Amalgamation

Ryan’s body had become an amalgamation of his various neighbors. He recognized the dress as one that Elle would wear heading down the elevator to a night at the club, the tattoos clearly belonged to Jorge, and the overall body was definitely Mrs. Shu’s.

The only thing left that Ryan could claim as his own was his mind. Though he could feel the other’s inside of him, begging for a moment of control. But what had caused him and several neighbors to merge into a single person? It didn’t make any sense; however, as he stepped out into the hallway of his apartment building, he soon discovered he wasn’t the only one in this strange situation.

The Merge

Don't You Work in IT?

“Don’t you work in IT, Johnny? Can’t you fix this!?” Anna pleaded, who was somehow fused into one body with their co-worker, Hao.

Johnny tried to explain. “I work in software. I don’t know anything about biology or whatever happened here. I didn’t even know this lab existed off the server room until I heard your screams.”

Anna pouted. “But he used a computer to do this! And you know computers!”

“I understand you don’t know,” Hao reasoned, “But surely someone must know what was being done down here.”

“I mean, I don’t even know where the unused parts of your bodies are. I certainly wouldn’t know how to undo or re-attach anything. But I guess I can ask around...”

Closer

Sharon had asked her boyfriend about getting closer -- maybe by moving in together or something like that -- but John hesitated. Was he ready for that sort of thing? He didn’t even have time to come up with something to say rejecting the idea before the oddest thing happened -- Sharon and John started to merge into one being.

“What are you doing?” John shouted.

“I didn’t want to be close like this!” Sharon yelled back. “What’s happened to us!? I can feel everything.” Then she paused before adding, “You were going to say no?”

John didn’t have time to respond again. The merge had completed. They were feeling both sets of thoughts of Sharon and John and all the contradictions that entailed. Their merged body was an average of male and female, of the two beings now one. And the argument about being closer continued in their head, even as there was no possible way to be even closer.

Double Date (Part 2)

View Part 1 of Doouble Date.

While John and Chloe lightly complained to their friends in public, the merge had actually been nothing short of a nightmare for them. Their internal monologue was a mess of confusion and contradiction. The bra and heels were just the start of complaints. Nothing fit right; nothing felt right. Somehow the merge made them feel like everything was both familiar and foreign at the same time.

This turbulent period lasted several months before it finally died down. But a new problem started to emerge. The Merge was supposed to connect John and Chloe as a single person, to be with your loved one forever, and never be lonely. But their sense of two distinct selves was long gone, and the merged being now felt alone. Should they start dating again? Was that even a possibility? Would anyone want to be with this strange, confused individual?

12:01

Double Date

My girlfriend and I had agreed to go on a double date with John and Chloe...if you could still call it that.

You see, John and Chloe had recently undergone a process called “The Merge” to affirm their commitment to each other. The whole thing seemed a little weird to me, as they were now one single person with Chloe being the left side and John beng the right. They spoke as a single entity now, with seemingly singular interests. They complained about buying a bra for a chest that was completely flat on one side. They talked about wearing a heel on one side to even the height of their legs. I didn’t want to ask about intimacy or using the restroom; I didn’t even want to think about it.

After lunch, I felt a little sick to my stomach thinking about John and Chloe. But then my girlfriend turned to me and started to ask about when WE were going to merge.

Smarts

Lin and Mark were both overachievers at their college. They were always trying to outdo each other and (as such) pushed their limits to study the furthest reaches of a wide variety of fields from nuclear fusion to gene splicing to quantum physics. When a teacher showed off the latest miniature particle accelerator, both Mark and Lin stayed after class to get a closer look.

But two began to butt heads in order to get a closer look, and it soon evolved into a fight over the object. But the device soon began to whirl with an unexpected sputter and then unleashed a flash of light.

The teacher and the other students could only look at what happened in shock, with Mark and Lin seemingly merged into a single person.

“I think I have a migraine,” Lin’s voice said as the side that looked like her lifted a hand to her head.

“What happened?” This time it was Mark’s voice that spoke out of the same mouth.

Then they somehow screamed in unison as they realized they were now sharing a single body. They each controlled their respective half, but could also feel everything of the other side as though it were their own. And despite the distinction and the initial panic, they found being connected allowed them to bounce ideas off each other inside their singular head. Whereas they had once been rivals, they were now able to be a single collaborator. And as time went on, their merged nature allowed them to be even smarter and more advanced, perhaps even the smartest person on the planet. And yet with each side controlling only half the body, doing something as simple as walking proved challenging.

Pull the Lever (Part 2)

View Part 1 of Pull the Lever.

Gin awoke to the sounds of fires crackling and the smell of smoke in the air. The explosion should have killed it, but he didn’t FEEL dead. He body ached as he blinked his eyes open. He knew he should get up and get out of there, but he was still trying to reason how he survived. He was sure it was just a matter of math, which he was usually pretty good at figuring out in his head; yet he couldn’t seem to do it now.

As he got to his feet, the answer became clearer; his body had changed again. He was much more feminine than he had been. He likely fused with another woman, possibly several. It used to be easy for him to triangulate things like where they must have been standing and how many just by thinking, but his brain struggled now. He considered himself lucky to be able to reason that his mind must have been fused this time as well with most of his genius gone in an instant. He still remembered who he was, the fusions, and the machine malfunction, but couldn’t remember why he had built the machine in the first place or what it was actually supposed to do. He certainly no longer had the ability to recreate the thing. He remembered plots of television shows he never watched and about promising to meet a friend at the gym tonight. Then another small explosion snapped him back to more immediate concerns. He picked himself up and started getting out of this death trap. He stumbled in the heels he wore, so he ripped them off and went barefoot. Knowing how to walk in those things was NOT something he remembered how to do either. But was that something he should remember?

Pull the Lever (Part 1)

“You can’t do it!” Jackson shouted at his business partner Gin, “We’ll never get it back up and running again. And if it’s not working, we’ll never get back to normal!”

“We have to shut it down! It’s malfunctioning!” Gin insisted, “And it’s already too late for normal. This thing is already literally merging people’s bodies together. It’s only going to get worse from here. It could start fusing us with animals or inanimate objects! You could end up with pigeon wings for arms! Or a watermelon in your head instead of a brain! Right now, we’re still lucky we remember enough to know HOW to shut it down. If my fusion with Nadine had gone the other way, she’d be standing here befuddled with her head and my body instead of the other way around.”

“But how are we going to get Nadine back? Or...Frannie?”

Gin heard the pain in his friend’s voice and frowned as he looked at Jackson’s one feminine leg, which had once belonged to Jackson’s girlfriend, Frannie. She was one was one of the first people merged into someone else when the machine started malfunctioning. He knew Jackson felt responsible.

“It’s not your fault, man,” Gin said, “No one expected this to happen. But she’s gone. Keeping this thing on isn’t going to bring her back. But shutting it down will stop anyone else from going through that pain. I’ve done the calculations; this thing is going to be exponential. That’s so many more loved ones gone.”

Jackson paused for a moment. “Do it,” He said.

Gin pulled with all his might, realizing how much more difficult this was for him now that he had Nadine’s weak muscles instead of his own. He then grabbed with the other hand, but it still wouldn’t budge. But then it finally started to move and he noticed Jackson behind him helping to pull just as the explosions began...

I probably don't need to push subscriptions or post my site, but I will anyway.

Not a Single Layoff

I showed up to the job interview, and there was a single woman in the office. “I was a little surprised you guys were hiring,” I told her, “But I guess the rumored layoffs were even deeper than people were saying.”

“We actually didn’t have any,” She said.

“Is everyone working at home?”

“No, there was,” She paused, “An accident. We had been developing groundbreaking tech. The code we developed could compress a human brain and store it on a hard drive. But we ended up,” She paused again, “Merging. This body contains every ability, feeling, and memory from everyone at the company. Even the DNA is sort of average of all of us. About 60% of the staff was Asian, so we are as well.”

“Were the coders mostly women?” I couldn’t believe I was even asking questions instead of just getting the hell out of there.

“The Y chromosome is in many ways like an incomplete X. But ther averaging completed it enough that it seemed to round up, and so we became a woman. But if it makes you feel better, we are still a total tech bro at heart in many ways too! It should probably come as no surprise we are able to do just about everything at this company, but we do need more hands to pull it all off. After all, this body only has two, and can only work so fast!”

The Merge (Part 3)

View The Merge (Part 1) here.
View The Merge (Part 2) here.

Of course, the students weren’t the only ones affected, teachers got caught up in the merge as well. Jake, the class slacker, merged with Mrs. Stoll, and ended up insisting the students call her by her new first name, Jane.

The new Jane seemed closer in age to Jake but was a woman like Mrs. Stoll. She still ended up teaching classes but was a lot more laid back in the way she did. She’d do things like wear baggie hoodies with professional pencil skirts, and loved drugs just as much as Jake had. She stayed married to Mr. Stoll, however, there were a lot of rumors about how she now insisted on an open relationship. In fact, Jane even showed up to prom with Alana, who had been absent on the day of the merge and had previously agreed to attend with Jake. And when fall rolled around, Jane continued to teach while also taking night and weekend classes at community college as Jake had planned to do.

The Merge (Part 2)

View The Merge (Part 1) here.

Of course, Melvin and Jody weren’t the only ones affected. A goth girl named Lily and a guy on the football team named Keith also got merged into a single woman; she ended up going by the name Lilith.

Lilith regularly called football “stupid” (of course, she called most things “stupid”) yet insisted on continuing to play for the team. She would quickly unleash a load of feminist fury if anyone said anything about how girls shouldn’t play football. She was a beast on the field and loved flexing her muscles, and the goth makeup she wore could often be intimidating to opponents. Off the field, she tried her best to be the same sort of ladies man that Keith had been, with a particular interest in Melody. There had often been rumors about Lily being a lesbian, but no one ever knew for sure, since she had mostly kepto to herself. But the clear preference for women from the merged Lilith seemed to leave little room for doubt about what once was.

The Merge (Part 1)

Senior year was always an exciting time at the local high school. The kids were becoming adults, creating plans for college, and enjoying their accomplishments. But with a month left in the school year, an unexplained explosion would shock everyone. Technically, no one was hurt, but pairs of students wound up merging into a single individual.

People suspected Melvin of causing the whole thing, but no one had any proof. They just thought he was smart enough to pull it off, and he also won the lottery when it came to who he merged with: Jody, the hottest girl in school. The merger between the two (who insisted on being called “Melody”) wasn’t quite as pretty as the original Jody, as she now had some of Melvin’s nerdy features, but still extremely beautiful. She was just as smart as Melvin, and enjoyed things like Doctor Who and comic books. But she was also still athletic and kept up with cheerleading as Jody had with similar interest in things like fashion and boys. She had some struggles with body issues, as Jody had been known to make fun of Melvin in the past and that had now been internalized.

The Universe Is Collapsing

Doctor Bradley Ramirez had hoped the collider he had invented would unlock the mysteries of the universe. Instead, he was afraid that he accidentally doomed the world instead. After his first test, things around his lab started going missing. Then he’d find things in odd places -- like his computer mouse randomly being in the toaster. Then things got weirder as he noticed the words of a book printed on the inside of his toilet. The evidence was starting to be undeniable -- the world was collapsing in on itself. Nothing was truly disappearing, but things were being merged. Just as he hoped to bunker down to fix it, he too was merged. Luckily, it was with another human. He was lounging on a beach thousands of miles from his lab in a bikini. He had a woman’s body, but he was still himself on the inside. Before, he could even think, he was merged again. This time he still had on the bikini, but also a coat and snowboots. He was on a mountain somewhere, and still certainly a woman. This was driving him crazy. He couldn’t fix anything if he couldn’t stay in one spot! He also realized at any moment, he could be the one to lose his mind in a merge. He theorized the world had little more than 24 hours left.

But the oddest thing happened next. The merging slowly stopped. Sure, there were a few people like Bradley, in the wrong body, and other odd sights, like a bear with plants growing out of its back. But things had stabilized. Bradley was sure he had the time now to fix things, maybe even reverse things. But he worried about trying again. Could he make things worse?

Closer Forever

All the guests had left, and Robert and Jane were basking in the glow of their newlywed love in the now empty reception hall. They hardly even noticed the old lady wander in off the street.

“Do you love your new bride?” The lady approached Robert and asked.

“Of course,” He replied.

“And you want to be close to her forever? Be with her?”

“Yes, yes.” He said hoping the woman would leave.

Instead she waved her hand, which caused Robert and Jane to pass out. Robert awoke some time later, feeling quite strange. He couldn’t seem to move the left half of his body, but looking down it actually wasn’t his body at all! Then he looked over to see himself in a mirror and it got even weirder. He was a one head of a two-headed Jane! 

A few minutes later, Jane’s side awoke. She was just as freaked out as her husband.

“What did that old lady do to us? Where did she go? She needs to fix this!” Jane screamed.

“I guess she made me close to you,” Robert said, feeling very with Jane’s voice coming from his mouth, “To make me be with you. I’ll love you no matter what, but we do need to find her and get her to fix it. But we’ll need to coordinate. We each seem to only control half your body...”

Juanita (Part 3)

Click here for Part 1.
Click here for Part 2.

Juanita decided to change out of his leather work overalls and into something more comfortable. He looked through his closet and everything felt exciting and new while also seeming old and familiar. He was starting to get used to the contradictions in his head as just a matter of fact as he selected a black dress that he both had fond memories of while also eager to see what he’d look like if he tried it on.

After changing he sat down on the couch and watched some television, flipping constantly between a baseball game and a soap opera -- never quite able to decide which to settle on. It was all perfectly normal, perfectly fine for him. Of course, it might be less fine when Rita’s husband finally got home, and he discovered a woman in his house who only somewhat looked like his wife.

Juanita (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1.

Juanita examined his body in a mirror. He tried to get a good look at his back side. He was still so fascinated that he was a woman now, even as part of felt like this shouldn’t be strange because he always had been a woman. Soon Juanita began to wonder what his husband would say when he arrived home to find his wife now had much more exotic features, darker skin, and black hair. And then Juanita thought of her wife back in the city as well; what was he going to tell her now that she was a woman! And, God, he didn’t want to go back to that small, one bedroom apartment -- even if it did feel like home. “Maybe my wife can live with me and my husband in this house,” Juanita thought as his mind kept bouncing back and forth between memories of Juan and those of Rita. Juan’s memories may have been slightly more dominant, but Rita’s comfortable lifestyle meant holding onto her recollections were very convenient.

Juanita

Juan had a bad feeling that morning as he drove his van out of the city to his contractor work in the suburbs. He couldn’t quite place his finger on why; it just felt like something bad was going to happen. The job itself started off relatively routine. A blond woman named Rita wearing a bikini top and leather pants greeted him and showed him where the problem was. She soon jetted off to the backyard to lounge about by the pool as Juan got to work. The first thing he needed to do was tear open a wall in order to replace an old duct. He was about to bust it open when he felt strange -- almost as if he was in two places at the same time. Then everything snapped back into place and Juan felt very strange.

He still had all his memories of being Juan -- immigrating to this country as a child, starting his contractor business, but he could also sense memories of being Rita as well -- marrying a rich investment banker and buying this house. His body seemed to be a mix of his and Rita’s as well. He had her curves and her femininity, but he was still Hispanic. His still had his overalls on, but they were now made of the leather of Rita’s pants. He looked at the wall where he was supposed to replace the duct, and while he knew exactly what needed to be done, he certainly didn’t feel like getting his manicured hands dirty! He was still trying to wrap his head around all the ways he was still Juan and all the ways he was now Rita, and he was slowly resigning to himself that he was truly a mix of the two now -- Juanita!

Not Like This

It wasn’t often that Mark brought a woman he randomly met at a bar one night back to his place, but he had a feeling that Tiffany was different. He connected with her in a way that he couldn’t imagine, so he was a little disappointed when he awoke the morning after their one night stand to find her gone. He wondered why she had run off...that is until he got to the bathroom and saw his reflection. It seems Tiffany didn’t run off; instead, at some point in the night they had fused into a single person. He screamed in shock as he saw his face on Tiffany’s otherwise gorgeous body. He pulled up on her pink shirt to reveal more of his body. He felt like some sort of freak. He wanted to get close to Tiffany, but not like this! Not like this at all!

Got the Job

After graduating college, Joshua headed straight to the hipster mecca of Brooklyn. After finding an apartment, his next task was to find a job. It didn’t take him long to score an interview by applying for a few things online. He knew he was a little unprepared coming into the office. He had forgotten the name of the company, which meant he couldn’t research them in advance. He got a little more confident when he arrived to meet with the hiring manager. Two other people were there for the interview: A Jewish woman from Jersey wearing an outlandish top with stripes and leopard print and a black man from the Bronx wearing a baseball cap and a gold chain around his neck. With his large hipster glasses and brand new suit, Joshua felt that he was at least a little more appropriately dressed than his competition. They were all waiting for a while, then the door to the hiring manager’s office opened. A bright light shone out; Joshua was knocked to the floor. When the light cleared, Joshua first noticed that he was alone. Then he tried to pick himself up off the floor and noticed heels on his feet. He was wearing the top the Jewish woman had been wearing and he also wore the hat and chains the black man had. He was certainly a woman now and his skin was now brown. He realized he had been merged somehow with the two other people in the room. He still thought of himself as Joshua, but he realized that he had no way to really know how much of his thoughts were really his own. Then the hiring manager finally came out of her office with a smile, “Congratulations; you got the job. Now, let me explain...”