I didn’t think too much about the title of Twisted Twister at first. But then we got five rounds into the game, and Jenn goes, “Lydia, you get a twist in your neck,” and just like that, my head spun around and I was looking up at the ceiling.
The first thing I noticed? Actually it was that the tag was sticking out of my shirt. And that I should probably try to pull my pants up, but my right and left hand both had to stay on yellow, so that was going to take a second.
“Sophie gets a twist in her arms,” said Jenn. With a slight dazzle of sparks and glitter, her arms coiled up into a spiral, uncoiling until her hands rested easily on the ground, even though she was still upright. Sophie was a slender girl, with bright eyes and long flexible legs. With her arms as they were, looking like a coiled rope, she didn’t look like she’d be able to actually pick anything up.
“Yay slinky arms!” shouted Sophie. She’d played this game before, definitely an advantage.
“Mary, you’ve got to twist your waist.”
“Ahh,” said Mary. I tried to look over my shoulder to see forwards, and caught a glimpse of her, now with a lower half that faced the opposite direction as the top. “My back just popped,” she said.
This was my first time at Sophie’s game night. This week, it coincided with Jenn’s 22nd birthday, so it was supposed to cascade into a full on party. I should say I’ve been coming back almost every week since.
I almost didn’t go. If it hadn’t been for Mary guilt-tripping me about how I needed to get out and meet some people and get over this whole Brian thing, well, I’d never have left the Playstation. Nothing to do with Jenn or Sophie, but things like they were, I really didn’t feel like going to just another party - it was the end of my senior year, and I’ll be honest, I was ready for things to start changing.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I lasted a couple more turns. Unfortunately, my new point of view meant I had to crane my neck just to see where my hands were, and when I tried to flip over so I could look down again, I got tangled up in Sophie’s arms and fell. I should’ve taken the other two with me, but pretty much just fell right onto my ass and then my face.
“Well,” I said, standing up and taking a place on the couch. “This was … unexpected. How does it go back?”
“That’s rule number one of Game Night,” said Sophie.
“Meaning, you can’t ‘go back’ you just have to wait for the next game.”
“But my head’s on backwards!”
Jenn started laughing. “That’s all? We should all be so lucky. Last week in a scavenger, I spent two hours looking for my right leg. You wanna know where someone hid it? In the freezer!”
“Can’t I just, I don’t know, twist it back?”
“You might try but—”
I was trying. Pulling with both hands, I thought I felt my neck turning. Suddenly there was a loud pop, and I was once again looking down at my boobs.
The problem, I quickly understood, was that my head wasn’t attached any more.
“—I was gonna say, it’ll probably snap off,” said Jenn, starting to laugh all over again.
I frowned a bit trying to reconnect my head. A couple times I set it on my shoulders and let it rest there, but every time I moved it would roll off and I’d just barely manage to catch it.
Meanwhile the game had been going on between the other two.
“Sophie, you get a twist in your … knees.”
“Woah,” said Sophie, flailing around her long arms trying to find her new center of gravity. Somehow, she steadied herself.
“And Mary get’s a twist in her torso. Oh, that’s a rough one.”
“Urf,” was all that Mary said, and her body coiled up, leaving her as a lower half attached to what seemed to be a thick rope roughly the width of her waist. Sticking out the top was her head. It was pretty similar actually, to that trick you sometimes see on TV with the girl in the box. Only Mary was able to wrench her arms out in time to get her hands back on the circles.
“This is going down to the wire,” said Jenn, and kept going with the spinner.
“Hey,” I said, “So I’m wondering, just a little bit, how I just snapped my head off.”
“Well,” said Mary, “Let’s review. You twisted it a way it’s not supposed to go, and it broke.”
“But it is supposed to go that way! It was just the game.”
“And the game lasts until the next one starts. It’s not like anyone made you break your head off.”
“What I mean is, how come I’m not spurting out blood. How come I’m still talking to you with my head in my lap.”
“That’s Rule 2,” said Jenn. “Nobody is allowed to die or get hurt.”
“Actually,” said Sophie, “It’s cause we had an aura put on this place and when we activate it, like we do for game night, we can do almost any kind of magic.”
“Almost?”
“Well, we didn’t get the mind control or time travel options, cause they were too expensive, and we didn’t have the license for ‘necro’ stuff, not that we’re into that here anyhow. But it does all kinds of things.”
“Mary,” said Jenn, “Left foot blue.”
Mary reached out her foot and awkwardly set it down on a blue circle in between Sophie’s legs.
“Nope!” said Sophie. “That’s your right foot, I win.”
“It’s not, oh.” Mary let herself slump down onto the ground, not far away.
“Sophie’s the winner,” said Jenn, tossing the spinner back to the box. “Lydia, you want a drink?”
“I um… sure.” I was cradling my head in my lap, looking at the mess of the other two — at least this was all that had happened.
It seemed drastic that my head had even been reversed — not impossible to manage, but it required a lot of concentration, and even more now that my head was detached. Still, I found it wasn’t too hard as long as I kept a good hold under my chin I could look just about anywhere I wanted. It was actually kind of fun. I stood up and went over to the turned off TV to see my reflection.
I tried tossing my head up and down a couple times, but it quickly made me dizzy. I also tried holding it by my hair - it looked neat in the mirror, but it hurt a little bit. I decided the best thing was just to tuck it under my arm like a football.
The door opened. In the mirror, I saw two guys walk in. One, who was carrying a six pack of beer, gave a quick hug to Jenn, pouring a gin and tonic in the kitchen. He had a quick and confident smile, and looked very relaxed and friendly. The other guy hung back near the door, talking on a cell phone for a moment before hanging up. He smiled sideways at Jenn, then turned to give a one-armed hug to Sophie, her arms dragging on the floor behind her.
“Mary and Lydia, c’mere,” said Sophie. “Meet these guys.”
The guy with the beer introduced himself as soon as I came up, extending a hand and saying “I’m Miles.” He held my hand for just a moment, smiling down at my disconnected head. “That’s quite a war-wound,” he said smirking.
“Um… Thanks.”
I could see Mary talking to the other guy, whose named was Alex. She kept having to abruptly twist to keep facing him, her head and legs refusing to face the same direction.
“So is this your first time here?” asked Miles, handing me a drink from Jenn. I took it with my free hand and tried to take a drink, before I realized I was holding the drink up to the empty space above my shoulders.
“Erm… Yes, obviously.” I brought the drink across in front of my face and took an awkward sip out of the straw. I started giggling. “I was the first one to lose and then I broke off my head by accident.”
He grinned for a second, letting a quick silence settle, then said, “Yea, that happened to me too actually.”
“So you come to this regularly.”
“When I can. I mean, these are always the best game nights…”
“Yea, I just. I don’t know. I like games but I don’t get out as often as I’d like and—”
“You wanna sit down?” He pointed to the couch.
“Sure.”
And that was how I got to meet Miles. He was a first year grad student, just a year older than I, and knew Jenn from their job at the climbing wall. I told him my quick story: senior year, anthropology, blah blah blah.
“Could I set this down,” I said, finally, meaning my head. “On the table? Would that be weird? I just wanna try it.”
“Go ahead,” said Miles, smiling at me. “That was … a bad pun sorry.”
I giggled a bit, setting down my head on the coffee table facing us both. I positioned my drink just a few inches away so I could reach the straw with my chin.
“Okay,” I said. “This is strange. Being over here and over there. At the same time. Have you tried it?”
“This is so your first time here,” said Miles, laughing.
“Okay, so yes then.”
“Yes, the first time I came Jenn said we were playing “Ninja” and I was the target. I didn’t know what she meant but then the Ninja sliced off my head from behind and took it to the stash. I sort of stumbled around headless for a bit before I found a bean bag.”
“What’s ninja?”
“Oh, someone has to steal as many heads as they can before they get caught. My record is seven.”
“Sounds fun. Can I have your head? I’m sorry, that was…”
“You know what, I’ll humor you.”
Miles reached to the coffee table and picked up a knife I hadn’t even noticed was there. There was a flash of silver and then suddenly, he was setting his head down to the left of mine.
“There you go.”
“I wasn’t serious!” I said, trying to turn sideways to face him. I noticed my headless body was still making hand gestures.
“Well, you should learn then, that here, that’s a serious request.”
“But it’s so absurd. ‘Can I have your head?’ I mean. Okay. I guess it’s valid isn’t it.”
“Can I have your head?”
“Um… Alright. As long as I can have yours.”
“Okay.” I felt my head get picked up. “You’ve got to pick up mine for this to work.”
“Alright.” I reached and felt around on the table until I found his head, then I picked it up and held it out a bit, still unsure.”
“Okay, on three we both put them on. Ready?”
“Sure.”
“One, two… three!”
I set his head down on my body. There was a moment there, less than a second long, where everything went black. I came to a moment later, blinking and looking to my left where, grinning at my and touching her tongue to her teeth, was a face I’d only ever seen in a mirror.
“Well, now, what’dya think there handsome?” she asked me, winking.
“Is that really how my voice sounds?” I laughed, and bit my lip.
“I need a drink,” said Miles. He stood up, me following him. We went into the kitchen, where Mary and Alex were chatting with Sophie.
“Well hello,” said Mary, upon seeing me. She stroked me on the cheek, then made a pitiful face adding, “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry about your face.”
“Hey, at least this one’s attached.”
“And at least ugh,” she put her hands on her hips and spun her body around again, her head still facing off to the side, her legs pointing away from me, “you can keep yourself in one direction. And Sophie, well, she can’t even hold a drink.”
“But I can dance,” interrupted Sophie, bouncing up and down oddly to the MP3 player on top of the fridge.
“Alright, alright, here it is!” Jenn came in, excitedly holding a leather strap attached to a small box and crank.
“Jenn just got a — a what?” said Mary, leaning over to explain to Miles and I.
“It’s a jack-in-box necklace.”
“C’mon show us,” said Miles.
“Okay, so you just put it on and turn the crank. Ready? Okay.” Jenn wrapped the cord around her neck and fed the extra bit into the other end of the wooden crank and pulled it tight. She began to turn the handle, a soft plinking Monkey and the Weasel being played and slowing gradually until—
POP! Jenn’s head shot up, attached to a spring, some three feet in the air.
“Ahh!” She screamed, then reached up trying to grab a hold of her bouncing head but missed. Eventually, she was able to coil the spring up again and latch her head back on.
“You got it at Charlie’s?” asked Sophie.
“Where else? I’m gonna bring it next time I have to babysit.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“What could go wrong?”
“What if your spring gets tangled. I mean, the last time you showed those kids your magic toys, they shrank you into a barbie.”
“I let them shrink me!”
“Same difference.”
“They say I’m the best toy ever.”
Mary reached and took hold of the crank, spinning it quickly until Jenn’s head dislodged again.
“Yea,” she said, “I’d have to agree.”
“Okay,” said Sophie, when everything had died down a minute later, “Next game.”