《A Touch Too Close》


 [Part 1] – Leading to and Including the First Incident

    A Touch Too Close - Part 1


    Leading to and Including the First Incident


    Codie Hewitt and Harper Melvang sat one row across from one another in their Introduction to Liberal Studiesclass. Then, they had adjacent dorms. They even passed each other in the halls on seventeen distinct occasions.


    Codie''s roommate pointed Harper out to him once, but Codie brushed away his dense, black hair from curling at his neck and said something non-committal. While Harper''s sister said ''hi'' to Codie and several times called him ''cute'', she did not once truly notice him throughout her entire freshman year of college.


    But then came to pass their Introduction to Psychology class. By happenstance, the two picked the third row on the right side of the room. They both picked it for similar reasons. It was close enough to see all the board materials and it was also not at the front where they were likely to be called on regularly. Also, it happened to have clear access to one of the exits.


    Both sat. Both set down their far-too-expensive(1) textbooks. And both heaved a tired sigh and cursed the gods of class scheduling for ordaining a course to begin at six in the morning. Then, more out of boredom than any actual interest at the time, they looked one another in the eye.


    Codie looked at Harper. He noticed that her white, high-collared shirt seemed nice. So did her red-and-black checkered skirt. He once saw harshness in a glance at her narrow, red-framed glasses. Now, he saw only early morning lethargy and calm sympathy.


    Harper looked at Codie. With futile effort, she unconsciously adjusted her flame-like hair and tried to keep a strange look off her face. She noticed that his black shirt accented the gentle shape of his chest. She tried not to linger on his gray cargo pants and felt a rush of fascination at how he didn''t feel at all creepy and dark. To her, he looked as tired as she felt.


    They smiled at each other and introduced themselves with all the enthusiasm the morning could afford.


    In many situations, that would''ve been it. Maybe they would ask questions together in group work. Perhaps they''d even be study buddies of convenience due to proximity when exams rolled around. Their initial, purely physical, reassessment of each other may have even led to a few smiles when they happened to pass by again in a hallway. But, in this case, there was to be something more.


    They chatted a bit when given group work and soon they were quietly chuckling with one another. They chanced upon a subject of mutual interest and a friendly ease passed between them. With the company of each other, that class session passed without any of the agony that they anticipated. However, it did not prevent the inevitable, first day homework assignment.


    Together they walked out through their easy exit, having stowed their materials away several minutes in advance. They looked vaguely towards one another with a nervous uncertainty. They weren''t quite walking together, but they were certainly going in the same direction. They didn''t look at one another and just walked till they stepped through the same, sliding door into their dorm.


    Their chuckles to no one in particular faded when they stopped and saw that their dorms were right across from one another. No memories of having been as close the year before tripped inside their heads. Instead, they smiled and traded a ''have a good morning'' across the air.


    Then, at almost precisely the same moment as both turned away, their stomachs gave a symphony of gurgles. It also occurred to both Codie and Harper, at that moment, that there was nothing the least bit edible in either of their dorms, excusing a quiche attempt by Harper''s roommate. But that particular item was considered not even a measure of last resort for rat bait.


    So, at exactly the same time and having no particular plan in mind, Codie and Harper asked each other out to "go have some breakfast" at the coffee shop(2) just off campus. Harper ordered a gigantic cheddar-and-jalape?o omelet with cilantro on the side. Codie ordered blueberry oatmeal and apple slices with a pinch of cinnamon.


    They griped about homework. They chatted about a pop song permeating the air from a speaker in the ceiling. Codie asked for the non-fat milk for his oatmeal and Harper passed it over. When the transfer of milk was made from one to the other, their fingers touched for a little over two seconds.


    It was long enough to raise the heartbeats of both parties by a statistically-significant amount, but it was not long enough to trigger any other unexplained effects. Both ate their respective meals slower than they would''ve independently. And each spent a high average of their time glancing at the other.


    Despite the lingering, that breakfast passed into memory. However, plans were swiftly made for a study session by the end of the walk back to the dorm. During this period, Harper brushed Codie with her arm for a sustained time of 742 milliseconds.


    Slowly, and after several quick, largely-accidental touches, the connection between Codie and Harper developed in the days and weeks to follow. The study session stayed long and led into a movie on DVD(2). Hands touched on the couch but for a mere, crudely-approximate four seconds.


    While neither had serious deficiencies in the course material after a month, the study sessions continued at the same pace. Codie''s hand always darted away faster than Harper''s when touched but never for any clear reason he could understand.


    Harper had taken to imagining Codie in different forms. In one, he was a doctor. In another, a lecturer in Ancient Greece. In one situation, Harper even imagined him as a young woman helping to deliver a baby. The image so struck her consciousness when she received it that she had a hard time meeting Codie''s eyes for the rest of that day. What Harper didn''t realize at the time was that Codie had taken to very similar imaginings about her.


    Despite the tentative nature of their relationship, the two lingered in each other''s orbits ever longer. Their momentary touches settled more. Codie''s hand began to lose its initial skittishness and his old, lost memories softened their remnants.


    Still, their contact was confined to a record of eight seconds in a noteworthy, experimental embrace. Certain dorm roommates observing this dance regarded it as having all the qualities of "a pair of sloths trying to mambo". The same roommates soon had light-weight projectiles, in the form of pillows, hurled at them by both Harper and Codie.


    Inexorably, the fledgling relationship would come to a day where contact between the two parties was prolonged. That came exactly forty-two days after their first psychology class.


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    Both slogged their way back to their dorms after the first big test. Neither had any interest in talking and both figured they''d completely botched the examination. In fact, both had passed it swimmingly, but they weren''t to find that out till after two subsequent sessions.


    Codie looked at Harper with a bigger smile than he would''ve managed if more of his mind was free from the leftovers of Jungian theory and told her, "Looks like you could use a backrub."


    Harper, in turn, responded with a smile just as big for the same reason. She leaned an arm ineffectually behind her and nodded. "I sure could. I didn''t sleep much last night, because I was so scared I would oversleep."


    Each gave the sort of cheesy grin to the other that a different time would''ve left them too chagrin to even attempt. Together, they made their way back to Harper''s dorm.


    While Harper picked a small juice carton out of the fridge, Codie settled his hands on her from behind. With momentary surprise from Harper followed by calm, his hands stayed there. More than ten seconds passed with his hands on her shoulders.


    In the moment when ten seconds became eleven, a strange rush passed through Codie and Harper. Both staggered. Both felt like something had happened, but neither could understand quite what.


    Harper looked down. Aside from the tumbling of his mostly-empty juice box(4) to the ground, Harper could see that his clothes were different and that the familiar contours of his chest were ''missing''. The juice box, fortunately, settled with only a small mess that Harper would later, easily clean up.


    A series of changes affected him from all angles. Then, he turned to look at Codie, who had drawn her hand back.


    Codie, who had been staring at Harper during this sudden change, knew well what he looked like now. Instead of a slender but tall redhead, Harper was still rather slender but much shorter. The red hair was gone, turned a muddy brown that ended against the shoulder. The hair looked fuller and more like the plush off a stuffed bear than the sleek, long locks he''d grown accustomed to.


    While Harper''s nose was about the same size, his face now looked more rounded to Codie. His glasses were silvery with accent to the frame. They seemed to overshadow his entire face due to their size. All the changes soon resolved themselves in Codie''s morning-saturated mind to display a clear picture that Harper had suddenly changed into a boy.


    Codie didn''t even need to linger lower on the flat expanse of Harper''s white dress shirt. The passing of Harper''s skirt into the form of long, black slacks also escaped Codie''s attention, along with the matching sandals on his feet.


    What Harper saw in turn was no less surprising to him. While Codie''s hair was still as black, her blue eyes no longer looked back at him. They were a dark brown that almost appeared black as well. Her arms were missing the smatterings of dark arm hair, replaced by silvery stragglers. Her nails were much longer than they were usually kept by nervous biting.


    While her hair was recognizably black, it had unfurled far beyond her neck and down to her hips, where it flowed out in long, dense locks.


    All these were ancillary alterations in Harper''s still-hazy thoughts. What he was aware of more than any other feature were the large, twin curves of Codie''s breasts through the pink, cotton top she was wearing. He didn''t dwell on how Codie''s pants clung to the sloping shape of her hips or how slender her legs looked in them. His mind immediately surged right ahead to panic and confusion. Codie''s mind bubbled through panic slowly but soon shot ahead as well till both Codie and Harper released a gasp in the same instant.


    Anyone would anticipate that after such sudden transformations of body there would be an expected amount of screaming and groping to commence followed by certain denial. From there, reactions would vary based on the incredulity of the persons involved and transition into stages of eventual acceptance or rejection.


    From their gasp, Codie and Harper looked at one another until they finally found the need to blink. From that, each grabbed a chair around the dorm kitchen table and sat down. The first to tentatively speak was Harper, whose voice was more boyish than manly as he asked, "What just happened?"


    Codie shook her head and felt the aftershocks of hair batting at her. She took a glance down at the rise of her chest, shifted her legs, and turned noticeably pale. Though she attempted words several times, she wound up just shaking her head in a mechanical motion till it tensed up and she lowered it to look at the brown, pressed wood of the table.


    Swallowing simultaneously, the two slowly got up from their seats. Instinctively, they both turned to the mirrored sink down the hall. Out of reflex, they grabbed one another''s hand for support and held for more than ten seconds as they took their careful steps.


    By the third step, the rush had returned. Both jerked back, shut their eyes, and expected the worst. When no sign of sudden havoc came, they opened their eyes and looked to each other. They found themselves unchanged from minutes before. Codie looked back with blue eyes and short black hair. Harper looked back with her twin, crimson ponytails and red glasses.


    The moment required several blinks before the two could break their fixed stare and start to shamble around the room. A few minutes of silence brought the first, careful laugh.


    After it, Codie remarked, "I must be out of it. I could''ve sworn¡­"


    Harper jumped into his pause, "It was a hard test and it''s really early. We''re both totally exhausted¡­"


    Codie smiled back. "It was. That''s gotta be it¡­"


    Both nodded, satisfied with their mutual explanation for such a clearly impossible occurrence. Their satisfaction soon brought about more animated laughter.


    They shared a jovial account of their ''hallucinations'' through rubbed eyes and smiles. Harper made Codie stammer when pointing out the size of the chest he''d had ''in her head''. Codie noted that Harper was still a girlish boy ''in his head''. They both stopped short of trying to apply any psychological theories to what they''d witnessed.


    On this note, they parted company.


    While this marked the end of their first physical encounter sequence of more than ten seconds, their second would not be long afterwards.


    Footnotes


    (1) - $347.99 new


    (2) - Humane Beans


    (3) - Hotel for Dogs by DreamWorks Home Entertainment


    (4) - Mott''s Apple

 [Part 2] - Involving the Second Incident and Its Immediate Repercussions

    A Touch Too Close - Part 2


    Involving the Second Incident and Its Immediate Repercussions


    However, several matters must be resolved before proceeding further. It would be easy to examine the later lives of Harper Melvang and Codie Hewitt after this series of incidents became an overall trend and trace the myriad of sources with their reflections and thoughts. The same would be true of looking up the studies and examinations in search of causes and explanations.


    Such information would satiate numerous questions of a scientific and historical nature. But it would leave a fundamental and staggering one.


    Why?


    The why of the intangible.


    That is the purpose of my words.


    And so, after the parting of Harper and Codie following the first incident</a>, each returned to their dorms with different ideas about what may have occurred.


    For Harper, strange and nebulous feelings drifted through her thoughts. Her feelings about seeing Codie as a girl seemed to resurface in quiet reflection. A detectable shiver passed through her.


    For Codie, firm and rigid thoughts formed stratifications in his mind. His hand gave another little twitch as he attempted to work through the rest of his day without another thought given to the incident. With a detectable shiver, he felt the boundaries of his thoughts beginning to leak, as though touched by a harsh acid.


    And then¡­nothing?


    Lingering on their shivers reveals no special revelations or suggestions. There is no flash of insight or spark of the unfamiliar. And there is no sign of a trigger.


    There is the implication of memory. Neither can resist the magnetic hold of what they know, despite all denials, to have actually occurred. They intuitively seek out one another.


    Before either knows it, they are equidistant from the starting places of their simultaneous walk and looking into one another''s eyes from the middle of the residence hall(1).


    The moment can hold eternally. They can see each other as perpetual statues sealed in stasis, as if ancient insects preserved in amber. And, in that moment, what clues to the next moments?


    The moment, in reality, passed to the next, which in turn passed to the next.


    Harper was the next of the two to speak. Her hands clenched involuntarily, withdrawing her palms from even the possibility of contact. In the same moment, she said, "We need to talk."


    With the superfluous-sounding statement, Code tucked his hands into his pockets and nodded back.


    Without a further word exchanged, both made their way to Codie''s dorm and sat on opposite ends of the couch in the living room. There they both sat and examined the woven texture of the muddy green carpet of all the dorms in the complex.


    There was no talking for several minutes till Codie finally spoke to ask, "Can you tell me more about what I looked like?"


    Harper, in turn, called upon her recent memory. The details had faded with the earliness of the hour and the lingering load of examination cramming. She had the important parts correct as she relayed them to Codie.


    "Your eyes were a different color. Brown. Your skin looked so soft. You had long hair."


    Codie''s sense memory triggered at the mention of soft skin. He could recall the sensation despite his lack of full awareness in that moment. The same was true for his long hair as a girl.


    The first stirrings of new words triggered in her mind. Harper bit down on her lips. But, despite her best efforts, she still said, "No joking, you honestly had really big breasts."


    Codie''s legs curled under him. The words had a far more unsettling effect for him than the entire experience of becoming a girl.


    In turn, and still processing the information from Harper, Codie relayed what he had seen. He glossed over many of the details, leaning on the phrase, "You mostly looked like a guy." He repeated it four times. Otherwise, he concentrated on the softer aspects of Harper''s male appearance.


    During this time, his heart rate rose by a statistically significant amount.


    With a longer sigh than Codie would have anticipated, Harper noted and nodded, "I guess I looked more like a boy than a man." Codie nodded with her.


    With careful quiet discussion, it would take them just short of ten minutes to arrive at a preliminary hypothesis. Harper was the first to speak it. "You know¡­you were touching my shoulders when it happened."


    Codie drew his hands back. The incident, still inscrutable in his memory, traced thin shadows at the edges of his thoughts.


    Harper drew her hands outward. Curiosity flowered from her thoughts. Traces of her early years on her uncle''s farm blossomed and pollinated her neurons with old imagery renewed by the right triggers. Her first encounter with a frog crystallized.


    Its association with her current thoughts seems not to exist at all. Somehow, the memory has been unearthed for Harper to experience with the tint of years.


    She sees her hands reach out to touch the frog. It suddenly seems, in her childish mind, to transform before her eyes. Its mouth opens wide and it emits a screech like a tormented cat. Despite her recalled alarm, Harper giggles in her little voice as the frog turns and quickly hops away.


    The echo of the laugh is a smile for Harper.


    She bridged the distance between them on the couch with just a shuffle of her legs. She approached Codie like that same frog. Before Codie could screech as well, tell her no, or do anything, she touched him on a patch of bare skin.


    The surprise of the touch startled both. After the passing of two seconds, Codie finally asked, "What are you doing?" The contact triggered a slight perspiration response in both Codie and Harper.


    As the seconds passed, the child-like feeling faded from Harper. Her mouth contorted. Disappointment settled. Before she can summon forth an appropriate word to express herself, the rush returned right at the eleventh second of contact.


    Despite the fact both looked at one another, they don''t see a transformation of one state into the other. Nor do they see a visible shift. To them and to any outside observer, the moment could be studied like a visual effect in a film. It could be replayed over and over.


    But there is no film splicing. There is no transition.


    Instead, one moment becomes the other, co-existent realities flipping like sides of a coin. There is a change and yet there is not.


    It is as if the change has not occurred to two parties alone but to the very nature of reality, of which any observer would still be an inseparable part. There can be no independent dissection of the moment despite how many times it would be reviewed and picked apart for clues.


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    At this point, after roughly twelve seconds of sustained physical contact with one another, Codie and Harper both pulled back simultaneously. While their reactions still had something of the numb surprise of the first incident, both gave a little scream.


    For Harper, his scream could be traced to a sense like that of release. In much the same way that someone holding a static charge may give a scream from its sudden shock, Harper felt in his scream a sense of relief.


    For Codie, her scream could also be attributed to some sense of assurance and confirmation. Primarily, however, her scream came from a sense of surprise that her breasts appeared larger than she remembered. She felt, erroneously, in that moment that she''d been given a different, bustier form this time.


    Codie and Harper were exactly the same opposite sex forms that they had been for the first incident.


    Luckily enough for both, the scream went undetected to any direct listeners. Codie''s only other roommate present at the time had a pair of headphones on and death metal(2) playing while he browsed magazines on his bed. The room on the other side of the closest wall was dedicated to plumbing and electrical access.


    After the screams, both stammered to each other. Their words would be best paraphrased to follow as ¨C "It happened again!" "Oh my god!" "How?" "I feel like a girl/boy." "Is it permanent?"


    Why the first incident led to such calm while the second led to far more emotion is still a matter of much uncertainty.


    Waves of nausea came to both Harper and Codie. Despite lingering near the sinks, neither found the need to void their stomachs.


    After a minute, Codie glanced towards the wall mirror and, despite an unrelenting willingness to undo the changes, decided to look upon herself in the mirror first. Harper soon joined her.


    The discovery of gazing into the mirror for both Codie and Harper wasn''t at all like Narcissus looking into the water at his own reflection. More due to the fact there are several versions of that story, one which implies incest, and none that would lend themselves to a fair comparison.


    Still, the effect of Harper and Codie staring at their own reflections would seal that moment in their minds with a memory which would preserve every sensation for the rest of their lives.


    Harper looked into his reflection and saw so much of herself cast as a boy. Lacking any male siblings, her mind returned to old pictures of her uncle''s childhood for some mental context.


    Codie looked into her reflection and saw her mother. It brought up his incident with fresh confusion.


    And so the two remained, unblinking, with their eyes locked in their own reflections.


    It took two minutes of sustained staring before Harper suggested they touch again. It was enough to break the stare. Codie nodded. Harper found the presence of mind to set the timer on her watch before they touched.


    More feelings of anxiety passed between them as they held each other''s hand. Harper kept his eyes on his watch, never noticing how different it was.


    By Harper''s count, it took twelve seconds for them to return to their original forms.


    They immediately disengaged and felt a wall of tension break. Codie allowed himself a normal breath and a momentary sensation of disappointment that he didn''t own a camera. Harper grinned to herself and mentally documented the time on her watch.


    Her first words, from the safety of being right about the contact trigger, were, "That was cool!"


    Codie just said, "I have no idea¡­"


    Harper''s mind flew at the possibilities relating to cause. She recalled a sci-fi movie(3) she''d seen a long time ago. The film proposed that there are some people who when they meet behave like matter and anti-matter to one another. The majority of the plot she recounts deals with efforts to keep such people from meeting, lest portions of the Earth suddenly explode.


    Fortunately, despite Harper''s association, the supposed plot had nothing to do with their situation.


    The discussion that followed finally woke Codie''s roommate from his death metal trance. When he asked what was going on, Harper suddenly reached over and grasped Codie by the shoulder.


    Codie''s roommate would''ve become the first direct outside party to witness one of these incidents, but Codie separated himself from Harper with seven seconds to spare and immediately locked himself in the bathroom.


    The roommate, thoroughly confounded as acid-tongued lyrics still swirled in his head, shrugged off the whole situation as a strange sort of couple''s argument and proceeded to fish a Mountain Dew from his mini-fridge before settling in to listen to side B of his mix CD.


    Harper knocked on the bathroom door and called to Codie through it. She told him many things, but most importantly, "I''m sorry¡­"


    On the other side of the door and uncomfortably seated on the edge of the bath, Codie heard her clearly. It was just what he wanted to hear but he told her, "I need to be alone for a while. I''m sorry too¡­"


    Just what Codie was sorry about was mired in half-thought memories and feelings.


    He would remain inside the bathroom for nearly thirty minutes before finally deciding to shower. After his shower, his mind felt clearer. He dressed in his same clothes, left the bathroom, and walked over to where Harper was spread out on the couch.


    They regarded one another, and both said "Hi" at approximately the same time. No other words occurred to them till Codie finally noted, "You know¡­I know a guy who works in¡­I guess it''s the pre-med department....around here."


    Harper yearned for a shower herself since she''d been too nervous to do much in the early morning prior to their examination. Instead of saying so, she just nodded and told Codie, "Can you call him? Can you set something up?"


    Codie gave a nod of his own. "I''m sure. And he knows several doctor teachers who are experienced with strange medical conditions¡­"


    Harper scratched her chin once. "You sure we should try doctors? It may not help and they may make an experiment of us. My roommate is a physics major¡­this has got to be caused by weird¡­science-y¡­stuff going on."


    With that, my parents would begin the search for answers, a search which continues.


    (1) - Eventually renamed ''Sewell'' Hall, but then simply ''the Apartments''.


    (2) - Morbid Angel, ¡°Blessed Are the Sick¡±


    (3) - This film does not exist

 [Part 3] - Three Potential Answers

    A Touch Too Close - Part 3


    Three Potential Answers


    My first memory is unreliable. It is mired in the shifts and rewrites of retrospect and thoughtful analysis.


    My first memory is strong. There is an impression left by the memory which reverberates through my entire life.


    My first memory is of my mouth clinging to Codie''s chest as I suckle from her right nipple. I remember her smile as she looks down at me and I remember how she looks over to Harper, just out of contact, as he makes playful hand gestures to me.


    Even then, my mind seized upon this moment and tried to break it down into meaning. My first attempts were feeble. But it was a beginning.


    The first attempts by my parents to make meaning of their incidents began with a call to room extension 1923 of Derbin Hall, the room of pre-med student Michael Veller.


    Veller would later be referred to numerous times in medical papers written about my parent''s situation. None of the instances were the least bit flattering to Michael Veller. In certain informal instances, Veller''s intelligence, family line, and basic physical anatomy have all been questioned to varying degrees.


    Despite these academic misgivings, all presented in retrospect, Veller was playing catch in his dorm with a human skull at the moment when he received the all-important call from Codie.


    The skull, which was not referred to as Yorick but rather ''Slim'' by the other pre-med students, had been procured by Veller from a skeleton in a professor''s literal closet. Within hours, Veller planned to plant the skull under the covers of an ex-girlfriend''s bed as a joke.


    Slim''s skull rotated with backspin into Veller''s catcher''s mitt, borrowed from a roommate on the baseball team, as his cellphone vibrated across his desk. The momentary distraction was enough to affect Veller''s attention on the flight path of the skull, which skimmed the edge of his glove and tumbled out of sight under his bed.


    Cursing in a bastardized form of Latin, Veller searched under his bed for five seconds before he glared at his cell phone and finally answered the call with a sigh and the question, "Yeah?"


    Codie spoke quickly, beginning with reminding Veller of their acquaintance before presenting the situation as, "Me and a friend have something strange going on. If you could help us out¡­"


    Veller had a mental litany of responses ranging from the often-encouraged, "I am not a doctor. Go see one", to accusations of time-wasting. But the choice he selected was a huff of exasperation followed by, "Meet me over at Collins Hall, room 314."


    Mr. Veller''s reasons for this decision could be deciphered through an exhaustive, pinpoint neuro-chemical analysis followed by an examination of his development leading up to this situation. But such things have been thoroughly explored by others. Suffice it to say, Veller likely has more innate curiosity than contemporaries give him credit.


    He expressed further signs of curiosity upon physically meeting Codie and Harper at the door of room 314. His expectations of the pair dwindled from a vast, mental set of possibilities like a flow chart reaching a bottleneck. His eyes traced across them several times. He immediately took notice of the conspicuous distance between the couple.


    Veller set aside an examination area and began with the question, "So, what''s going on?"


    Harper sighed first, weighing a more long-winded approach against just getting right to the present concern. Codie grimaced thrice and asked Harper, "Should we just show him?"


    Veller narrowed his eyes and pressed a ballpoint pen to his lips as his mental litany shifted to the possibility of an unforeseen prank. This line of thought had more to do with Veller''s short-term thoughts about his own ideas than any actual evidence before him.


    The growing shape of a snide remark was snuffed out as Harper and Codie nodded to one another and clasped hands. They both turned to Veller and let ten seconds pass.


    Clear neurological effects can be measured in Veller''s mind. Papers have studied the various psychological responses on particular personalities to seeing the ''shift''. Many have found nuance in later reactions. I always find Veller''s response the most interesting.


    Veller flails against his chair while his eyes widen. His mouth undulates like a fish struggling out of water. His blood pressure and heart rate all increase by percentages comparable to an animalistic fear response. His bladder also twitches from stress. Spasmodically, Veller mutters a jumbled string of profanities and runs from his chair and into the hallway, gagging and screaming.


    If Veller hadn''t run out at that exact moment and in the exact way he had, then it''s likely he never would have been stopped by one of his professors. But since he did, he was. This universe seems to favor such moments of coincidence.


    The professor restored some degree of clinical calm to Veller as he relayed what he had witnessed. With fair-minded incredulity, the professor gave Veller three pats on the shoulder and entered the room in place of his student.


    The professor, Dr. Sam Allan Counter, would later compose copious notes relating to the physiological shifts of Codie and Harper. After studying them at length, it is clear Dr. Counter knew extensively what was not happening to the both of them when they were in physical contact but little in regard to what was.


    In the time since Veller had rapidly left the room, Codie and Harper restored themselves to their normal forms with another touch. While both felt a subtraction of mood from the reaction of Mr. Veller, Dr. Counter soon put them at ease.


    Questioning turned to the matter causing Veller''s "extravasation" from the room. The term was Counter''s, chucklingly uttered, in regard to his young charge.


    Cautiously, Codie and Harper repeated their prior demonstration. To say Doctor Counter was surprised would be merely paraphrasing his thoughts at the time. He would recollect (quite accurately) in a later document that "it seemed as though the whole of the universe and all my feeble knowledge was crashing down on top of me."


    Some days are like that.


    I could follow the immediate shock and restoration of something resembling scientific method so far as Dr. Counter''s examinations were concerned. Instead, I prefer to linger on Codie and Harper.


    Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    Both had been to doctors before in their lives. Neither had anything resembling a phobia towards medical practitioners. But fear is natural when even a professional reverts to stupefied staring and head-shaking at your current condition. This fear, in both Codie and Harper, was seasoned with a very natural anxiety about exclusion.


    To all the world, till this moment, Codie and Harper would seem to be the same (within typical variation) as every other human being on the planet. While their genetic codes in both forms would be later examined, with eggs and semen cataloged, nothing out of the ordinary would ever be shown beyond some middling predispositions towards cancer and heart disease within their next fifty years of life. Every test that Dr. Counter would eventually advise (most very costly), when eventually done, would register no abnormalities. Even scans taken in the midst of change would only reveal a sudden shift between one normal and another.


    Codie and Harper were normal and yet they would never be seen that way again. And both realized that possibility.


    Both listened as Dr. Counter''s mind turned with ideas. His predominant solution --- "A weird hormonal imbalance" --- came more as a rambling mental process than any scientific conclusion.


    Of course, this first of many incorrect answers ignored the changes in their attire.


    Quiet doubt atoms traded electrons of regret between Codie and Harper. While Harper imagined what it would''ve been like to keep something like this hidden, except perhaps from her sister, Codie''s mind swarmed with a future of them as lab rats.


    As though he could sense the growing tension, and to his credit, Dr. Counter leaned forward and touched, with the benefit of his wide arm span, Codie and Harper each on their altered shoulders.


    It was an act I''d never be able to repeat for myself when growing up.


    After misguiding his not-quite patients through a series of obscure whiffs of diagnosis, Dr. Counter struck upon a notion near to one pondered by Harper. He phoned an acquaintance with expertise in physics who actually was one of the teachers of Harper''s roommate.


    This acquaintance, Dr. Phillip Worth, at that moment, is having a discussion with a friend regarding developments in quantum entanglement to send and record information across vast distances. The friend, a philosophy professor named Dr. Michael Peasant, with less than armchair knowledge of quantum physics, manages to offer varied and cogent reactions.


    While Dr. Worth has recently made much of this particular conversation and the means by which it is a permanent record...coincidence is a far more logical conclusion.


    Here, I fast forward through the transitional period which brings all three men into the same room to puzzle at and then gape in surprise at these two undergraduate students presenting an accidental mystery that shall consume the rest of their careers.


    The gallery of three is more than the comfort level for Codie and Harper, especially with the terminology and questions tossed about. Harper imagines bugs pinned to boards. Codie feels the eyes and a flash of his memory. There is something to his thought, something more of the incident that seems so elusive. This time, a lightning-like blast traces an engraving.


    It is more than enough for me to follow, but later.


    In an observation, much like mine but decades removed, the physicist comes to the most rational theory that the evidence can allow.


    "Wormholes."


    He suggests a human-triggered wormhole tampering with the fabric of reality. It sounds more like excess babble from an old science-fiction program. It reminds me of the flailings of past century minds to comprehend how the Sun can possess enough wood to burn for so long.


    It is a beginning. It is utterly wrong, but it is a valiant failure.


    A third and final postulation of this early time comes from Dr. Peasant as the nuance of the back-and-forth lobs of theorizing fail him. He smiles at Codie and Harper and asks them how they feel about all this.


    Easy words for both Codie and Harper have shriveled up in the presence of minds that seem to dwarf theirs. Dr. Peasant urges them on and Harper says, "I just wish I knew what was going on. It seems we can control it. Which is neat¡­"


    Codie forces on a grimace and notes, "It''s good we can control it. But we''re clueless."


    Dr. Peasant sets his shoulders and tells them firmly, "Clueless is where we all are most times with the mysteries of the world. Questions are our tools. And answers rarely come from others¡­just places to start asking stronger questions."


    While Dr. Peasant offered no concrete answer for Codie and Harper, their heart rates and anxieties both lower with his presence.


    As the tri-fold questions and possibilities went around the room, Codie and Harper come to their own conclusions. They decide to excuse themselves.


    While two professors stammered for contact information and further tests, Dr. Peasant smiled behind the twin support of his hands against his chin. Codie and Harper leave contact information but with the requirement that their legally-bound confidentiality be kept for the time being.


    Such confidentiality would remain for three further class sessions, a temporary reprieve for the loss of their anonymity.


    Codie and Harper go with lingering fears but wafting relief spreading like a wash of air.


    Harper would soon consider whether to tell her sister about what was going on and then her parents. For now, she sees the energizing calm of Codie''s face as they walk. Codie would soon consider a nap to clear his mind before even imagining telling more people. For now, he sees the watchful, gentle gaze of Harper behind her glasses.


    Their romance seems incomprehensible to me yet and still they are certain like an atomic bond holding a pair of particles forever tracing one another''s orbit. Their future, despite the cheating of a perfect, quantum record, is clear even in these fledgling moments. No touch limitation of ten seconds or sullen moments locked in the shower can shake their inevitability.


    I can see that even now, though I cannot touch them. My only touch left is that through preserved events. And, for me, it is both too distant and too near to be what I need.

 [END] - Conclusions Going Forth From Here

    A Touch Too Close - Part 4 [END]


    Conclusions Going Forth From Here


    As I sit and compose what I have left, words with my own paraphrasing return both new and old.


    Time present and time past


    Are both perhaps present in time future,


    And time future contained in time past.


    If all time is eternally present


    All time is redeemable.(1)


    In the original quote, the last word is "unredeemable". Perhaps that is truer, but the change is my own.


    I see Codie and Harper nearly every day. They smile and laugh, but they do not see me. They exist separate from every other person in this universe, together.


    What they are now and why is the preoccupation of those who investigate them. I cannot follow their present, so I follow their past.


    As their daughter, Lisa Hewitt-Melvang, I was carefully watched until it became clear that nothing special would ever come of me. My name made simple the matter of my research. I had full access to the preserved time concentrated around Codie and Harper whenever I wanted.


    I wrote papers when asked, but mostly I searched. The record only goes back as far as about the time of the incident for Codie and when Harper lived on her uncle''s farm, with no equivalent ''incident'' on her side.


    The incident, to all previous study, appeared as a random panic attack which filled Codie with immense stress as a child. It constitutes a thought of his mother, a baffling feeling, and momentary surprise.


    Even most psychologists overlook it as the random fears of a child. Physicists blatantly disregard it because there are no oddities in the time record. Others shrug. I saw it swarming with possibilities.


    Analyzing the direct ''incident'' provides few clues. The record begins with young Codie stretching the C4-C5 cervical vertebra juncture of his neck to a safe degree. It is soon clear that he has been reading a book, stretching, and is just getting up from the floor. The book is Strange Attractors by William Sleator. Many have found ''irony'' in the appearance of this work. They misunderstand the meaning of ''irony''.


    There is much about young Codie I see in myself. These places I can understand. I can understand him reading quietly in his room. I feel a resonance with his loneliness where I struggle to see why Codie and Harper have such an innate connection that leads to their romance and marriage despite the inherent obstacles.


    Their little glances, smiles, and behaviors make sense in the framework of normal courtship structure. But they bring me no closer.


    I can play the tape of how they met by happenstance in that classroom. I can see their reactions and emotions preserved in the atomic structure of each moment. I can pull out to a mile from their position, which still takes a good amount of time for the computer to turn from quantum states into comprehensible data. Or I can focus on a single, firing neuron inside of Codie''s brain.


    There is so much information. And I have theses of my own.


    Several are still formulating in my mind. What I have to share is also crystallized by time. My words are icons of the past. They cannot show the future, but only experiences I have collected. They are also locked out of matters of the present as I compose.


    But they are my words and not the words of papers past and papers future.


    I have a new thesis about the cause of Codie and Harper''s ''entanglement''.


    No. It is barely a thesis.


    My stronger past thesis was a more nuanced version of wormhole theories put forward that tried to reconcile human events and quantum phenomena. It was a modest effort standing on the shoulders of others. It was completely wrong.


    My flailing, weaker theses are to be admired, especially for their earnest efforts to make meaning. There is no more human struggle than the wrestling to find meaning in the incomprehensible.


    My newest postulation may come closest to the truth. It may not. But it presents this moment I have preserved in words with the information best available to me.


    Young Codie stands in his room as I monitor. I slow things and try to analyze this long-studied instant. I check his neuron states and I consider whether there is a female archetype forming in his mind which will make Harper a particularly pleasing partner. I had recently cross-referenced Harper''s male role models growing up with Codie''s personality type.


    I lean into the matrix of information and peer through it, trying to see a single blade of revelation in a boundless grassland of data. I focus and look and think. I peer into Codie and his head turns back. The moment of the incident.


    The surprise seems to occur first. There is anomalous sensory data in Codie''s experience. He does feel like someone or something has touched him. I go over this moment again and again, but it all seems so fleeting. There must be something more there. I replay it and do different passes as close as I can, zooming in and out of the system.


    Eventually, I freeze on the moment of ''mother'' feeling. I look into Codie''s eyes and watch them. I look right into him and try to figure out what it is. Possibilities of the bizarre fill my thoughts as I click over for records of strange phenomena in his old home. The chill wash of the computer''s cooling unit flows over the entire room and me. In the same instant, I let real, recorded time flow at normal speed.


    Codie looks back at me across the distance. He shivers.


    I pause there and have to think. Still, there is a single notion which assaults my mind.


    Observations at the quantum level cannot be made without transforming what is there through observation. Recorded information is translated and changed, even just a little bit, to be observed.


    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Perhaps I actually touched my father/mother in some small way and never realized it. It could well be hubris, but still little is known of the nature of the preserved section of time.


    Still, I have to acknowledge that I carry many of Codie''s mother''s physical traits. In a flash moment, I could well be mistaken for her, especially when no other clear explanation is known to a child.


    But is there more? It has been so many years that the preserved time has been studied and Codie and Harper as well. If something from the recent past could influence the more distant past, then is it a grand leap to consider the cause of things in that far past may lie in the recent past or perhaps even the future?


    This, however, is not a theory. It is just a thought triggered by a strange moment. And it does not explain how Harper became involved.


    After mulling this, I decided to shift ahead in time to after Codie and Harper leave their three wise men of questions and return to Sewell Hall.


    They linger in Codie''s dorm. The mambo sloths make an encore appearance as they give each other a generous separation. They mentally count at each incidental touch of skin. Some of their discussions involve who to tell and when. Mostly, the possibility of a late breakfast or an early lunch is at the forefront of their consciousness in the soup of feelings and resurrected concern about their class examination results.


    But this anxiety soon sublimates away.


    They laugh and chat and try to make something resembling food from what remains of the last supermarket trip by the other residents. Casually, they touch. After a few tense separations, they linger. They shift several times with the remnants of anxiety till they make a game of their little touches. Even memories of the incident do not surface in Codie''s mind.


    I can follow them in the days soon after, where kisses become strange and new. I can watch the reveal of their secret and the chaos to follow. I can see them no longer wince at the other''s touch. I can see them discuss how they want to spend their entire lives together as experiment after experiment peers at them. I can see their peculiar wedding day.


    I can see a discussion of in-vitro fertilization and who will be the mother. But I stop here. They never told me and I don''t wish to dig into those secrets.


    But the secrets of their love, no matter how deeply I look, remain inscrutable. That is not to say that all love is such. Physiological love, composed of neurochemical and hormonal responses, can be untangled. Psychological reasoning from shared interest and the appeal of pairing for mental benefit presents itself coherently. But Codie and Harper¡­


    Why would two whose entire personal reality could be unraveled each time they come into contact...want to remain together? Did their early moments really strike such a deep resonance?


    I listen to a random exchange after Harper''s sister has been notified and produced several self-muffled screams and asked a thousand questions from witnessing their switch. The sweetness of the better-than-expected result to their recent psychology exam tinges the mood.


    Codie and Harper discuss seeing a movie later, their hands lingering closely as they shift.


    With few signs in her neurological state to pronounce a new topic of discussion, Harper says, "I think Lisa is a beautiful name."


    Codie, no longer alarmed by his female change, widens her eyes and nods before answering, "It''s lovely¡­"


    Harper smiles at her. "It''s love. It''s like you could replace the vowels and consonants after L and it''s another name for love."


    It''s not a direct letter substitution method and there are so many other names which could be formed in that way. But I lean forward and listen through the interface.


    There are smiles between them as they lean close but relax their touch.


    However, Codie''s smile wanes after a while and she asks, "What if this is how it is from now on?"


    Harper renews his smile for Codie. "From now on we always spend our evenings discussing what movies to watch as we giggle ourselves crazy?"


    Despite her serious concerns, Codie can''t restrain her chuckle from escaping. "Okay! Hehe¡­but¡­welll¡­we''ve kept my roommates and yours from finding out so far. But for how long?"


    "As long as we have." Harper shrugs.


    Codie echoes my issues. She asks Harper if she/he might be happier with someone who doesn''t cause so many problems. This kind of discussion has come before, in another form, over a meal a few days before. Harper''s answer then is to muse on fate. I find it lacking.


    Her answer at this ''now'' is more substantive.


    "I''m happy here. Sure, maybe it could be easier with someone else. But this is how things are. My uncle once told me love isn''t perfect. What matters is how much you keep striving each day to understand it and breathe joy into it. It hurts more often than not. But it''s also beautiful. It doesn''t make sense and yet it feels right. It persists and it''s a part of you¡­.you are a part of me, Codie. And I feel like I''m a part of you¡­"


    Their kiss is intense and emotional with their synapses flowing with endorphins and bright charges.


    I can stop there. It''s not a neat end to this composition. But neither are my life or the lives I have followed and continue to follow.


    Like Harper describes the process of love, I also feel the process of my examinations. They are ever unfinished, as I hope the lives of Harper and Codie together will be, though I can only be a part of them in this small way.


    This is not an end. It all continues. And in continuing there are always possibilities.


    (1) T.S. Eliot, BURNT NORTON (No. 1 of ''Four Quartets'')