The Change - Part 3

I know that this has happened to everyone once or twice in their life. Maybe you're on a trip and you're staying in a hotel; maybe you just rearranged your furniture in your bedroom. At some point in the night you wake up and have a look around the dark. You're confused for a moment by just where you actually are. Nothing seems familiar and you don't really know why. Then the thought comes to you and you remember why you feel that way and it all goes back to normal before you drift back off to sleep. Well that happened to me last night, but the feeling never went away.

Somehow I managed to pass out again and slept a few more hours, even though I knew something wasn't right. When I woke up again, I kept my eyes tightly shut because I was too afraid to see where I actually was. I spun my legs to the side of the bed to get up, eyes still closed, and banged my knees into the wall. Every morning for the last dozen or so years, I've gotten out of bed on the left side. But today, I hit the wall. After blasting my knees, I opened my eyes to see that I had in fact hit the wall. And that my entire room was backwards.

​It was like my bedroom was a mirror image of what I knew it to be. It all seemed in place, and was still so unfamiliar. This was by far the biggest change yet, and I had only seen my room to that point. I tried not to panic, because I had been doing enough of that the past few weeks. I was convinced that I must have been going crazy, but I didn't think crazy people could rationalize like that. Then again, I don't know what to think anymore. How could I when everything ends up different than what I know?

​Of course, it wasn't just my bedroom that was turned around. I discovered that the rest of the world was too. Letters and writing were normal, but everything just flipped places from how I remembered them to be. I must have looked like I had just gone hell when I got to the office that day, because the receptionist asked me if I was alright when I walked by her desk. I don't remember if I said anything to her or not. I was focused on just making it to my desk before I lost my mind. Of course, my desk was now on the other side of the room from where I normally found it. So I had to make an awkward walk around the entire floor before finding it and slumping down into my chair.

I must have been sitting there, hands covering my eyes, for at least half an hour before I could muster up the courage to try and get through the day. I was on the verge of panicking at that moment, and thought that maybe putting my mind on my work would help calm me down. I picked up the stack of papers I had been working on the day before, and reached out for my favorite pen. I found the spot I had finished on the day prior, and went to right out some information that needed to be put down. I noticed right away that my hand-writing was terrible and that it wasn't even legible. It was like I was writing with my opposite hand.

​That's when my heart sank. I slowly moved the pen from my right hand to my left, turned over the paper I had been working on, and scrawled out my name in my usual, clear freehand. I've never been left-handed. But now...now, I am. If I was going to go crazy, I just wished it would happen with a little more urgency. Because I could sure use it as an excuse, an explanation, for what was going on.

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