I have a crush on Lindsay, a woman I met at psychodrama. Or I did until this morning, when I woke feeling strange. When I get up and look in the mirror, I find out there's no hope of me winning Lindsay anymore... since I am Lindsay.

Lucky I know where she works, and roughly what she does. So I head over to Lindsay's office, and fake it all morning... but at noon, I start to blow it--I get the weirdest compulsion to snoop through all my co-workers' lunch boxes! I'm insatiably nosy. It's time to face that I'm not me in Lindsay's body, I'm her, with her character, her motives... and I have no idea what quirks will surface next.

My boss, I mean Lindsay's boss, Susan, has been subsidizing Mexican-American plays through a tax-withholding plan. None of us in the office really objected. Only now... Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock arrive to collect the debt. Kirk is mentally ill, though: he's just too NICE! Falls uncritically in love with me, and Spock says I'm not the first. For months, Kirk's been promoting incompetents he has the hots for... Dr. McCoy can't diagnose the problem, says "Damn it, Spock, I'm just a country doctor!" There's a high-tech medical scanner that might figure out why the Captain's become such a fool for love, but McCoy is just not into machines.

But it doesn't really matter if Kirk's a bit off. Spock can handle this. They've come for the payment of our debt. We have to do them a service, as we long ago agreed. And Lindsay was chosen to represent the whole department. And since I'm Lindsay, as far as they know...

So all of a sudden I'm meekly following them out to the lawn and up the ramp into their space shuttle. I strap in... and gasp as my world falls away.

Kirk and Spock take me to a huge world, nearly big enough to be a gas giant, but not quite--it's a world-ocean. We fly down into a golden sky over an endless lemon sea. So beautiful...

An islet ahead. No, something floating. A huge statue! It's floating face up.

I know that face.

Me. Lindsay, I mean. That me.

We land on my stomach. I run around examining myself excitedly. I'm made of silvery metal. I can crawl inside my own mouth, nose, vagina. I wonder if they lead to control rooms or what? Okay, maybe I'm just flattered they went to such trouble--a giant, perfect version of me! Is it a ship? What's it made for?

I sit, beaming, on my left nipple, and tell Kirk, "I'm ready to do... whatever the task is. No matter how long it takes. I was afraid it'd be something horrible. But this... it's lovely here."

Kirk climbs into the shuttle hatch and pauses, looks sad. He says "Lindsay, you don't have to do anything. We... we won't be coming back. That's the price."

And Spock shuts the hatch and the shuttle swims into the golden sky. Leaving me here to die, alone with my giant me, me, me.

Left to die on the lemon sea.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Lindsay: a friend at psychodrama I have an unrequited crush on.
• Susan the boss: my boss, not Lindsay's. Probably she means my workaholism. Push push push!
• Mexican-American theatre subsidies: I've been going to psychodrama a couple of years. At first I was learning a lot about people. Lately it's still fun, but am I still learning? Just subsidizing their theatre! The dream's warning me there's a price I've ignored.
• Snooping thru lunches? Odd--Lindsay doesn't seem nosy at all. But I've only seen her at work once or twice. Maybe it's literal. Or it could just be unflattering--saying "Lindsay, your idol, has feet of clay."
• Kirk is a sucker for women: my uncritical crush on Lindsay--and others before her. Maybe she is a snoop, someone others'd want to dump on an island, but I've been too busy drooling to notice.
• Statue, explore my body: well, I sure wanted to explore Lindsay's body!
• The cost of drama is leaving Lindsay, me, to die: psychodrama now isolates me somehow--takes my time & energy or discourages me from dating or meeting new friends. At least quit chasing Lindsay, she's a dead end!
• The Lemon Sea: last night I went out with my sister for dinner. I'm vegetarian but I bent my rule and tasted her dish: lemon chicken. So the giant statue of me floating in lemon, must be... chicken! Hey, you are what you eat.

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