Achieving Serenity

Shapeshifters

Being yourself

I was flipping through my journal one lonely night, reading several past entries and noticing my sudden tone change in more recent days. It seemed I was such a happy child with innocent stresses up until around a year ago when I started having feelings for her.

Shapeshifting was my favorite thing to do as a kid and was often the neighborhood activity. My friends and I were often getting in trouble with our petty pranks- feigning employees at businesses, entering the girls' locker room as pigeons (we were the reason they installed the gender-detector at our school), and throwing poop at people as monkeys.

I always would try to impress my older brother, Garrett but he seemed to not want anything to do with me. Our family moved three times in my childhood so I quickly learned what it took to make new friends quickly, though my brother seemed to be much more popular than I was. Wherever he went, he would exude vivid confidence that I was thoroughly impressed by. Even today I will admit that Garrett is the coolest person I know. He is two years older than me and it seemed our friend group was gradually becoming more mutual. Whatever it was that he had- I wanted.

Today I'm sixteen years old and it's getting close to the point where my shape will become permanent. My morphing skills have decayed lately and it seems like Garrett has been meaner to me. He gets really upset whenever I do things that he feels "copies" him. I'm learning that in order to be cool, I have to be mean toward people who copy me.

I looked into the mirror and saw a large black man- I didn't even remember shapeshifting. I stared at myself intently with one thing in mind. Music. I was going to become a rapper.

It was Friday night and after school, I went to my buddy Jason's house and we smoked Hookah while discussing our night's plan. There was a party going on that Jason said he was pretty sure Garrett was going to be. This would be a perfect chance to showcase my rapping skills not only to him but to everyone at school as well!

When we got to the party, I was sad to see my older brother with a beer in his hand. He was drunk; I can't believe my brother drinks beer. We came from a Mormon background so this was fairly shocking to me. But the once the initial reaction had died off, it only took me an hour before I had a beer myself.

The next morning I awoke in my bed at my parent's house with a pounding headache, feeling sweaty and thirsty. I guess this is the dreaded hangover that I've heard so much about. I walked out of my bedroom and entered the bathroom but to my surprise saw Garrett already in there. I let out an expletive before closing the door, then began second-guessing what I just saw.

It wasn't a person in the bathroom, it was the mirror reflection. I looked exactly like Garrett.

I closed my eyes, flexed out as I initiated my shapeshifting execution. I let my eyes slide ajar as I saw only my brother's face once again in the mirror's reflection. My form had become permanent.