I slipped out of bed, making sure not to wake my girlfriend, and walked towards the lavatory. I went to turn the taps on but for some reason, my arms didn't react.
"Huh?" Maybe it was some sort of sleep paralysis. I was so tired that it seemed possible. When I looked up, I realized it was something far more ridiculous.
All of my breath left my body when I looked at my dangling t-shirt sleeves. When I moved in just the right way, I could see into the sleeves. Where did my arms go?
I went back to my bedroom, and with some difficulty, I got my t-shirt off by pressing my chest into the bed and walking backwards. Now nude, barring my panties, I went back to the mirror to continue the rise in my blood pressure.
My arms were non-existent. There was no stump, nub or indentation of any kind to suggest that I had somehow had an accident and woke up in my apartment. It looked like I was born this way. Shoulder, clavicle, breasts, nothing. Moving my shoulders up and down looked... Strange. I wasn't sure if I should be scared or curious. The situation was so unrealistic that I found it difficult to panic. I heard Lana waking up.
"Hey girrrl." She said lazily, hugging me from behind and kissing my neck. "You're up early."
"Uhh, yeah." Did she not notice? "Lana, I don't have arms."
She looked at me. "Yeah. It's kinda hot." She smiled.
I looked at her for a moment. What the hell? I walked out of the room.
"Sorry!" She said. "Was that insensitive?"
I looked at my photo on the coffee table. It was a picture of Lana and I at the beach, both of us in bikini's. I had no arms.
"No, I suppose not."
Lana walked into the room.
"Is everything all right?" She looked towards the photos
"I guess so."
Lana moved closer and hugged me tightly.
"Does this have to do with your lack of arms?" Lana whispered.
"Yeah, I just feel weird about it right now."
"Oh Sarah, you never seem to care about it, did you have a weird dream?"
"I guess I did."
"Ohhh Saaaraaahh."
Lana pulled me to the bed and sat down. I got on with her, and for some reason I wrapped my legs around her, for some reason I did it automatically.
"I love you for your personality Sarah." She held me. "I mean, it's pretty impressive to me sometimes, to see you do everything with your feet-" What? "-but I also understand that you just want to be treated like a normal person. I think me, and everyone we know does that just fine, right?"
"Oh, definitely." I couldn't remember anything. Or. I dunno. Was I in a different reality? "You're so understanding Lana."
I kissed her on the neck, making her giggle. "Hahhaha! Stop that!" She escaped. "Your turn to make breakfast!"
"Fiiiine!"
With that, Lana bounced out of the room, while I, clad in my underwear and armless, had to figure something out.
I wasn't sure what it was, something inside me was telling me that this was normal. The way I moved my legs around Lana a second ago freaked me out a little bit. But... All of those images of me armless, from times that I remember having arms. It didn't make sense, but it looked like reality was proving me wrong.
So... Feet.
I stood up and walked to where I left my t-shirt. I just looked at it for a moment. She said feet...
I pulled it to the floor with me, where I sat down. Feet. I went for it, I took the edges of the t-shirt between my toes, which was easy, some how, and throw the opening above my head, and slip myself through. I have no idea how I did that.
Yesterday, I had barely enough flexibility to tie my shoes. Now I was capable of putting my foot behind my head.
Okay. Make breakfast. I wiggled my toes. It actually felt really strange just to move them at all. I had more control over them.
"Eggs?" Lana said, sitting at the table.
"Eggs." I said automatically. I wasn't so sure about it.
Use my feet. Its been fine so far.
Balancing on one foot, I used the other to open the fridge, making a grip with my big toe and the rest. Taking out the egg carton wasn't difficult either.
Sitting on top of the counter, I swung my legs over to the stove, turning the gas on wasn't difficult. I only needed one foot to grab the oil and pour. That wasn't hard.
Eggs. Okay. I found it, actually, quite easy to balance on my butt. I mean, I could do it before when I had arms, but this time it was like there was some sort of gyroscope in my head that made it effortless. I took one egg, spreading my big and second toe out, making a small crack against the pan, and using my... Other toes to hold the other side, spreading it apart and dropping the yolk onto the pan.
Such a surprisingly simple task required me to actually think, more surprising was how easy it was. I did the next several eggs without much pause. This wasn't so bad at all.
"Nice." Lana said, putting her magazine down. "You're way better at this than I am." She said as I plated her scrambled eggs, balancing my butt on the table and holding utensils in each foot.
"Thanks. It's really not that hard you know. Just watch it while it heats up."
"Yours has a... Consistency!" Poshed up her accent on the last word, almost making me drop the pan in laughter.
We had a good couple laughs at breakfast, and I was a little relieved when she offered to clean the dishes.
I went and sat at the sofa, facing the window. I could see my reflection in it, the way my sleeves dangled was alien. The new flexibility of my legs was downright impossible, though there was something thrilling about looking at myself in a lotus, not even needing hands to bring my legs up.
"Hey," Lana said, sitting down next to me, her hand on my inner thigh. "We have some time before going to the book store."
"Oh! I almost forgot about that. Your friend, right?"
"Yeah! You remember Laura, right?"
"Laura Durham? You showed me something of hers, I think, a while ago. She has a book now?"
"Yeah! C'mon, reading this afternoon. But first..."
Lana brought her head down, resting her cheek in on my lotused legs, lifting up my t-shirt and kissing me. I sighed.
30 hot minutes later, we were both in the shower. I didn't have to worry about awkwardly bringing my legs up to my head to wash my hair or anything like that.
I could feel that I didn't need Lana's help. Even though I had been... I'm pretty sure I've only been armless for a few hours, but somehow with the dexterity and flexibility of someone who's been that way their whole life. Nothing was making sense, but somehow there were no puzzle pieces out of place. It seemed as if an aspect of my entire life had been a dream. The dream that I had arms.
No, I was extremely certain. I remember what arms felt like. When Lana and I were on the bus, I closed my eyes. I could imagine the sensation of my hands opening and closing. Feeling my fingertips against themselves. The tiny sound of thick skin against nails. Biceps tensing when I had to move something.
"Sarah? Sarah!"
"Wha?"
"Now I realize that I forgot to make coffee." She kissed me on the forehead and pulled me by the hand, off the bus.
"Wait, wait a minute." I told Lana as we got to the kerb.
"What is it?"
"Wait a minute."
For a few moments I stared at my hands. Somehow they popped back into existence. They didn't exist ten minutes ago. I swung them a bit, flexed my fingers.
"You seem rather antsy, are you excited?"
"What? Oh, yes." I tried to care about this reading, but I was more occupied with the weirdness I just experienced.
Lana stopped us.
"Sarah, are you alright? Do you want to tell me something?"
"Um."
I looked around. It wasn't very busy where we were.
"Lana, I've always had arms, right?"
She smiled. "Yeah." She held my hand. "You're pretty random sometimes."
We walked to the bookstore without much incident. We did end up getting a coffee once we were there though. I tried to forget the last few hours, but it really stuck with me. I tried to do the lotus thing when we were sat down but... Nothing. Stiff like before.
"Please give a hand for Laura Dunham!"
All 40 people in the crowd gave applause as a fairly meek looking girl got on stage.
"Hi. Thank you. Maybe some of you-" She paused when she looked at Lana. "Haha, maybe some of you have read my work, and thank you for coming, again. I'll just get to the point. I'll be reading a bit from the first chapter of my new book: 'Constant Flux.' It's a little bit autobiographical, but mostly fictional. But I guess most writers draw from what they know."
Everything was changing for Katie, all the time. She was only 6 years old when her father, and RAF pilot, got an order to move to RAF Kabrit, and he brought us with him. Again it happened, when she had to move to France. Constantly Katie found herself in new places, with new languages, cultures, new ways of doing things, only for everything to be uprooted when her father had finished.
So often Katie felt helpless. Some of the places she liked, especially after she learned enough of the local language to befriend some of the locals. More often, it was with the sons and daughters of other military men. All the moving about had brought a premature maturity to her, an acute awareness that she had no control over where she went.
I listened to Laura for the next 10 minutes. While the book sounded well-written and quaint, it struck a certain something inside of me. I found myself relating to it. Maybe it was some sort of cognitive bias. I dunno.
Everyone started clapping. I had been daydreaming.
"Thank you. Thank you." She walked off stage.
"Thanks people. Laura Dunham's new book is available today, and she'll be available for signing."
The crowd started milling about, I got the feeling that many of them just happened to be in the bookshop at the time and found themselves drawn in. Either way, I picked up a book.
"Lana! Oh my god you came!"
"Of course! Ahhh!!"
The two of them leaped at each other in a hug.
"Ohmygosh. Laura, this is Sarah, my girlfriend."
"Nice to meet you." I said, shaking her hand. "I really liked it. Can I get a signed copy?" I smiled.
"Aw, of course. Come over to the table."
After about 15 minutes, it was clear that very few people would show up. It would up being an extended conversation between the three of us.
"You know, Laura, I found myself in the shoes of your character, in a lot of ways."
"Oh, I see myself in her as well." She laughed.
"No, really, I mean, just, things are constantly changing for her. I totally understand that sort of thing."
"Really?"
"I know it sounds weird but like... Sometimes I wake up and everything's weird. Like I just feel it."
I felt Lana put her hand on mine.
"I can't really put it into words, however." I said.
"Maybe we need to party." Lana said with mock seriousness.
Needless to say, we ended up at a rave close to our apartment. It was as crazy as it could be for a Wednesday night, maybe a splif here or there.
"Hey, you guys don't mind if I crash at your place, right?"
"Not at all!" Lana and I said in unison.
"We have lots of space." I said. "We can just unfold the bed."
"Aw, thanks guys."
The next hour was a blur. Not from drugs or anything, just tired. I fell asleep as soon as I hit the pillow.
I woke up to Lana's soft breathing from behind, her lips against my nape. I noticed something.
Damn.
I stood up and looked down and saw empty sleeves again, dangling. My legs felt different. I think this was a repeat. Sitting back on the bed, I stretched my leg out, clearly enough to do a split. I sat on the carpet and brought my legs into a lotus. Yep, just like before. Armless but without anyone noticing. I went to check up on Laura.
"Hey Laura, how are you-"
"Mor... ning?"
What I saw was indeed Laura but... She had no limbs. I remember last night she had fallen asleep with only her panties and bra, and the bed cover was strewn about, demonstrating clearly that she had no limbs to speak of.
"You had limbs yesterday." I said.
"You had arms." She whispered.
I walked over and sat on the bed, next to her.
"What the hell is going on?" She said.