Usually Pass Quickly

Originally posted on November 18, 2023.

Ron’s job had relocated him from the big city to a rather rural suburb halfways across the country. Things were cheap there, so he bought a big house. He wasn’t exactly crazy about living so far from an urban center, and everything just felt as off as a David Lynch film.

It was about a week when a woman arrived at his front porch with a basket. It was hard for him to not stare at her curves, but he did his best -- bringing the basket inside to distract himself as she spoke.

She said her name was Anna; she was his neighbor and welcoming him to the neighborhood on behalf of everyone. She said it all with a southern drawl, which was sort of quaint. As they exchanged additional pleasantries on the porch, a storm arrived. Ron offered to let her come inside, but Anna insisted that these things “usually pass quickly.”

The sky lit up in colors Ron had never seen before, and he soon found himself disoriented, grabbing onto the side of the porch. Once the strange storm passed, he realized the horror of what happened -- he had swapped bodies with Anna!

“What the hell?” He asked.

“Like I said,” Anna replied with Ron’s voice while maintaining her southern drawl, “These usually pass quickly. We’ll probably be back to our own bodies in a week or two. You best get back to my husband now; he really doesn’t like he spending too much time talking with other men.”

“But...I’m not you!”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t know that. He refuses to believe in any of this stuff...even though some quite strange things have happened to him over the years. You get used to it...”