It started when I was nineteen.
I was at college studying Gothic literature–which was awesome–but then my sister, she got ill and needed a donor and I was a perfect match. And that was all cool, you know. I mean, it’s not like you get to save your sister’s life every day, is it? So that went fine and she’s okay now and I had the surgery and I was fine too. But they’d put me on these meds for my blood pressure and then these blood thinners too. And so, two weeks after we’d both come out of hospital I was writing my dissertation when I stood up and was all like, “Whoa,” and my dad said, “Are you okay?” and I was going to say “I feel kinda odd” and then it just… happened.
As polymorphic instabilities go, it’s kind of awesome. Though I do know these guys who turn into rats or squirrels, and then bits of them get eaten by the local cats and they turn back and they’re missing toes or… other bits, which is just not cool. Or guys who don’t even turn all the way, but just become bits of other things, like the head of a dog and the claw of a cat and the fur of a fox and all that. At least I’m not doing any of that. And pigeons are actually okay, once you get used to them.
The problem, I guess, is the fact that it is pigeons, plural. Lots of them. It’s a mass-energy thing–if I weigh sixty kilograms and all we’re really doing is rearranging the weight, then either I need to turn into sixty pigeons or we are talking one mother-scary bird, and no one wants that. And I think I’ve got better at keeping it together. I mean, even when the flock divides and there are bits of me flying off all over the place, it’s still all me, but like I’m thin, stretched out, if you know what I mean?
My husband–Jeff–he’s really understanding.
He even puts down breadcrumbs now, to help guide me home.