The World Through Various Eyes

[22] The Last Switch (Christopher's POV)

I awoke that morning with the vibrantly shining sun peeking through cream colored curtains. My awakening was peaceful, and the sheer bliss of it was almost enough to make me smile. Remembering the night before evoked panic in me that stopped me from enjoying that moment, though. A flood of memories crept back into my mind, and the realization hit that I was not the me I had been before.

One night prior to this day, I was at my college acceptance party. My parents had decided to go all out and throw a gigantic bash that was supposed to celebrate the occasion of me getting into Stanford University, but I knew the truth. They always had parties for the dumbest of reasons. First day of spring? Might as well commemorate it with wine and friends. Vernal equinox? Let's all break out the party favors!

Needless to say, I wasn't particularly pumped about the party supposedly in my name. I had no friends to invite, so it would just be a bunch of adults of whom I didn't know, and loneliness all night. Not that I wasn't used to it. These bashes were so frequent, I had gotten accustomed to my parents allowing me to just stand idly as they had their fun. For people who gloated so much about their accomplished honor student, they sure didn't bother to spend much time getting to know him.

Some divine intervention or stroke of luck, however, rescued me from the "celebration". This came in the form of me taking on the body of another person- a teenage girl. Her name was Leslie Ellecks and she was a freshman. I had met her in Agriculture, and she was nice enough I guess. It felt odd being her, though. I learned that through this switch, not only had I gained her knowledge, but I retained my own. I was extremely grateful for that last part, but part of me wished that I could have tried leading a normal life. Not having a high IQ, or the anxiety of analyzing every potential possibility. Just being average for once would have been interesting.

I'm not sure what sort of "average" I expected from becoming a cancer patient. Life's funny that way; no matter who you might consider to be normal, there really is no such thing. Everyone has flaws, strengths, struggles and triumphs. More often than not, there is an unsung story waiting to be told. It just needs the right audience.

I had become the audience for Leslie's story, and was it ever an interesting one! Tragedy and hope, all rolled into one! I had experienced my fair share of sadness in my life, but hope, that was one thing that I missed! How nice it felt, to remember the good in things. It seemed crazy that the boy with such a successful academic career and parents well-endowed with money would be without hope, but the girl with acute lymphocytic leukemia would have held onto it. I suppose that in those situations, one must be optimistic or sink beyond repair emotionally.

I sat up from the bed I had apparently slept in, yawning and extending my arms. It was a very clichéd awakening, but my particular sleeping position had caused me to need to stretch a bit. My lips were chapped and peeling, and the human hair wig on my head was sliding off on the right side. I adjusted it by the roots, and ran my fingers through the length of it. It felt sleek and soft between the interspaces of my fingers, the hair caressing skin. I knew it wasn't Leslie's original head of hair but that did not detract from its beauty.

Her body was weak, and it was enough of a chore to walk over from her bed to her desk. I found myself queasy and unsettled as I eased into her pale green desk chair. Before me, her desk sat with numerous photos and letters. While some were outdated, many were fairly recent. The most interesting part were the photographs.

They were arranged in a linear fashion, one right after the next, in order of oldest to newest according to dates on their backs. Even without these times it would have been possible to tell which ones were taken last, since she had her wig on in a few. But most noticeable, were her expressions and particularly, her eyes. As the images progressed, it was obvious that her face was losing character. The earliest picture had eyes full of life, which shimmered with contentment. The latest had eyes full of sorrow and worrying. Maybe hope wasn't so easy after all, no matter how much you try to project it, and hide the suffering.