My eyes shot open, and I gasped for air. The room was black around me, and as I panted my eyes adjusted to the dark. I felt the sheets and the pillow underneath me as I writhed and shifted under the blanket on top of me. My body refused to respond, and I lay near paralyzed. I felt...smaller. Weaker. I willed anything in my body to flex or shift, and in a wave of goosebumps my body shuddered to life. My limbs flailed as if they had forgotten how to move, and through a force of will I began to carefully flex my muscles and settle them down. My head pounded, and the memory of what had just happened to me slipped away like a lucid dream.
I scanned the room around the bed I lay in the dim light, and a sense of familiarity filled me. I knew this room. A familiar musty scent filled my nostrils, and I gently coughed as if remembering how to breathe. I lurched my feet off the side of the bed, which dangled for a moment before they hit the floor. I stumbled, catching myself as I wobbled and leaned against the wall to adjust my balance. I staggered across the room to where I was certain a light switch was. I flinched as the room lit up.
It was my room. Or rather, my childhood room, like something from a photograph. It was all there - the shaggy red carpet, the faux wood slants of the wall, the bookshelf built into the wall above my desk filled with knickknacks and books. There was my old blue dinosaur rug in the middle of the room that covered a messy stain from when I spilled a bucket of black paint. And next to the desk on my right was the old four-legged dresser that my grandfather made me. In front of it was a large gift bag, and poking out of the top was an unopened Lego pirate ship. I knew that set well; I had kept it in pristine condition since I was ten, and it had decorated my home office for over a decade.
And here it was. Brand new. In the package. Unopened.
I stood there for several minutes in disbelief. I reached out and touched the bright yellow box that held the pirate ship, feeling the smooth cardboard on my fingertip. Mouth gaping, I spun my eyes around the room taking it all in. My Kirby Puckett baseball poster. My brown toy chest. My old wooden bed. Even the dent in the door to my closet. Everything was so large around me, but it was all like I remembered.
I was back in my childhood room. Somehow.
I stumbled to the full-length mirror screwed to the back of my bedroom door, holding the wall to keep myself on my feet. I grabbed the door knob, which was now at my shoulder level, to stabilize myself as I stood before the reflection in front of me.
Staring back at me was the ten-year-old version of myself I remembered from my old photos. The shaggy brown mullet. The yellow Ninja Turtle pajamas. The slightly pudgy cheeks, and the bright blue eyes which were currently wide-eyed in shock. I was a little slimmer than I remembered, but there was no doubt: this was me at ten years old. I laughed in spite of myself; half out of disbelief, half out of amazement. My knees threatened to give way and I had to remind myself to breathe again.
As I stared and pawed at my face and hair, I heard footsteps on the floor above me. Curious, I pulled open the door and carefully climbed the red stairs that led out of the basement and into the kitchen upstairs. It was still early morning, with the sun barely shining over the houses next to ours, and I plopped down at the kitchen table in amazement. It was definitely the house I remembered, with its modest kitchen and wood trim. The wallpaper, the decorations, even the smell – it was exactly as I remembered it. Even the old junk drawer next to the sliding glass door.
I stared out the sliding back door and onto the dark brown patio under the overreaching crabapple tree in the backyard. The house was an unassuming white bungalow with light brown trim with a separated garage of the same color and adjacent to the house. The living room was situated towards the front yard, while the kitchen was towards the back. My room was below the stairs to the basement, while my younger brother had a room upstairs next to my parents' bedroom. Or so I remembered.
Oh my god, my parents! I thought.
Right on cue, the kitchen door opened, and my father walked in. It was not the older man I remembered, nor was it the weakened husk laying in a hospital bed covered in tubes and struggling to breathe through the COVID infection that would eventually take him. No, this was my father in his prime wearing his simple blue pajamas, sporting an even wilder mullet than my own and his thin bristle of a mustache that he wouldn't shave off until I was in college. He had a newspaper shoved under his arm.
"Morning, Matthew." He blinked. "What are you doing up so early?"
My eyes gaped, and my heart skipped a beat. Instinctively, I leapt towards him and threw my arms around his stomach. I squeezed him for dear life.
"Whoa, okay now," he said, the paper falling to the floor as he petted my head. "You okay, champ?"
I squeezed him even harder, as I felt my eyes water. "I'm sorry, Dad! I'm sorry I couldn't see you in the hospital!" I whimpered into his stomach.
"Uhh, it's okay, Matt. Think you had a bad dream."
I wiped my eyes quickly, collecting myself. I pushed aside the horrible memories of things which wouldn't happen for another thirty years, and I cleared my throat. "Right, Dad. Sorry, Dad! It's just...so good to see you!"
Dad raised his eyebrow and smirked. "Well, alright then. Why don't you sit down and I'll get your breakfast."
I staggered back at the table and watched Dad pull out a box of cereal and set a bowl and spoon in front of me. I couldn't stop staring at him as he made his pot of coffee. In my mind, it had been a few years since Dad died but here he was, in the flesh and calmly flipping through a newspaper. I watched him between bites of cereal, and I noted the date on the front page: Monday, May 6th 1991. Doing the math, it was the day after my tenth birthday.
As I sat watching my dad, soaking him in, my younger brother Tim – seven years old I recalled after a few seconds of calculation – scampered into the kitchen and sat next to me. I gasped again as he sat scowling at the morning with his tousled, blondish brown hair. He gave me a grimace as I wordlessly stared at the boy wiping the sleep from his eyes.
The last time I saw Tim was in the summer of 2002, before he was deployed to Iraq.
“Dad! Matthew won’t stop staring at me!” he complained as Dad ignored him through sips of coffee and his newspaper.
“Matthew, keep your eyes to yourself,” scolded a younger version of my mother who joined us in the kitchen, putting in earrings and adjusting her large amber-colored glasses. Dad handed her a fresh cup of coffee as she primped her short, obviously 90s hairdo. I halfway expected my little sister Jane to join us at the table, but I quickly remembered that she was born after we moved to our new house in 1992.
I returned my eyes to the bowl of cereal in front of me, forcing myself to remain still. My breath was ragged as I tried to figure out what was happening. Was this a dream? A vivid memory? Tim shoved me out of the way to pour himself his own breakfast, and on reflex I shoved back. Mom snapped at the two of us, and I collected myself quickly. My family simply shared the morning together, nothing amiss, like I remembered from long ago. I would have smiled, if I wasn’t in abject shock.
"Okay boys," said Mom as she finished her coffee and toast. "Go get ready for school."
Tim ran off immediately, and I slowly pushed myself up from my chair, making sure that I stepped carefully towards the staircase. I supported myself on the railing as I made my way back into my room, trying to remember where I put my clothes in 1991 or figure out how I was going to get to school when I was struggling to walk. I opened the dresser near the foot of my bed, digging through the various shirts and pants inside, choosing some practically at random. But it was when I pulled down my pajama bottoms that I did a double take and had perhaps the biggest shock of the morning. And that was saying something.
Underneath my white Underoos there was...nothing. Not exactly nothing, but a distinct lack of what I was expecting. Between my legs was unmistakably not what a ten-year-old boy should have. I stared down wordlessly at the bald mound between my legs trying to register what was there, or rather what wasn't. Wide-eyed with an increasing sense of dread, I reached down and felt around the area, feeling nothing but bare skin between my legs. I wavered on my feet, another sense of rising panic rising in my chest.
In my disoriented haze, I didn’t hear the door open as my little brother barged into my room unannounced.
“Matt, did you take my backpack? Do you know where – whoa!”
I turned to face him, his eyes landed squarely at my groin before I had the wherewithal to cover myself and slam my knees together.
“Matt, where is your penis?” he asked.
Before I could force out an answer, my legs completely buckled out from under me. I felt myself falling and with a terrible cracking sound of a skull meeting oak, the back of my head struck the footboard of my bed on the way to the floor. I could feel my pajamas bunched around my ankles and through clouds of black dotting my vision I saw Tim standing in the doorway and a scream pouring from his mouth as he ran upstairs.
What happened next came in bits and pieces. I felt Mom cradling me, begging me to stay awake, as Tim looked on behind her, sucking on his fingers. I could hear voices around me, but they were blurred as if I was underwater. Suddenly there were men in the room, tapping my cheeks and propping me into some sort of cot. They shone a light into my eyes as Mom and Dad held each other in horror behind them.
I blinked. I was now in the back of what looked like an ambulance, the same paramedic tapping my cheek and saying something I couldn’t make out. There was something around my head that braced me down in place, and I felt hands securing my arms which were thrashing about as an oxygen mask was placed over my mouth. He kept talking to me, and if I looked away he would tap me again and repeat his questions.
I blinked. I was now in a sterile blue room, with bright lights shining down on me. I felt the board I was strapped to being set down in the center, and two masked men and several individuals behind them looking down and inspecting me.
“Report. Give me a mechanism and GCS.”
“Ten-year-old. Fall witnessed by patient’s brother. LOC was brief. GCS is thirteen; points off for verbal but patient is confused and repetitive. Genital injury reported, but zero evidence of trauma. Negative for hemorrhage, edema, or ecchymosis.”
“Secondary survey. Strip and flip.”
I felt something thin and metal against my legs, and the sensation of my clothes being sliced away. I tried to resist, but my legs wouldn’t respond and adult hands were tight around my ankles. I whimpered into my oxygen mask.
“Hold the C-spine. Log roll on three. One, two, three.”
My entire body was rolled onto its side, as the shears continued to cut away my clothing. The air in the room felt cold.
"Three-centimeter hematoma, occipital region. Skin is intact. No step-off noted in the cervical spine. Resetting. Clear the board."
I was rolled onto my back, now against the cool mattress of the examination table. The tatters of my clothing were pulled away. There was no hesitation. I felt calm, clinical hands probing me below, and a profound sense of violation.
"Abdomen is soft. Pelvis is stable. Confirming paramedic report; zero evidence of reported trauma. Normal female phenotype, Tanner Stage 1."
“Doctor, the intake sheet states ‘Matthew.’ Parents are hysterical in the hallway, insisting she’s their son.”
“Forget the chart discrepancies, losing time on the GCS. We have an occipital hit and a potential intracranial bleed. Radiology, do we have an open tube?"
"Scanner two is clear, Doctor," a nurse shouted, already unhooking a portable oxygen tank.
"Move! Now! And find something to cover her up!"
I felt tears welling up in my eyes, as a cacophony of lights filled my vision. Immobilized, I was lifted once again and slid into a large, white ring. The staff walked out, and I felt the ring grind and spin into life around me.
I sobbed fruitlessly.