I/Tulpa: the Seven Year Girl

Chapter 3

"Round the world and home again, that's the sailor's way!"

First day of school came unexpectedly; simply passing through a door delivered Jon to class, and, as usual, he was late. Jon had long since given up on explaining his tardiness. He orientated to his new environment and took his place on the floor, in the circle of peers who shared his 'home room' class with Misty. The conversation that unfolded was mystical in nature, and unnecessarily convoluted, though not in a comical way, well, maybe in a comical way if you were in a comical frame of reference, and Jon found himself day dreaming through it all, having to remind himself to attend. There is a mindfulness/meditation practice called the 'puppy dog method,' where you simply treat your brain as if it were a puppy that needed to be reined in. You are not your brain. Your brain is a puppy dog. When you realize it's scampering it about, you simply call it back to task. You don't hit it with a paper. Unfortunately, by the time he knew his 'puppy' was in mischief, the recycle bin was turned over and all the contents were spilled across the entire kitchen floor, and sorting how all of these things came to be, with Misty's voice mysteriously floating above like the adults in a Charlie Brown world, and the puppy with blueberry yogurt cup stuck to its nose as it back-peddled in an urgent rush to get out of it, took up so much processing power that it would probably be weeks before the abstract content that was being delivered in class manifested in his life.

After class, Misty motioned for him to remain, and Jon complied, mostly because his history with Misty was fairly fantastical, and the hopes of intimacy flared, and in his mind he was already super engaged with the memories of past sex, as he waited patiently as Misty sorted the peers that had lingered. Fokisi, his classmate of Tongan lineage, and Dusit, from Thailand, approached him, unknowingly and un-maliciously interrupting his inner script. Jon stood up, because it was really awkward sitting in a lotus position when someone who could be a professional linebacker loomed over you. It was fairly absurd seeing Fokisi and Dusit standing next together, as Dusit was not only dainty, he was downright pixie petite and dolled up, and even knowing he was transgendered, Jon couldn't help but consider the possibilities, but he brought that puppy back in line with the threat of a rolled up newspaper. Part of him was just curious about the reformed anatomy and how well it functioned, but in this world, due to the exaggerated use of magic, more than likely the equipment was fully functional and indistinguishable from originating anatomy. His puppy was chewing and pulling on the newspaper. And when one considered that all fetuses start off female, it was probably not too difficult to unwind the process and redirect the cell evolution to the desired results.

"You okay?" Fokisi asked.

Um, Jon shook himself out of his reverie, surrendering that paper to the puppy, as it was probably going to be unreadable. The puppy chewed, growled, and attacked the paper, which looked a lot like humping the paper. "Fair to middling," Jon said, trying to ignore his own metaphors for what might constitute brain activity.

"You mean fair to midland," Dusit corrected. It was actually less correction, and more the need to increase his own working knowledge of English, so it felt different than the know it all grammatical person who felt compelled to teach you, solicited or not.

"No, that's the band," Fokisi said.

"Oh. English is so hard," Dusit said.

"You speak well, though," Jon said.

"I learned from watching 'Friends,'" Dusit boasted.

"Maybe if you had Star Trek dubbed in Thai I could learn Thai easier," Jon said.