Once the kids on the bus saw me turn into Jamie, and told other kids at school and their families about us, it wasn’t more than a week before we had a reporter knocking on our door. I found out about it when I woke up in the playground that night with TV cameras and lights pointing at me.

Night and Day

part 10 of 12

by Trismegistus Shandy

This story is set, with Morpheus' kind permission, in his Twisted universe. Thanks to Morpheus, epain, and Karen Lockhart for reading and commenting on earlier drafts.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Things were going badly for Jamie. Once I started changing into him on the school bus, soon everyone at school knew. Bobby told me something about how people were treating him, and I saw some of the mean comments people were leaving on his social media account. (He hadn’t changed his password again, and I hadn’t let on that I’d figured it out. I sent him another friend request once my existence was public knowledge, but it took him a while to accept it.)

I’d started watching the late-night news after Mom and Jared went to bed, and it seemed that more kids were transforming every day. And there were more and more horror stories on the news about bad things happening with the transformations — particularly with our personality changes and what would later be called our “tricks.” Only a small fraction of us had serious personality disorders, but those and the inhuman-looking ones got the lion’s share of the news coverage. The first time I heard the word “Twisted” used to describe us was in a news story about a kid who had used his power to paralyze his parents and older brother, then tortured them until the cops came in to investigate the screams. That story got a lot of coverage for weeks on end, and there were people calling for all of us transformed kids to be rounded up and quarantined.

I realized, reading and hearing about other transformed kids, that Jamie and I were among the weirder ones, and I wondered why we hadn’t gotten any reporters wanting to interview us, or interview other people about us if we wouldn’t talk. But then I realized that, until I started turning into Jamie at the bus stop or on the bus, hardly anybody knew about me, only about Jamie, and if you didn’t know about me, his change was pretty normal as transformations went — the single most common type, becoming a little taller, better-looking, more athletic. (That “most common type” was only a plurality, not a majority by any means, but Nia Clarence got a lot of mileage out of those kids in her publicity campaigns for Altered rights. She was one of the last holdouts to keep using “Altered” instead of “Twisted.”)

That didn’t last, though. Once the kids on the bus saw me turn into Jamie, and told other kids at school and their families about us, it wasn’t more than a week before we had a reporter knocking on our door. I found out about it when I woke up in the playground that night with TV cameras and lights pointing at me; I have to admit I did not react well, remembering how most of the news coverage of kids like me I’d seen was slanted to show how weird we were. And I had no idea what Jamie or Mom might have told the reporter and cameraman.

“Um, hi? Who are you?” I was flustered, okay? A moment after I said that, I realized it was a silly question; I knew what these people were, if not their names.

“I’m Amelia Nichols,” the reporter said. She was from one of the cable news networks — we didn’t get cable, which is why I didn’t recognize her. “You don’t remember meeting me?”

“No. You’ve obviously met Jamie...”

Just then I saw Mom over behind the reporter and cameraman — it had been hard to see her at first, with the bright lights in my eyes, and I wondered if Jamie had been able to get a decent view of the sunset. Mom was waving at me frantically with one hand and making a zipping-the-lips gesture with the other. I wasn’t sure if that meant “don’t say anything” or “don’t be sarcastic,” and decided to ask.

“...Excuse me, but my mom doesn’t like me talking with strangers. I’m not going to talk to you unless she introduces us.”

“Fine,” Ms. Nichols said, and to her cameraman: “Take five, Mike. Let him — uh, her talk with her mom for a few minutes.”

I went over to Mom and spoke to her in a low voice. “Is it okay if I talk to her?”

“Yes, but be nice,” Mom whispered. “They’re paying us five hundred dollars for the interviews. They already talked with Jamie.”

“All right. Anything in particular you want me to say or not say?”

“Nothing about being grounded, or why... and nothing about your power.”

“Of course.” I turned and walked back over to the reporter. “Mom says it’s okay.”

“Great. Mike, can you get both of us with the swing set in the background...?”

We moved around at Mike’s direction until he said we looked okay, and then Ms. Nichols said: “So... Diana. I understand you don’t remember anything that happens to Jamie?”

“That’s right. We used to be the same person, but we’re separate people now.”

“So you have multiple personalities?”

“Kind of. Dr. Ware says it’s not like the usual dissociative identity disorder. We’re not crazy, we’re just two sane people that take turns being awake while the other one’s asleep.”

“That would be Dr. Jonathan Ware, the neuropsychologist?”

“Yeah, that’s him. He’s been doing research on kids who’ve transformed, him and some other professors from the university. Dr. Darrington’s the only other one I’ve met, but I think there are a couple of others.”

“You said that you and Jamie ‘take turns being awake.’ What is that like?”

“One minute I’m sitting on the bus on the way to school — I never get there, I always turn into Jamie partway there — and the next I’m standing here in front of your camera and lights. And... I guess I never see the sun except when it’s rising. And I don’t see a lot of people outside my family, and the kids on the school bus.”

“That must be difficult.”

“I guess it’ll be better later in the year, when the nights are longer and people stay out longer after sunset. The hardest part was during the middle of the summer, when my little sister’s bedtime was before sunset, and I didn’t get to see her except when she woke up with a nightmare.”

“So you always change into Jamie at sunrise, and he changes into you at sunset?”

“Yes.”

“Even if you’re indoors and can’t see the sun rise or set?”

“Yeah. It happened one time when we were at Dr. Ware’s lab, in some kind of X-ray machine, so he could watch what happened when we changed. And some other times we’ve been indoors.”

“How do you feel about being a girl?”

I thought I’d already said that, but I answered anyway. “I’m okay with it. I mean, back when I was a boy, I would have thought it would be terrible, but it’s not that bad. A little inconvenient sometimes, but no big deal.”

“You’ve changed your name to Diana. Was that your idea, or did someone suggest it?”

“It was my idea to come up with a new name. So people wouldn’t get me and Jamie confused, or think we were the same person. I suggested that Jamie should do the same, because he’s not the original Jamie any more than I am, but I guess he decided against it.”

“Interesting! So you think you’re a completely different person from the original Jamie before the alteration?”

“Not completely different. Not like some kids who’ve transformed. But I’m not the only one who got personality changes; daytime-Jamie got some too. I just don’t want the fact that he goes by our original name, while I’ve changed my name, make people think I’ve changed more than him, or that he’s the original and I’m a spinoff, or something.”

“How do you know he’s had personality changes? You’ve never met, right?”

“No, but I talk to people who see him. Mom and Jared — that’s my older brother — and Jasmine, my little sister, and our friend Bobby. And some other friends I talk to online, who see Jamie at school. And Jamie and I exchange email too.”

“What do you two talk about?”

“He fills me in on what’s happening in the daytime, and we negotiate about stuff. Like — um. I guess your viewers don’t want to hear about my period.”

“Maybe not,” she said with a wry smile. “I’m curious about how that works, though. We can cut this part out later.”

“Well, I mean when we change, our clothes aren’t affected. So we have to wear loose stuff, like an oversize T-shirt and sweat pants with no underwear, or else the other one will be pinched in certain places. And when I’m having my period...” I explained about our arrangement, and how Jamie hadn’t liked it at first but grudgingly agreed it was the least worst we could do.

“If you consider yourself a girl now, do you regret not being able to wear more feminine clothes? T-shirts and sweats are comfortable, but I’d hate it if I had to wear them all the time.” She was dressed in a navy blue blouse and skirt with probably three- or four-inch heels.

“Oh, I don’t wear this all the time. Just at sunrise and sunset. Usually I go inside and change clothes pretty soon after sunset, and then change back into the T-shirt and sweats after I shower, before I catch the school bus.”

“Do you bring a change of clothes for Jamie with you, or does he keep them in a locker at school?”

“I bring them with me. Um, and I guess he keeps stuff in the locker in the gym too.”

“What do you like to wear?”

“Pretty similar to this, I guess, but stuff that fits better. T-shirts and jeans, mostly.”

“I suppose you don’t have much opportunity to go out and show off anything nicer.”

“Not much. This time of year, the evening service at our church is almost over before sunset, and our church is pretty casual anyway.”

“You stared to say something about Jamie having had personality changes. How do you think Jamie has changed?”

“Well, he’s more confident about talking with girls than we used to be. So am I, I guess, but for a different reason. And Bobby tells me he whistles a lot more than we used to — all kinds of different tunes, sometimes ones he makes up himself.”

“You said you’re more confident about talking with girls for a different reason than Jamie... would that be because you’re a girl yourself?”

“Yeah, and because I’m not distracted by how pretty they are.”

“Oh! So you like boys now?”

“No, why would you assume that?” I said, annoyed. “I’m asexual; I’m not attracted to anybody.”

“Are you sure? You said you haven’t seen anybody but family...”

“Not often, but I’ve seen neighbors around the apartment complex, and kids on the school bus, and people at the hospital and the university.”

“The hospital?”

Oh, shit. I couldn’t tell her about that... But yeah, I could mention the first emergency room trip. “When Jamie first turned into me, and I couldn’t remember what had happened for the last twelve hours, Mom took me to the emergency room to see if there was something wrong with my brain. They couldn’t find anything wrong. Anyway, yeah, I’ve seen enough guys in person that I’d know if I was attracted to them, not to mention all the people I’ve seen on TV.”

“Have you noticed any other personality changes, in yourself or Jamie?”

I thought about that for a few moments. “I don’t get scared anymore, I think. At least not at the same kinds of things. When I think about this neighborhood and how it’s not safe for a girl to walk around in at night — which is the only time I’m around — I’m not scared, I’m angry. Angry at the criminals who make it unsafe and the police who don’t patrol here very often and the city that doesn’t hire enough police to cover neighborhoods like this.”

“You’ve thought a lot about this, I can see.”

“I’m alone most of the night. I have a lot of time to think.”

“Thank you for talking with me, Diana.”

“No problem.”

It took Mike (I never learned his last name) several minutes to get his equipment taken down and put away. He was still working on it when Mom and I went inside. Jared had already put Jasmine to bed, so I didn’t get to see her that night.

A few nights later, when I came in from the playground, Jared told me: “A couple of the kids at school told me they’d seen you on the news.”

“Oh, cool. Maybe I can watch it on the channel’s website.”

“I don’t think you should,” he said. “I watched it, and... it would just make you mad.”

“What? Why?”

“It’s the way they edited it and spun it, and how the talking heads in the studio introduced it. Do yourself a favor and don’t watch it.”

But of course I did, later that night after everyone had gone to bed. And as Jared had predicted, I got pretty mad. I don’t know if it was Amelia Nichols' fault, or the editor in the studio, but they’d cut it down to about thirty seconds of Jamie talking, and another thirty seconds of me after the footage of him turning into me. And then they’d also interviewed several kids from school, including one who saw me turn into Jamie on the bus in the mornings.

For one thing, this news network had just standardized on “Twisted” as the term for kids like me. (It had been coined by one of their commentators.) They’d gone through the interview and whenever Ms. Nichols used the word “Altered” they’d had her overdub it with “Twisted”, and that’s how the studio talking heads referred to me and Jamie.

For another, they played the part where I said “he’s not the original Jamie any more than I am,” without any of its context, and a similar bit where Jamie said “She’s not me,” and played up the differences between us and the original, as though there was no continuity between the original Jamie and us.

But the worst of it was that they made me and Jamie look crazy. They played footage of some psychologist I’d never heard of talking about dissociative identity disorder — I’m guessing they only used a few seconds out of a much longer interview, and he may not have even known they were talking about a transformed kid. They left out the part where I said Dr. Ware said what we had wasn’t the usual DID. Then they had the psychologist talking about sexual repression, and interleaved that with me saying I wasn’t attracted to anybody.

By the time I got done watching it (it was only two or three minutes) I was so mad I couldn’t sit still. I paced back and forth in the living room, wishing I could go out, and knowing I could probably get away with it but the consequences would be severe if I didn’t.

Finally I sat down and wrote an angry post to my social media. But none of my friends were up this time of night, and I couldn’t expect a response until tomorrow night, so that was only a partial relief of my feelings. I went to that site that tracked transformed kids, found the forum, and posted there about that tendentious news story — a little more calmly this time. Some of the people who used that site kept all kinds of hours, and I saw a couple of replies to my post when I looked at it again an hour or so before dawn.

Somebody wrote:

“My daughter came home crying from school a few days ago because kids at school were calling her ‘twisted.’ I could strangle that talk show host that started calling kids that! Not that kids can’t be pretty cruel on their own, but they certainly don’t need adults encouraging them.”

Another person said:

“The same kind of thing happened when the local news interviewed me and my son. They edited the interview to make me look pathetic and my son look crazy. They exaggerated his compulsion and made it define him, and left out all the other stuff the reporter talked with us about. I think it was the editor in the studio who’s responsible; if the reporter were aiming for that he wouldn’t have asked so many other questions only to have the editor cut them out.”

I sent a link to that forum thread to Jamie’s email and asked him if the kids at school were treating him different since the interview aired. Then I showered and got ready for the school bus.

Four of my novels and one short fiction collection are available from Smashwords in ePub format and from Amazon in Kindle format. Smashwords pays its authors better than Amazon.