LIGHTNOVELONLINE 10. Day 31, 5:45pm
"Thanks Callie," Kevin said as I served up dinner.
I sat down across from him and smiled, "You're welcome. It's nothing special though, pasta from a package and sauce from a jar."
He shrugged, "You still put the effort in. And you cooked the meat and veggies. So thank you."
We both just started eating when I heard the front door open and close. A half minute later Cheryl came into the kitchen, she looked like she was in a really good mood. She had a happy smile on her face, her hair looked recently-styled, she had nice make-up on. She was dressed a little casual, in tight jeans and a t-shirt, but I vaguely remembered she said work stopped caring about a dress-code because of all the issues with everyone struggling to find new clothes and stuff.
She grinned at me and Kevin, "Hey, that smells good!"
I got up and said, "Have a seat, I'll get you some."
She sat in her usual spot while I pulled out another plate and got a big scoop of noodles out of the pot for her, then put a good portion of the sauce and meat and stuff ontop. I grabbed some cutlery then set the plate down in front of her.
Meanwhile Kevin was sort of staring at her with a frown. He finally asked, "Where've you been? We haven't seen you in four days."
Cheryl thanked me for the food. She had a forkful then smiled, "This is great Callie, well done."
Finally she looked at my brother and replied calmly, "I've been staying at Erin's place. She's a good friend, we've worked together for fifteen years."
I started eating again, but I could already feel the mood in the room dropping fast.
"Are you sleeping with this Erin person?" Kevin asked. He wasn't angry yet, but I could tell he was getting there. "Are you cheating on mom?"
Cheryl had another bite to eat, then she set her fork down. She took a breath and replied in that same calm tone, "Erin and I have become very close in the last week and a half. And yes, I am sleeping with her. But no, I'm not cheating on your mother. Mary and I are no longer together. Your mom has made that painfully obvious by her actions over the past month, and two weeks ago she and I talked and Mary put it into words."
She sighed, "Your mother told me in no uncertain terms that as far as she was concerned, our marriage ended the day of the phenomenon. She's adamant that she married a man, and in her eyes I stopped being that man that Sunday morning. So she decided our marriage was nullified."
Me and Kevin both just stared at Cheryl for a few moments. Meanwhile she picked up her fork and started eating again.
Kevin stayed quiet but after a half minute I asked "So what's going to happen? Are you going to move out? Is that why you're staying at Erin's place?"
Cheryl shook her head, "This is my house. I pay the bills, I'm the one with the job. I needed some time away from your mother though. I'm not going to ask her to leave but sooner or later she and I will have to discuss what's going to happen in that respect."
"Good luck with that," Kevin muttered. His voice took on an angry tone as he stated, "You haven't even asked where she is, why she's not having dinner with us? She's passed out drunk on the sofa again! She's been drinking for at least a week now, maybe more!"
After swallowing another mouthful of pasta, Cheryl shrugged slightly "We all have our own ways of coping Kevin. I'd suggest your mother should seek help, but she won't listen to me. Maybe you two can try talking with her next time she's sober."
Kevin looked to me like he wasn't sure what to say, or maybe he hoped I'd take up the discussion.
Before I could speak up, Cheryl grabbed the TV remote and turned on the six o'clock news. That was the end of the conversation, for now at least.
As much as I hated the news these days, I couldn't help listen in as we all ate quietly.
The lead story had to do with the 'identification problem'. Apparently the government had finally made up their minds and pushed through emergency legislation today. The opposition party was grumpy about it but they never did come up with any viable alternatives. All they did was drag their feet and complain while slowing up the process for everyone else.
Now the news was reporting how it was going to work. Rather than everyone rushing to a government office in a huge crowd, they'd be contacting us to come in when our turn came up. They were setting up big temporary processing centres and they said they'd be having households come in together where possible. We'd bring in all our old ID and stuff, there'd be an interview process, then we'd get new temporary ID on the spot. Permanent stuff would come in the mail later.
The best part was during that interview anyone who wanted to start using a new name could just give them the new name and they'd make it official immediately.
There were still a lot of other questions and hurdles, like that process was just for government-issued ID. Stuff like student ID, banking and financial records, and any other paperwork and stuff along those lines would all still need updating, but they were already working on guidelines for private business to follow.
Honestly it felt like the first good news in weeks.
That segued into talking about the percentage of the population who'd accepted their new circumstances and were going to change their names. Apparently it was up to nearly two-thirds, according to the most-recent polls. That still left me feeling weird, though I noticed they'd stopped using terms like 'former men'. In fact it seemed like they were starting to avoid a lot of gendered language in general.
Then they ran footage of a press conference with the prime minister. She made a show of taking off her red tie and her suit jacket, revealing her shirt was actually a blouse, and announced that going forward her new name was Monique and she was a girl.
It was supposed to be a big deal when it happened, like there was the leader of our country coming out and showing it was ok to embrace the change and all that stuff. Except it happened last week and even I'd seen the footage like a dozen times by now. I figured the news media probably wanted to keep making the point. Maybe they were even trying to encourage people to just accept it.
Then they switched to the other anchor girl and her news actually sounded promising as well. Apparently the government finally woke up to the mental health crisis that had been going on for the past month, now they were committing actual resources to address it.
From the sound of it they'd already been working on the issue. It actually seemed fairly obvious in retrospect, but all the money that used to go to geriatric health care was basically freed up since almost nobody on Earth was older than nineteen anymore. That money was going to be plowed straight into mental health instead.
They even acknowledged that solving the problem wasn't as easy as just throwing money at it. There simply weren't enough psychologists, therapists, and psychiatrists around to handle the increased demand. So they were coming up with new programs for education, to attract new students in those fields.
In fact they were going to be putting more money into education in general, since there was suddenly a huge population of nineteen-year-olds and not all of them had jobs. Like those former-retirees all needed something to do, that kind of thing. So they were going to be making an effort to get post-secondary education available for anyone who wanted it.
As soon as I heard that, something in my head clicked. I'd been agonizing about college again the last few days. Going three hours out of town would mean I was three hours away from both my girlfriend and my little brother. I wasn't even that interested in the program I'd picked. It was an English Lit course, and I basically only picked it because it was an excuse to go to college in the first place.
All my college plans revolved around getting far enough from home so I could transition without my parents knowing what was going on. And that became a non-issue last month.
I tuned the news out for a while and thought about it while I ate. If I could get into one of these mental health training programs at a local college, I could learn to help people with all this stuff while also staying here so I could be with Vivian and Kevin.
By the time I'd had enough to eat I was making plans. I needed to talk with Viv and find out what she was going to do, but I was excited about the chance to learn something useful and maybe help people deal with this.
Eventually I noticed the news had changed to something different. There was a cute blonde girl wearing a Toronto hockey jersey, standing in front of an NHL background. She was wearing make-up and her hair was long and stylish.
Despite being a Canadian I wasn't much of a hockey fan, but it was a subject that was important to a lot of other people. And there really hadn't been any sports news for the past month so it was unusual to see this now.
Text on the screen identified the girl as "Heather" and apparently she played as a forward for the Leafs. From what she was saying I quickly figured out the hockey season had just been officially cancelled. Apparently the NHL was talking about merging with the WHL, which I found funnier than it should have been. And Heather was providing some personal insight as a player.
"...applies not just to professional hockey but almost every sport, at almost every level. Obviously everybody is dealing with the situation in their own way, and that includes myself, my teammates, and everyone else in the league. The reality many of us face, myself included, is a lot of us just don't have the physique anymore to be professional athletes."
She grimaced and sort of gestured to herself, "At the end of last season, I was six-foot-two and weighed two-oh-five. Now I'm five-three and a hundred and ten pounds. And it's not just the size or height, I don't have the muscle tone. The bottom line is, we can't just lace up in smaller skates and uniforms and hit the ice. And some of us don't even want to try. Everyone's dealing with massive life changes, and speaking for myself I'm going to take the fresh start and do something else. Hockey will be back, maybe next year. There'll be some familiar names and some new names, but they'll all be new faces."
I noticed she didn't sound upset or remorseful. She wasn't complaining, she was just stating facts. Of course the fact that she was calling herself Heather suggested she'd accepted her new life. And if she was anything like Cheryl or Vivian she was probably happy and optimistic about her future.
As usual the news had some 'independent expert' to weigh in on things. Rather than discuss hockey or sports, she pointed out something Heather had sort of alluded to. Apart from almost everyone becoming a nineteen-year-old girl, nearly everything else about the situation seemed more or less random.
I realized she had a point with that. My hair and eye colour didn't change, but I became a lot smaller. Kevin stayed the same height. Like me, Cheryl was a lot smaller than she used to be. And Kevin Cheryl and me all had different faces, like we looked like strangers. But in mom's case she mostly just got younger and slimmer, but she kept her height and her looks weren't too different.
From the sound of it, that kind of randomness happened for everyone. Like guys got turned into girls and nobody was older than nineteen, but how tall or short you were, body shape, facial features, hair and eye colour, it all seemed random. About the only other common denominator was everybody was attractive. Like everyone looked kind of cute, one way or another.
Cheryl turned off the TV which brought me back to the present. She and Kevin had both finished eating as well, and the three of us took our dishes over to the sink.
"I'll wash up," my little brother volunteered, "Since you did the cooking sis."
I thanked him then looked at Cheryl and said "Come on. You and me are going to go try and talk with mom."
Cheryl sighed, but she didn't protest. As we headed for the living-room together she commented, "You know she doesn't like either of us anymore Callie. It's not going to be easy."
"I know," I replied. "But she's my mom, and whether the two of you like it or not you're still married. So let's see what we can do to help her."
