One Crazy Adventure!

You wake up from a disturbingly sleepless night, a bit peckish and even more groggy. Your mind hasn't quite jumpstarted today, but you manage to pull yourself out of bed anyway. Perhaps, you think, a spot of caffeine will do the trick. Maybe then, you'll wake up enough to remember what it was you were supposed to do today, or at least recognize where you are.

Rubbing the sleep stuff out of your eyes, you vaguely become aware of your surroundings. It's a relatively sparse room, sporting only a chair and a bed for furniture. There is also a closed door, leading... well, somewhere, to be sure.

You open the door noisily, knocking over a lamp you hadn't noticed before. Before the lamp hits the ground, it stops short, saved by the tautly pulled power cord, hanging down from the desk you also hadn't noticed before.

In fact, there is quite a bit of furniture in this room that you hadn't quite focused on earlier. In addition to the desk, chair, bed, door, and lamp that is now rotating slowly around its power cord pivot, you also notice a throw rug, a drafting table, a closet, and a computer. The computer is sitting on the same desk that the lamp isn't.

You look back through the door that you've recently opened and notice a hallway with other doors. The prospect of so many more decisions weighs uncomfortably on your groggy mind. You think that perhaps closing the door and exploring the possibilities of the room might be less taxing on your decision making skills

Pleased with your decision not to make decisions, you slam the door triumphantly. You realize your mistake immediately, as your head throbs demandingly and painfully. Cloudy memories of last night are sporadically returning to you. All you can remember is having perhaps entertained one too many luxuries for a single night.

You're also not quite certain whether this is someone else's room you've spent the night in, or whether Korsekov's syndrome has left you without the ability to recognize your own furniture. The bedsheets are black and uninformative. The computer or the closet ought to yield better clues, you deduce.

Your brain complains Arranged neatly on the desk is the computer, you decide to turn it on out of curiosity. Luckily there is no required password. After the start up screen, you notice a folder called diary, and a folder called appointments.

You open the file and find it's been written with a special font, each page covered in a tightly penned script that slopes to the left. Staring at it makes your vision go slightly blurry and you have a momentary expectation that a 3-D picture will appear. But as your dry eyes begin to become painful you remember to blink and the writing becomes legible.

You decide to start on the first page.It begins,

I'll dispense with the "Dear Diary" crap--it makes me feel like I'm in a "Sweet Valley High" book, and while talking to inanimate objects is a habit of late-night foggery and drug-induced hazes, writing to them is far less gratifying. Instead of Marx's and Heidegger's obsessions with peoples relationships (and relations) with objects, and instead of MacLuhan's obsession with objects' influence on relationships between people, I'm interested in relationships between people. Crime in particular is interesting.

If I were to, say, steal someone's keys, I could observe the puzzlement followed by frustration as he searches for them. Next, when he realizes the keys were stolen, rather than simply misplaced, comes anger. Indignation at crime in general. But then, and this can take a while, a recognition sets in that if their keys were stolen, then somebody stole them. That is, someBODY stole them. Someone else has access his whole private world. To everything, everyone, and everywhere that he shuts away from the world. To hide. To isolate. To protect... that which may no longer be safe. One can actually see this realization occur and it is most gratifying. To touch, to reach someone in this way. It's just my contribution to the community of man. My reminder that we are all of us connected.

More direct relationships--clubs breaking ribs, steel toed boots stomping fragile digits--are in one sense crude, but in another so very primal. An indication of our most basic bonds. My experience in this realm less extensive. The Flamingo Club affords me some great opportunities to reach people but so far I have only grazed their skin; I have not grasped their hearts.

Tonight may change that.

Well seeing that the last entry on the diary is date 8/7/88. Tonight might be the night you go to experiment with peoples' feelings and psyche. Yes, theft, adultery and even MURDER! Yes tonight 8/8/88, at the Flamingo Club on 888 Miami Avenue.

As you change and head out, you check your left jacket pocket for essentials:

•ID (on which you find your name is Christopher Darren, age 24)

•money (about one hundred bucks in 20's)

•several pictures of blondes and brunettes (some with telephone numbers)

•pens

•other junks

Your right pocket contains:

•a switch blade

•a mini pistol loaded with two bullets

You now head out confidently to the Flamingo Club. Since you got a few bucks in your pocket, you could afford to hail a cab. You head for the street corner and wait for one. There is quite a good deal of traffic on the main cross street, and lucky for you, there is one just parked a few yards away. You walk up to the cab and get in. "The Flamingo Club please."

The cabbie, who resembles Robert Dinero, replies "Sure dude" and drives on.

But afer a few blocks, you notice that you are not heading in the direction of the club. "Hey, what's going on?" Suddenly, a thick plastic screen comes up and partitions the cab: you are trapped in the back of the cab. At the same time, some white smoke billows through some unseen holes in the doors and seats. You franticly try to open the window and door but just as expected, they are locked! Oh no! Am I gonna die? You drift into unconsciousness.

When you come to, you can't see anything except for the bright lights shining at your face. You are tied snuggly to a chair. A voice behind the light speaks "Mr. Darren, we are very unhappy with your performance. I am afraid we need to make an example of you so the others wouldn't dare to fail in their duties."

You cry out for mercy, halfway between tears and hysteria you are silenced almost immediately and a man you hadn't noticed before steps out from behind you and talks to you with a incredibly calm voice, the kind that makes you just want to jump up and make the man go into some sort of frenzy just to satisfy yourself. You sit there for minutes while the guy just keeps on talking. While the man just talks and talks, you feel like screaming out or breaking out in tears of boredom, and finally you snap. Okay, you say to yourself. You're going to break out of there. Testing the ropes, you decide that they're just slightly bigger than your thumb and you can break out. (the effects of the gas haven't quite worn off and you are still a bit out of it.)

You break the rope successfully, but then your mind starts thinking "okay hotshot, now what?" You look at the man and he isn't paying any attention, so you open the door and try your luck at jumping out of the cab.

The door pops open, and you tumble out. Your head hits the asphalt with brute force. Just after you wake up and find yourself in a hospital bed, you come to the conclusion that all this "adventure" of getting knocked cold constantly is not helping you progress. You try to enjoy this peace and quiet you have for now. However, to your bad luck the remote for the TV set doesn't work.

You don't need anymore sleep, you've been unconcious enough already. And your hospital gown is a nice, loose fit. Your pillows at home aren't this nice.

The nurse comes in and you immedialtly gasp. Shes like one of those nurses on...well...wow. "Hey what do you want."

You just want to shiver up and die at the sound of her voice.

"You know, you're king of cute, and I'm almost off my shift. Ill come back and give you a sponge bath, later."

You cant wait, but then again there was something about her...

Wait just a darn second! You just realized! That ID in your pocket wasn't yours! It was your brother's, as was the little black book. You're female and your name is Lyz! Geez! What kind of high are you on? You jump out the door and head for the nearest K-Mart. You desparately need some better clothes. These Dickeys for ropers just won't do. You'd head for the mall, but, well.... after that cab ride, you're kind of low on cash. Um, well.... you could do something else...

You reach K-Mart and you notice that a lot of people are looking at you very strangely. You then look at yourself - you are still wearing a hospital gown! You don't even have your own wallet or purse for that matter.

"Excuse me, sir" says a K-Mart employee, "Can I help you?"

After many valiant attempts at using your charm to win over the K-Mart manager, he simply ignores you and tells you that you desperatly need to leave as you're causing quite a scene.

You refuse, telling him stuff like "It's my right as an American" and other things you would have never said if you weren't desperate--and wearing your hospital gown.

Finally, he calls security on you. Three men in suirs come toward you and drag you to a room in the back of the store. They ask you all sorts of questions like "Where did you get that hospital gown?" to "Did you escape from a mental institution?"

Which you answer "No! No!"

They leave you to yourself in the little pink room...pink is such a soothing color. They leave the door slightly cracked. As they leave, you notice this room is just beside the layaway room...full of clothes, shoes and other goodies to make your getaway

You bolt through the door to the clothes. You notice it is all designer, and all the latest fashion. You smile to yourself and try to decide what to wear.

Suddenly you realise it is all womens clothes! What are you going to do?

You could either wear the clothes and go drag, or you could stay in the pink room and be questioned by the police, who already think you're a mental case.

Actually, you realize, that you don't have to 'go drag' after all. You remember that you have the ability to switch sexes at will. You therefore lead a double life, as both Christopher Darren and his sister Lyz, thanks to the shapeshifting formula a scientist friend gave you.

You recall that you were classified as a new variation on transsexualism.

But for some reason, you can't remember which sex you were born as. Are you really Lyz who sometimes transforms into Christopher, or vice versa?

Whoever you are, you switch to your female form, and don the clothes. The police are in for quite a surprise, as they apprehended a man, not a woman.

The door opens, and one of the men enters. His jaw drops at your beautiful female figure.

He tries to recover. "Excuse me, ma'am, are you supposed to be here? I thought we were holding someone else..."

Just as you begin to plead your case, something goes terribly wrong. You feel you body changing. You obviously are in need of a fresh dose of shape-shifting formula. You don't just change back into Christopher however, your body is flipping back and forth between male, female, and something "in-between" - like a portable TV with bad reception.

The security guard's face changes from an expression or surprise, and obvious sexual interest, to one of pure horror. You look down at your chest and groan as your breasts grow and shrink rapidly. You can feel the hair on your head changing length in unison with rest of your body, and you don't even let yourself think about what is going on in your pants!

Realizing that you have to do something, and do it now, you:

Ask the guard (winking), "Hey baby, ever kiss a man & woman at the same time?"