My Mind is Made Up

© 2014 Mr. David R. Dorrycott

Chapter Two

I woke underwater, my arms and legs hanging limply in the cold liquid, I could sense that they felt as though they were made of lead and I could feel my heart slowing. What the hell? Had professor Carter tossed my body into the river for some crazed reason? I placed my panic on pause just long enough to discover that yes, it was brighter in THAT direction before striking out, I wasn’t an Olympic class swimmer by any means of the word but I was a little better than average. My lungs screamed to me that they needed air, my body was reacting way out of its normal range but I was about to break the surface. What the hell had Carter placed in that drink anyway, a polymorph spell? I broke the surface, took a deep breath, or seven, then struck out for the nearest bank, it was then that I heard a young boys voice scream.

“You can do it Heather.”

Oh shit.

Somehow I managed the riverbank, where two strong hands grabbed me and yanked me out of the water. I was to learn later that it was my youngest ‘brother’ Arthur, and that he had been stunned to see me sans clothing. I guess Heather had ripped them all off in order to keep from sinking, I’d never know because although I somehow retained her memories, the memory of why just wasn’t there. There hadn’t been the energy to transfer short term memory to long term storage, not in a dying body. Well, Arthur got to see the difference between boys and girls that day but I don’t think it registered at the time, he was too busy carrying his sisters cold, limp body over his shoulder back home, it was a position that let me puke out a stomach of river water.

‘Carter, I’m going to kill you for this’ was the last coherent thought I had until several days later.

Days? Try almost two weeks, it seemed that dear little Heather’s lungs had gotten river water in them and she, or me, almost died from Pneumonia. That’s right, a simple bothersome bacterial infection of the lungs, easily treated even forty years from now, but in 1920? Not a single antibiotic, at least not in this neck of the woods, not for farmers daughter who lived on the wrong side of the river.

When I woke to rational thought it was dark, didn’t these people have electric lights I wondered? At that question Heather’s memory opened up for me, no they didn’t. Electricity still hadn’t been run out this far, across the river yes but on this side, maybe next year? As to a toilet, which was my next thought, the image of an outhouse came to mind. An outhouse? Oh please no, not this primitive, yet the memory was firm, exactly like my bowels. Looking around I saw a very old woman asleep in a rocking chair next to my bed and Heathers memory happily placed a name, Gramma, mother’s mother. Grandpaw died three years ago, fathers parents were living in West Lafayette with his two sisters, neither of which had ever married. Gramma had come to live with us after Grandpaw died and life had quickly become a living hell with that bible beating old woman around all the time.

Heather’s memory was proving a gold mine, unfortunately I hadn’t been trained on how to use it, we hadn’t even been certain that the target mind would retain any coherent memories. Certainly I hadn’t been trained for this trip, maybe Professor Carter had been rushed for time, or the whole thing had been an accident. A quick check proved that I retained most, if not all of my own memories, even those now achingly painful ones of Patricia, my dearest love. Sadly, most of what I knew was useless in this time period, the tools to imagine the tools didn’t exist yet and wouldn’t for several generations. Critically, there was no way back, we knew that already but was it a copy of my mind that had come here, to take over poor dead Heather’s mind, or was it the original? That we didn’t know and I never would. Professor Carter would know that answer now, but it certainly wouldn’t ever do me a damn bit of good. Carter would also know if she had been successful as this reality’s potential would have changed, if only so little.

There was one thing that I did know for certain, if I didn’t get to that outhouse real soon this bed would become a cesspool. Real soon, as in the next couple of minutes in fact, so as quietly as I could I slipped Heathers, now my body out from under the covers. As it was very late, three twelve am from the mantel clock I spotted, no one else was awake so I slipped out the kitchen door, made my way on bare feet to the smelly outhouse and took care of business. There I learned something else, it was true that last years department catalogs were used as toilet paper, ow.

This act of nature did give me time to reflect on my situation, not only was I in a much more primitive time, but a completely different reality. For example, my skin was tinted a soft purple color instead of the normal soft brown of my birth. I wondered what other strange differences awaited me, just getting used to being female instead of male was going to be tough, and there was no way I was ever getting married or having kids. Hey, I’m completely heterosexual, I just happen to be stuck in a female body. I guess that would make me a lesbian now right? But not in my mind.

What I did come up with was a nice story about how a sixteen year old farm girl, one who had never had a swimming lesson in her life, had survived a powerful river. It was simple, Grandpaw saved me. You see the memories that welled up when I thought of that person was of a warm, loving old man. One who doted upon me to the ire of his wife, and this family was heavily religious.

Figures, I thought as I cleaned my butt as best I could with a page from the catalog. Apparently Heather took after her grandmother more than her mother, and dear old Grandpaw just couldn’t help himself from making the connection. A semi-remote farm, everyone stuck together at night and certain seasons, old men would remember their youth. My trip also told me that I was way weaker than I had thought, it was a battle for me to get back uphill to the house and it took me four times as long. I was almost crawling when I got into the kitchen and a waiting chair, one that hadn’t been there when I left.

Downhill had been so easy.

A clearing throat caught my attention, causing me to look up to find Gramma standing their waiting for me. “Kazy girl, you ain’t weel noh tah be walkin about.” Then she simply picked me up like a baby and took me back to bed. For a frail old woman Granmma was strong, stronger than my own mother. Mine, not Heathers I mean. Fargs this was getting confusing, so soon I was back in bed, tucked in and a with a warm kiss on my forehead before falling back asleep. With me being the youngest and bed ridden, morning was going to prove interesting I thought, I always had loved the female body after all.