Chapter 95: [12] Close Encounters of the Bus Kind 12 [From Beyond Arc]

Close Encounters of the Bus Kind

[12]

Watching the game offered Nadia a good distraction while Iris went around preparing for their lesson. It took her longer than she expected to realize that the commentators were actually speaking in Turkish, and she simply understood them. That seemed like a nice power, if it was a power and not just some subtle rewrite of her reality, compared to the uncertain nature of whatever was happening around her.

Watching her siblings, she was able to gather details about Kira and Leila. Kira, the younger, shuddered whenever Leila brought up clowns, and the older sister really liked to do it a lot. She even went so far as to claim that she loved clowns, although Nadia didn’t have a good enough sense about her to judge whether she was being sincere or facetious. Meanwhile, despite her simple pants and sports jersey, Kira was an aficionado of detailed, historical period dresses and seemed skilled at stitching. Nadia wondered if that would help her with pinning down which of the bedrooms upstairs was Kira’s.

With the extended family nature of her half-sisters, Nadia wondered if that resolved some of the upstairs uncertainty about which rooms were whose. Piling on the interesting details, she noted when her older sister invoked Sun Tzu and war strategies. As far as careers, she wasn’t certain if the clothing thing was just a hobby or something more serious for the teen, while it was clear that the older one had a legal background. That was all quite interesting and endlessly heady but didn’t really provide her with a point of entry for discussing stuff with them.

Was the real Nadia well-versed in these topics or was she just missing the latch points where she was supposed to chime in? Rationally, she realized that there was no other Nadia, just the expectation of a girl whose life she’d been thrown into. Paul lived a relatively boring life that still felt immensely interesting to her but looking at this group felt like being shoved into a group where she didn’t fit. They had expectations, and she was clearly going to disappoint them.

She took time to pry details out of the younger boys, Erol and Murat. They appeared surprisingly pretty for boys, with their thick hair and soft cheeks. thankfully, she discovered something that she could actually talk about when Erol invoked his appreciation of trucks and engines.

A flood of technical terms wanted to erupt out of her mouth, but she felt nervous that the impression she was supposed to create as Nadia would be at odds with her knowledge base. As an extra pang in her heart, Murat talked about cryptozoology in curious and sneaking terms, as though he was trying to create something more intimidating than what Leila was dishing out with the clowns. The older sister flashed him a look but didn’t do more than that.

This already felt too much like going back to high school, Paul reflected. She had a body and a life so fundamentally different than the one she grew up with. Yet, she could already feel the forces of social pressure pigeonholing her onto a certain path. The problem was she only had a vague notion of what that path involved. Did she really want to go into Nadia‘s social media and absorb that as the script by which she wanted to live her life?

Maybe she shouldn’t think of it so much as an obligation as an opportunity. She was Nadia and this was Nadia‘s life. She could learn it and see all the details. Perhaps the flow and the gravity of it would fit for her in ways that revealed fresh aspects about herself that she had never considered before. Interestingly enough, thinking about this reminded her of a paranormal/glitch in the matrix story that she listened to from a podcast. It was during one of her night truck drives not too far from a military base as well.

In the story, the testimonial described a rambunctious young man who was the consummate boy and a total tough guy swinging on ropes and running through the wilds. Inevitably, he had a serious injury, having fallen hard on concrete. He was taken to the hospital to save his life. The operation included some weird sights and sounds and a lot of uncertainty, but he seemingly woke up without any ill effects… aside from the fact he was now a young woman with breasts.

It was obviously the kind of story that hit close to home for Paul. The brand-new girl was stunned but avoided telling anyone, because she expected to be labeled as crazy. Everyone simply saw her as this new person, as though nothing had ever been different. Her expectation from waking up was that she would continue to be a tomboy and likely remain interested in other girls. That was who he was, and he retained that entire personality and stretch of memories when he woke up.

But, as time went along, the new girl found herself losing interest in adventurous activities and moving more towards pretty clothes and girly things, along with being quieter and subtly different. She eventually took an interest in boys and grew up with as normal an upbringing and youth for a girl as possible.

So, what was it, assuming her story was true, that led her from the man she remembered being to changing into the girl she became? One of the theories that occurred to Paul at the time was that perhaps the brain injury caused her to have a false memory of imagining herself as a boy, since she couldn’t find any remaining details of that life.

It would’ve been helpful if that scenario at all applied to her situation. But there was no other driver on the bus and everyone on the team remembered Coach and remembered Paul. For now. That was the other possibility. Something happened in reality to that boy and the world and everything around them decided to course correct to make sure that the new girl didn’t stand out.

If she wasn’t accidentally in control of the changes happening to her, then she had to assume that something else was and it was trying to make her fit.

What if she didn’t want to fit? What if she didn’t want whatever the forces that be deciding her life and the lives of those around her? She had seen the posting about three sisters and two brothers.

She tried to recall. What was it in movies and comics…a retcon? Something acknowledged as an error or previously established which was amended to fit into a new structure? Imagining it being real in any aspect of reality felt like madness.

But she was staring down the barrel of an unknown, powerful force that adapted her bag and her shoes to the life of Nadia. Did she really want to challenge something like that? Yes, if it sought to attack Erin‘s happiness. Then, it would be her enemy. If it dared to force Erin back into the kind of life she had growing up with that wretched father and cruel mother, then Nadia would sooner burn down the entire world than let that stand. Stark words, full of empty fury, but she believed them.

Iris called her over from the hallway with a smile and a high wave. Pushing down the broiling anger, Nadia dressed in the best iteration of her calmness and went over to see her half-sister.

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Paul’s mother had half-siblings who were decades older and decades younger than her. He wondered if this was some remnant of that stuck in the maw of reality. Iris retained lots of echoes of her features, especially that little cleft at the chin she noticed earlier. She felt like a version of Kira coming down from a wild phase, although Iris was the one with a silver stud in her nose.

The hallway beside the landing was the narrowest in the entire house, but Nadia could still traverse it comfortably with her arms at her side. They just couldn’t walk together. To the right was a small storage closet with a fold-up door and a laundry room. The wall to the left included what Nadia could easily deduce was Leila‘s graduation portrait. Just beyond was a colorful family portrait taken within sight of what Nadia vaguely recalled was the Tower Bridge in London. The two boys were infants held by their parents while Leila had on a fancy green dress and Kira shone gleefully with a brilliant red one. Her doppelgänger stood between them in a lovely navy blue ensemble. It was just a sort of color she would’ve selected, although she never imagined wearing a dress like that.

It had the same sort of visual allure as Erin’s classic, lavender number. Skeptically, she noted that it looked like drapes you would pull across a stage after everyone bowed. But her other self looked happy wearing it. Luna wasn’t present in the photo, but Nadia deduced that she probably wouldn’t have been born yet when it was taken. It was strange that the hallway didn’t have anything like an addendum photo to include Luna, but it also didn’t include any images of Iris or İdil.

Instead of dwelling on that, she focused on the younger visage of her father, the only family member she hadn’t seen yet. He had a broad smile with all of his teeth beaming brightly. His nose was prominent but reminded her of her own. His eyes were nearly shut and his whole face reflected his joy. Patches of gray and silver lightened his dark hair, and she hung on a moment just to catch his green suit jacket paired with a squiggle tie and dark jeans. Missing but implicit was the sense that his wife just cast him a look with a roll of her eyes before the photograph was taken. She wanted to meet him.

Iris led her to the cozy, last room on the right. A pair of chairs flanked a large leather couch with a rounded table, watched by another one of those mirrored closets. On the other side of the room, beneath a large, detailed map of the continental US, was a black Steinway upright piano. Iris beckoned her to sit, but Nadia swiftly excused herself to use the restroom next door.

Half of her escape was just to take a breather and prepare herself for the imminent stress and disappointment to follow and the other half was because breakfast was ready to be evicted. It barely felt like she had finished enjoying it. and her body already didn’t want to have anything else to do with it. Once again, it felt like a vigorous, clean transition. Nothing left behind, even though she knew the cabbage and dessert followed it.

She lingered in the tiny bathroom, wondering if her quiet might make her sister forget she was here. No such luck. She was sitting comfortably with a small laptop while shuffling several pages of sheet music. Although she would’ve preferred to let them drop on the floor, Nadia cradled the stack as Iris urged her to warm up.

Nadia figured the jig was, most certainly, up. No more chances for delay or deception. Well, no sense in putting it off further. She promptly sat down and set the pages in front of her. A little note in the corner reminded her of the mnemonic device, every good boy deserves fruit. Treble clef and bass clef. All cows eat grass and good boys do fine always. Little margin notes annotated what things meant. But those alone shouldn’t have been enough to make sense for her. However, it did.

As her mom said, like a bike. One that she had never actually put feet to pedals on. Left hand here and right hand there. It was like flying without any fear of whether you might fall. One finger after the other. Her brain and muscles translated what she saw into music. It wasn’t effortless, but she tumbled from one metaphorical flap of her wings to the next.

At points, Iris halted her to correct her position and pace, but those tips felt more like gentle reminders than the flabbergasted notes of someone looking at a student who had forgotten everything. Somehow, it was like her muscles remembered actions she had never done before. Part of her wanted to intentionally throw off the rhythm, but Paul’s sincerity rejected that notion. It was like a kite trying to turn away from the breeze. She just couldn’t do it.

Ultimately, the true difficulty of the lesson emerged when Iris introduced her to a song that she wasn’t expected to know. It was an old Turkish folk song reduced and rearranged for her skill level. Her hesitant unsteadiness was expected and gradually ameliorated. The lesson continued with several repetitions until the natural positions of each key just felt innate and automatic to her touch.

Groans, cries, and gasps upset her musical balance when the rest of the family passed along that Tunisia had scored and placed the game into a 1–1 tie late. Iris heaved a weighty, resigned sigh, and her spirit didn’t seem to be into the rest of the lesson, but it was just continued practice. Out of all the changes done to her, Nadia didn’t feel too troubled by what she now understood musically but the fact that anything could change her so much mentally was still deeply unsettling.

In turn, as the complexity of the lesson slipped away from her thoughts, she challenged the universe to let her change something herself. Nothing so dire as the existence of her relatives. Perhaps, the contents of someone else’s bag, like hers had been shifted along with her shoes?

After some tidying up and puzzling, an appropriate notion struck her. Everything about Iris seemed so professional and classically trained. The condensation of the family’s British influences. She wondered if she could shift that. What could be something mildly uncouth for Iris? A secret grunge rock past? Composer cosplay? Being a dropout before success? Or maybe composing for a popular video game series?

Before she could firmly settle on what minor aspect of her sibling's life to attempt to toy with, she realized that the front door was opening again, but with a key in the lock and a cheer washing out the recent equalizer disappointment as she heard her mother energetically exclaim from down the hall, “Dad‘s home!”

 

[I have a question at the end of the chapter again to help with suggestions for where the story should go. I'm actually not that far ahead this time and I am wide open for possibilities for this particular story. Feel free to add an idea which doesn't show up in the options. Also, if you see any random typos or uncapitalized starts of sentences, please pass them along. I have to cut down on my editing due to release speed and my programs don't seem to be catching lowercase sentences. Thank you for reading!]

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