You know what they say. You can never truly know someone until you walk a mile in their shoes.
You wake up one morning, like any other. Nothing seems unusual about the day, nothing at all really. In fact, if you ignored the heavy snowfall lately, it would be an otherwise perfectly average day in a town in Maine. A glance out the window will show that there's been some paths carved in the snow, so maybe you can get out of the damned house a little. It won't last, so you might as well enjoy the freedom, right?
When you go to get dressed, however, there is something odd. There's another set of shoes there. Maybe you recognize them as a friend's, or maybe you've never seen them before in your life, but they're definitely not yours. On a whim, you feel an almost inexorable compulsion to try them on, and they fit perfectly! It does not matter how biologically impossible this might be because of different species, foot sizes, the fact that you've never worn high heels in your life, they fit, and fit perhaps better than any other shoes you've ever worn.
That's when the rubber meets the road, however. The moment you put them on, your memories feel fuzzy for a moment and then everything is just wrong. Your memories of life become those of the person whose shoes you are now wearing. Inconsistencies are papered over for a moment. Flagrant inaccuracies just don't seem important at first, and you go about your business, being them. There's always a strangeness to your day, a sort of surreal oddity to it. It feels 'off,' and every time you look in the mirror you swear that you see the words somewhere in the reflection "Cogito Ergo Sum. At qui ego sum?"
Eventually, the nagging feeling gets worse and worse until you're compelled to find the person wearing your shoes. Only then can the curse be lifted by talking about the pieces of each other's false lives, sharing bits about oneself and realizing in the haze, confusion and fear that they are sharing your memories, not yours. When enough have been shared, the urge to trad shoes comes, and once the right ones are on your feet it's all back to normal. The false memories bleed away like the morning fog. At most, only vague recollections linger unless the two of you choose to continue talking about them. But the next time you look in the mirror, backwards, written in blood are the words. "?I ma ohw tub ,ma I erofereht kniht I"
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2020-11-23 05:11 pm (UTC)You know what they say. You can never truly know someone until you walk a mile in their shoes.
You wake up one morning, like any other. Nothing seems unusual about the day, nothing at all really. In fact, if you ignored the heavy snowfall lately, it would be an otherwise perfectly average day in a town in Maine. A glance out the window will show that there's been some paths carved in the snow, so maybe you can get out of the damned house a little. It won't last, so you might as well enjoy the freedom, right?
When you go to get dressed, however, there is something odd. There's another set of shoes there. Maybe you recognize them as a friend's, or maybe you've never seen them before in your life, but they're definitely not yours. On a whim, you feel an almost inexorable compulsion to try them on, and they fit perfectly! It does not matter how biologically impossible this might be because of different species, foot sizes, the fact that you've never worn high heels in your life, they fit, and fit perhaps better than any other shoes you've ever worn.
That's when the rubber meets the road, however. The moment you put them on, your memories feel fuzzy for a moment and then everything is just wrong. Your memories of life become those of the person whose shoes you are now wearing. Inconsistencies are papered over for a moment. Flagrant inaccuracies just don't seem important at first, and you go about your business, being them. There's always a strangeness to your day, a sort of surreal oddity to it. It feels 'off,' and every time you look in the mirror you swear that you see the words somewhere in the reflection "Cogito Ergo Sum. At qui ego sum?"
Eventually, the nagging feeling gets worse and worse until you're compelled to find the person wearing your shoes. Only then can the curse be lifted by talking about the pieces of each other's false lives, sharing bits about oneself and realizing in the haze, confusion and fear that they are sharing your memories, not yours. When enough have been shared, the urge to trad shoes comes, and once the right ones are on your feet it's all back to normal. The false memories bleed away like the morning fog. At most, only vague recollections linger unless the two of you choose to continue talking about them. But the next time you look in the mirror, backwards, written in blood are the words. "?I ma ohw tub ,ma I erofereht kniht I"
Merry Christmas, Deerington.