A "Winds of Change" Story
I sat in the armchair for a long while, contemplating the sheafs of paper I held in my hands. One was a detailed summary of all the people in the town, clinically rating their mental and emotional status. I knew each one of them personally by now, but the report was good for keeping me objective.
On the other paper was a photocopy of a newspaper article, and a single handwritten phone number. "Jon Sleeper," I murmured to myself, shaking my head. It was a small (and very strange) world... I put aside the report and picked up the phone, slipping the earphone between my horn and the side of my head with only a little hesitation.
One ringie-dingie... two ringie-dingies... "Hello?" a smooth, deep voice answered.
"Hi, this is Bryan Derksen. Could I speak to Jon Sleeper?"
"Speaking... oh, Bryan Derksen? Hello!" He sounded astonished, obviously he remembered me.
"Hello!" I responded with a slight grin, pleased that he did. "I'm sorry to disturb you so late and everything, but I saw you in the news and looked you up. How are you doing?"
"Great! Great! I tried to contact you after the Change, but your dad said you'd gone on a trip or something... you'll never believe it, it's Bryan! The other Bryan, I mean." Jon was obviously addressing to somone else with those last two lines, and I grinned even wider. I hadn't expected to be a household name.
"Yeah, you'll never believe it but I've been staying in Morrisville. Just 20 kilometers east of LA, that's uh, 12 miles or so."
"Woah, what are the odds?" I could tell he was still a little off-balance; that was okay, I wasn't much of a telephone conversationalist myself.
"Yeah. Anyways, I was thinking of taking a vacation soon and I was wondering if you'd like me to come over. I don't want to impose or anything, if you're busy..."
"No, actually that'd be great! Any time, how about tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow's good. What's your address?"
I wrote down the information, and then after a few brief minutes of further conversation we hung up. I leaned back in the chair with a sigh and a smile.
"So, that was the Jon you knew, then?" I looked up to see Samuel, a sheep-morph somewhat like myself but with a greater degree of change, standing in the doorway. He held a thin folder in his hoof-like hand.
I nodded. "Yup. It sure seems like a long time, doesn't it? Since the Change, I mean."
He walked in and handed me the folder. "I don't think about it much," he murmured. I smiled sympathetically and took the folder, putting the report I had been reading in with the others. Samuel had been forced to come here by the former 'Mayor', mentally brutalized and enslaved to his will. And he'd got off easy compared to most of the other inhabitants.
"Well, tomorrow I'll be leaving then. Are you sure nobody's still unstable, or curable...?" Despite more than a month's work I had been unable to completely cure anyone, and some I had been unable to help at all, but I didn't want to give up just yet.
Samuel sighed and took the folder back, tucking it under his arm. "Trust me, Bryan, I've worked on this as long as you have and I'm still more qualified even without the Power. It looks like Reimer's effects are going to be with us for a long time to come, but things are under control and slowly but surely improving. Not that you wouldn't still be helpful, but I think I know what you've gone through yourself. You need a vacation more than we need your help right now."
"Besides, you want to see if it helps to get me out of town for a while," I commented. Samuel nodded guiltily. Obedience to the 'dominant male' had been very deeply implanted in everyone, and despite having no desire for it myself that was the position I had been thrust into. Even without my power everyone instinctively yielded to me...
I would be very glad to get out of here for a while.
"Well, I've got a bit of a drive ahead of me tomorrow," I said as I got out of the chair with a groan; Samuel took it as dismissal, as I had intended, and nodded acknowledgement before leaving. Sometimes even he was a little too willing to accomodate me for comfort, despite having come through this ordeal relatively unscathed. I sighed again and gathered the last of my few personal posessions. Then I threw on my coat, a habitual gesture considering the thickness of my woolly pelt, and left the office for a good night's rest.
-----
The next day I drove to Carlsbad, using one of the extremely modest cars that had been brought to Morrisville by one of the sheep who could now no longer drive it himself. I refused to use Reimer's limosine, or any of the extravegant trappings of office that he'd collected.
It was a reasonably long drive, often passing through suburban sprawls and highway tangles. I got lost several times, though fortunately never for long. I was finally stopped by a police roadblock on the perimeter of an area affected by the recent riots. I wasn't concerned, on the contrary it meant I must be getting close to Jon's place. I was able to ask one of the officers on the scene for directions, too. Jon, or "Buck" as he was apparently called now, seemed well-known and liked by the local constabulary. Not surprising, considering his role in controlling the riots.
I finally found Jon's apartment, more than an hour later than I had planned. I didn't care; I walked up to the door, eager to finally meet Jon face-to-face. And also to find somewhere to sit down after the long and stressful drive. I rang the doorbell.
"Bryan?"
"Jon!"
Even though I had seen him on TV already, and I had met somewhat similar morphs in person before reaching Morrisville, I was astonished. Then I remembered that I'd never seen a "before" picture of him, so I might well have been just as surprised meeting him face-to-face even without the whole deer thing.
Jon seemed similarly astonished, and also slightly uncertain. "Bryan, that is you, right?"
"Yeah!... oh, do you mean I never told you what I was?"
Jon shook his head, an impressive gesture considering that rack of his. "I don't know why, but I always thought of you as some sort of... maybe a rodent or canine," he said.
I grinned and struck a pose. "Bighorn sheep, with a little generic ovine mixed in I think," I declared. It was interesting how little I thought about that now, actually, though perhaps some of my lack of species-awareness had been caused by the similarity of the people of Morrisville to me. I hadn't dealt with much of the Change's full diversity lately. I hadn't even bothered to read up on bighorns myself, though there were plenty of books on sheep available in Morrisville.
Jon gestured for me to enter, and I did so. He led me through the front hall and into the living room; it was a jungle in there, with an enormous number of potted plants. Ornamental, and now also a veritable smorgasboard. There was also an eagle morph perched on a chair. "It's Brian," Jon announced.
"Umm, Hi," I greeted him (or her, considering the person's degree of change it might be a faux pas to assume a gender one way or the other).
"Hey, Bryan! A bighorn, eh? Neat!"
Uh-oh, it sounded like he knew me. That meant I should probably know him, too. "Yeah, it's, uh..." I trailed off in embarassment. I had had a hard enough time remembering people's names before the Change, I had absolutely no chance now. I decided to bite the bullet and just ask, rather than try faking it as I usually did. "...sorry, what was your name again?"
"It's Brian... Brian Coe!" He told me.
"Oh... Oh! Ohhhh! Of course, Brian/Bryan!" What a goof to make! "An eagle, eh? Can you fly?"
Brian spread a wing and nodded, the corner of his mouth pulled up in a grin. If anything it only made his expression look fiercer, and I grinned back somewhat nervously. Jon and I sat down.
"So," Jon began, "how have you been? What've you been up to since the Change?"
"Uh, not much," I told them. "A little travelling. A little, uh, social work. Nothing particularly interesting. At least, not compared to some of the stuff I saw on the news! You seem to have set up as some sort of superhero."
"Nah, I was just swept up in events like everyone else," Jon demurred, and then he and Brian began telling me about some of the things that had been going on in LA. I was very glad the subject had changed so easily, I didn't particularly want to talk about some of the stuff I had gone through myself; there were too many unresolved issues and personal conflicts. Perhaps later, I'd have to tell them something. But not now.
And also on the plus side, the possibility of having to use my power to avoid the topic hadn't even come up. I was firm in my vow to stick to the rules I had made for myself, but even so I didn't enjoy temptation.
Copyright 1997, Bryan Derksen
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