Somewhere in this vast universe of ours exists a room; a room of most vital importance to Earth. In it is a control board set up much like a telephone op'tor switchboard. It controls a person's mind, and registers its emotion. Most important, it holds a person's mind in place in its body.
The Operator, who never sleeps, works at this board, keeping everything in order. When a person dies, it is his job to oust his or her cord. Once in a very great while he finds he has pulled a cord prematurely and plugs it back in.
The Operator pulled two plugs together one day, believing the bodies to be dead; the lights were indiscernible.
Then, one of the lights flickered anew. Instantly, he plugged in the wire, then went on about the switchboard, unaware that he had made .... A MISTAKE!!
Len Daily fell from the 8th floor of an unfinished skyscraper to hard cement far below. The lights went out for him.
Karen Lansey saw the rescue boat drawing nearer, but her strength was gone. She sank beneath the surface.
A man from the rescue boat dove over the side when he reached the place where the girl had gone under. He dove deep, caught the girl by the chin and towed her back to the surface and the boat. As soon as the girl and man were in the boat, it sped for the Oceanside Hospital.
Len Daily thought of his wife and family as he fell. What would become of them? If only it hadn't been for that Kevin Lansey, they would be able to live in luxury, but Lansey claimed the silver found by Daily by saying it had been found on Lansey ground and on Lansey time. Daily hadn't had enough money to take the case to court, so Lansey had received title to the silver and rewarded Daily by firing him.
Len had taken this job only because it was either take the job or watch his family die of hunger. He hadn't told the foreman that he got dizzy when he was up high. He had paid, dearly.
Karen Lansey's thoughts were much more selfish. She hated to die and deprive the upper class of society of one of its queens, and womanhood of a face and form comparable to a goddess.
Unbelievingly, Len Daily opened his eyes. He was looking at a nurse.
She smiled and said, "You had a close call, but you'll be all right now."
A strange voice emanated from Len's mouth, but he chalked it up to the fall as he said, "I don't see how I could have survived. It was such a long way."
"One of the men who saw you got to his boat just in time. The artificial respiration kept you alive long enough to get you here. You had us worried. For a while, we thought you were dead, but all of a sudden you came back to life on your own, but didn't wake up. Your father told us to give you a private room," said the nurse.
"My father?" Again that strange feminine voice smote Len's ears. His father had died two years ago, when Len was twenty, just after Len had lost the silver.
When he'd discovered the silver and thought he was about to be rich, he'd married Cathy. Two days later the trouble had come. A year later, they'd had twins. Another year had brought the accident. Maybe, he thought, this was delirium before death; but he had no fever.
The nurse had gone; Len was alone in the room. He sat up in bed and looked at his hands. They were smooth and straight and slender and soft, almost like a woman's. Almost? Len stared at the picture of Karen Lansey, daughter of his hated former employer. It looked almost real. She was sitting in a hospital bed, staring at him through her beautiful blue eyes.
Then, Len sneezed. He looked back at the picture. It had changed a little and the girl's hair was messed up.
His eyes opened wider; so did the eyes of the girl in the picture; but it wasn't a picture; it was a mirror!
Len lay back on the bed, his mind racing, madly. It was impossible; it just couldn't be! How could he, a man, become a girl? Not to mention the fact that it was the daughter of his hated ex-employer.
By all laws of nature he should be dead. His own body was hopelessly smashed and splattered all over the cement basement of the as yet incompleted Mason building.
His mind stopped racing as it cleared and one thought stood out: now he could take care of his family.
Karen Lansey left the hospital the next day, as beautiful as ever. No one suspected that there was a great difference in her now. She had everything figured out. Somehow, by mistake, Len had become Karen. Now, before the mistake was rectified, he had three important things to do.
The first one was quickly done. She signed over a quarter million dollars worth of stocks and bonds to Mrs. Cathy Daily "to make up for the wrong which her father had done to her and her family."
Secondly, she went to Len Daily's "funeral" and saw what was left of his body laid to rest.
The third thing was hardest. She was going to eliminate Kevin Lansey and herself in the process.
The real Karen Lansey viewed Earth, sad that it was deprived of her beauty and grace. As always, the only person cared about was herself. She was amazed suddenly when she saw herself at the beach, surrounded by handsome young men. Indignant, she told one of the officers in charge what was happening and that her body hadn't died.
The officer scoffingly went and looked, then gasped. "Oh, my! This is horrible! I can't imagine who is down there. I'll go and check."
"See that you do. The very idea, someone else in my body! I ought to report you!" she stormed.
While everything was about to be corrected by those beings upstars, Len Daily was completing his final phase. As Karen, she lifted the phone receiver and told the police to come to her father's apartment because she was going to murder him.
She waited until a policeman entered the room, then plunged the nail file into her father's throat.
Karen Lansey's trial headlined the papers. Throughout it all she refused to have a lawyer and insisted that the murder was premeditated. There was no choice.
Len Daily, in Karen Lansey's body, was seated in the electric chair. Then he was in a long hall.
Karen Lansey had a bag over her head. She cried out. "What's going on? Let me loose! Let me..." A crackle of electricity, then the odor of burning flesh filled the room.
Len Daily leaned back against the wall of the long hall. His job was finished.
THE END
Dot's vot hobbens ven you don'd sent in sdoriess. I hobe you send some in vor negst ishoo, or who knowss vot dis cherk vill put in? |
Updated May 12, 2001. If you have a comment about these web pages please send a note to the Fanac Webmaster. Thank you.