dollars but today she giggles and says thank you, letting her hand linger where our skin touches as I deposit the extra bills into her open hand.

I decide I’m going to the subway to take the train out to the park I love to run in. Today is a sweater and bench kind of day, where I will people watch. It will be interesting to see how people look at me. How the men will look at my eyes and the women perhaps like Genevieve may show me more attention. I am lost in thought, the casual enjoyment of this abnormal occurrence, when I hear a woman clearing her throat. I look up and see some of the people standing next to her staring at me expectantly. It takes me a moment to realize I should stand and let the woman sit down. Her leg taps in her heels impatiently and her hand is sassily placed on her hip.

When I stand, an odd looking man with a long stretch of white beard appears next to me. I didn’t notice him before.

“Lucy,” he whispers, “what an abnormal day you are having.”

I gasp and take a closer look. He is in strange robes and when I look around, no one else has noticed his presence.

“You’ve been very sad for a while now. Why is that, do you think?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Oh you do, Lucy. You know. My question is does this make you feel better?”

I look away. How could he know? How could he possibly know? It was a sadness so deeply rooted that the origin of it had long been burrowed in the depths of my subconscious. But here and now, all of a sudden in this new day and body, the burrowed truth seems on the tip of my tongue. I turn to the man to tell this truth but he has disappeared.

The park is particularly beautiful today; the leaves that had fallen to the ground were a crispy orange - tanned by the long summer sun. I walk over to my favorite bench and watch the geese floating by on the radiant pond. After a few minutes, an old lady hobbles over, huffing and casting her cane to the side as her quivering hand reaches out to help her lower herself onto the bench.

She sits next to me, catching her breath, before she turns and appraises her company.

“Hello, how are you today?” she croaks.

“Very well,” I reply. I really mean it.

“I’m Beth,” she states.

“Hi Beth, I’m Lu-Luther.”

“Nice to meet you, Luther. And what is it you do?”

“I work in finance.”

“Well Luther, I hope you don’t think I’m being too forward, but I have a lovely granddaughter. Would you like to see her picture?”

She doesn’t wait for me to answer and pulls out a small photo of a very young, pretty woman.

“How old is she?”

“She just turned twenty-five.”

“I’m thirty-five.”

“I don’t think she’ll mind.”

“Don’t you think she has things she wants to do other than get married?”

“Oh, dear, you wouldn’t understand. Us women have to get married before we start to get old and decrepit. Men can wait. And there’s the matter of children, too.”

I find myself growing angry at the old bat. She’s not unlike my own grandmother, not unlike my mother. Not unlike my aunts and all the other older women in my life that raised me with this worry that my life should center around finding a man and starting a family.

Beth is pushing a piece of paper with a number on it.

“Call her,” she says.

It is very dark as I walk back to my apartment. I watch the stray girls who have found themselves out at night alone cast anxious glances back at me as I approach from behind. People have looked at me with an array of things throughout my life; happiness, anger, sadness, dismissal, condescension, lust; but never fear. No one has ever thought enough of my presence to be afraid of me.

When I open the front door of my apartment, there is the old man standing there. “You enjoyed your day, Lucy.”

I nodded, closing the door behind me. I felt very calm.

“Well I’m glad. We can all use a change now and again. When we find we are in a rut. Now when you wake up, Lucy, you will find you are back in your own body.” He turned to walk away and I saw his legs begin to disappear.

“No, wait,” I called after him. “Please. I don’t want to be Lucy again.”

He smiled. “I know. But if you don’t go back to Lucy now, you will never be able to change back.”

I stood there, looking at him, retracing my choice over and over again. But I felt no doubt. I knew what I was giving up.

“You’re sure,” he said, looking at me firmly. And then he disappeared. I remain a man.