Monday, 9/6/10 - Chameleon

The boy in the picture is nine years old. Summer kissed his sand colored hair and lightly toasted his fair skin. Glass-blue eyes sparkle above a beamish smile missing one front tooth.

I look at the picture, feel the familiar tingle then run my tongue through the space in my front teeth before turning the page.

With his dark complexion, hair and eyes, the man in the next picture might be Italian or Middle Eastern. An ocean of curls cascade out from under his headband and flow down over his shoulders and onto his peace-sign tee-shirt.

Only the top of the sign he carries can be seen in the photo, words fall away beneath the frame.

There is a feeling of a thousand insects crawling over my scalp. I reach up and push my long hair behind my ears and turn the page.

The next picture is of Narece, with two long e's - nah-ree-see. She will correct you if you pronounce it wrong. In the picture she is standing behind a podium, speaking, a single finger pointing up into the air.

Narece is a big woman, under five-seven and over three hundred pounds. Her skin is so black it appears almost blue in the stage lights. Her grey hair lightning-white by contrast.

Again, I feel the tingle as my penis retracts, my breasts enlarge and my body distends.

The door opens and the doctor comes in. "I see you've decided on Narece today."

"No, I haven't decided, I was just looking at the photographs when you came in. Thanks for knocking."

He ignores the barb.

Doctors seem to have the most difficult time with us. Our medical history is not our own. With each new physiology, we receive new diseases, new allergies, new ailments. Our DNA and blood type alter and they must run new tests and generate a new set of charts for each mutation. The only nice part for them is that for each, the charts remain the same. Narece's charts will always be hers.

Today he doesn't want Narece. "Would you mind becoming yourself?"

I look at him, feel Narece recede and the visage of him emerge.

He is not amused. "Very funny, now can you please be yourself long enough for me to do some tests?"

On the cover of the book I have been looking through is a picture of me. I look at the cover and replace the doctor with the man in the picture.

He is pleased. He thanks me and begins his examination.

I want to tell him that the person that is breathing in, breathing out on the other end of his stethoscope is not me. I want to tell him that things are broken - things he cannot measure. There are conduits that end abruptly and contacts that fire randomly, if at all. There are basic supports inside of me that are fractured, small pieces crumbling and falling away like motes of dust in a dark cave.

I want to tell him how each mimicked face erases the tiniest bit of who I was and replaces it with something, someone else.

I want to tell him that the inside no longer connects with the outside.

I want to tell him that I would like to do that - to be myself - but, I have forgotten how.

I have forgotten who.