First Song

It was beyond midnight when the capsule finally struck the ground, landing next to the roots of an ancient oak tree. It embedded itself into the earth with the impact of a cannonball that had been fired from an 18th century artillery piece, which is to say quite softly compared to the energy it had when entering the atmosphere.

The approximately meter long capsule buried itself into the ground, throwing up a small crater of displaced earth around it. The birds that had been roosting in the oak immediately took flight, their sleep disturbed and instincts telling them to flee. After this, though, there was a moment of pause. Nothing could be heard but the hissing of flash boiling moisture from the soil as it contacted the searing hot surface of the capsule itself.

It was around this time that a small hatch, no bigger than a penny, opened on the side of the capsule, a glow of pale white and gold light radiating from within. Ever so slowly, the light seemed to squirm as it wiggled its way free from within the capsule. As if being pulled by gravity, it drooped towards the ground and fell into a puddle.

After the pool of light had completely left the capsule, the hatch closed, the interior having gone as dark as the rest of the night in its absence.

It took a wearingly long time for it to sink through the soil, but it was patient. Its own instincts told it that it would find what it was looking for.

Gravity continuing to do its work, it eventually found the tree’s web of roots, and it felt satisfaction. The instant that the light made contact, it was pulled into the xylem of the oak. It revitalised as it went, rushing up the tree faster than nature would have intended.

A glowing line traced its way up the tree, following the internal pathways, where it eventually flowed into one of the many branches. Within the blink of an eye it was gone, like a lightning strike that had travelled through the tree. But instead of damaging it, it repaired and revitalised as it went.

Then there was stillness. The night continued on, heading towards the early sunrise of late Spring. However, slowly and carefully, an acorn was growing and maturing on the oak tree. There was an odd, golden glow to it. Then, just as the sun was rising over the crest of a gently rolling hill, it fell to the soil below.

The acorn wobbled a little after its impact with the ground and then rested, gently pulsing.

It took another half an hour before it was found by a passing a squirrel. The squirrel gave a curious stare at the pulsating nut, turning this way and that, not believing its eyes. Acute puzzlement raced around its brain. Where had it come from? This was not the time for acorns.

But acorns were its favourite and it was not going to refuse!

It carefully hopped its approach and sniffed at the glowing acorn.

It looked odd but it smelled so good! Oh, it couldn’t wait to taste a fresh acorn again and not the stale ones that had been stored over winter.

As it reached down with its paws to pick it up, the pulsating grew momentarily faster. The very instant that contact was made, a whip crack of electricity passed from the acorn, to the squirrel.

It shrieked and ran away in fear of the zappy acorn, its tail floofed up as it climbed the tree to hide.

---

I squinted at the hedgerow. I had seen something, hadn’t I?

Unbuckling my seat belt, I opened the door of the car carefully. My nose was immediately assailed by the fresh air and the scent of damp grass in the late morning. Spring was one of my favourite times of the year and I couldn’t help but smile at the smells around me. I slid out of my seat and pulled myself from the car with the achy groan of stiff muscles.

I closed the door behind me, taking a furtive glance around to make sure that there weren’t any would-be thieves watching before I advanced on the spot that had contained the glowing.

Even after I crouched down, I couldn’t really see anything in the thick, dense foliage. So no gold bullion then? Dang it.

It was then that I saw more movement slightly further to my right, and a tiny, glowing nose poking out from between two leaves. I involuntarily flinched back slightly at the appearance of a pair of small, squirrel eyes. Small, very shiny, glowy squirrel eyes. Iridescent, even.

I glanced around again to make sure that no one was watching my weirdness, but saw no one paying me any attention. With my gaze turning back to the hedgerow, I was startled as I saw that it had now fully emerged and was peering up at me with those same shiny, squirrelly eyes. Except that it wasn’t just the eyes, the whole squirrel was shiny.

From the tip of its nose to the very last tuft of fur of its bushy tail, its entire body was aglow with that faintly shimmering light. What the actual...? Why is there a shiny squirrel? This isn’t Pokemon.

It hopped even closer to me, its eyes still looking up at me as if it were watching me, judging me. My head tilted slightly at the animal’s really odd behaviour. Every time I’d seen a squirrel before it had run away from me like I was a giant monster. I mean, heck, to squirrels humans were giant monsters so it would be a fair assessment, I guess.

We locked eyes and I felt a need to pet it begin to develop in my mind. It was a gentle nudge at first, but one which slowly built up to become an overwhelming need. It was just so shiny… so shiny… and fluffy. Look at the shiny, fluffy squirrel! It’s so damned cute! I reached out my hand towards it, being careful not to make any sudden movements that might scare it off.

It took another hop closer to me until it was almost touching the toes of my trainers. I reached just that little… bit… more to run my fingers against the top of its head. Okay, shiny squirrel, why are you so-...

With a crack that I heard echo around me, I received the biggest static shock of my life! Holy f-…

Okay, I swore. Very loudly. Then I was waving my hand in the air like that song about Polaroid pictures. The shock had been so intense that I had seen the flash as the ground around me lit up for a moment. Like, what had the squirrel been doing? Sleeping in a balloon testing facility?!

What I want to say is that it hurt. Like, a lot. In fact, the shock was so powerful that my right hand had gone numb. My nose scrunched in frustration and I reflexively stood back up. I’m right-handed so I hoped that this wouldn’t be problematic.

As if it had suddenly awoken from its own trance, the squirrel finally bounded away, behaving like a squirrel should. I watched it disappear back into the hedgerow from whence it had come, its tail well and truly floofed by whatever had passed between us.

I flexed my fingers but couldn’t feel anything. I tried pinching the skin with my left hand but again… nothing. I looked around to see if people were watching me, but other than a few quick glances at me from the drivers looking for a space to park, there was no one at all.

“Dumb squirrel,” I muttered to myself as I turned to get back into the car, the numbness in my right hand making it hard to judge how much effort was needed to pull open the door. I slid back into my seat and pulled the door closed behind me. Maybe I didn’t have enough badges to catch it, or some shit.

I cradled my right hand in my lap, rubbing it gently and stared at it a while. I hope I didn’t do any permanent nerve damage. Even though I hated how ridiculously big and clumsy my hands looked, I still wanted to be able to actually use them. What in all the seven levels of hells had happened?

My parents to get back from their sojourn to the piss palace after what seemed to take half an hour. I’ll admit that my stomach was complaining about not having eaten at all yet today and I silently wished that I hadn’t brushed off the offer for something to eat.

As they both sat back into the car, mum turned around and offered me a packaged sandwich and a bottle of water. It looked like even she had realised that I was getting hungry despite what I’d said. Her eyes fell to where I was cradling my arm and she tilted her head questioningly, concern etched over her face. I smiled at her gratefully, but didn’t answer the unspoken question, instead I just reached for my lunch. But the numbness of my hand had other ideas, causing me to drop the bottle into the foot well. I dove forwards and picked it back up with my left hand instead.

“What’s wrong with your hand, Davie? Are you okay?” Mum asked me.

I laughed, the sound tinged with an edge of nervousness, and nodded while trying to open the packaged sandwich. “Yeah. I think I must have fallen asleep on it earlier,” I lied, shrugging my shoulders at her. I hoped that I didn’t look too guilty. She definitely didn’t need to know that I’d been trying to pet glowing squirrels in some rando car park. Nope. Wait, did that sound like a euphemism? Shit.

I rolled my eyes at myself and, with some struggling, managed to open the packaged sandwich without turning it into a whole debacle.

We sat in silence for a few minutes as we ate our brunch, watching other motorists as they passed us, seeking out empty spaces.

Once we’d all finished eating, and the rubbish had been thrown away, we were once again sat silently for a moment. A moment of silence. “So, I think that the traffic should be moving again now, John?” Mum said, breaking that moment and looking over at my dad. It sounded like she was asking a question, even though it had been a statement.

Dad grunted his agreement and looked around at the flow of cars, “Well, we won’t get home if we just sit here.” He turned around in his seat to try to get a good look at me, “Are you good, Davie?”

I nodded, and replied, “All good!” I had no need to worry them about my hand. If it’s still numb by the time we get home then maybe we can panic, but until then, why bother? Besides, I think I was starting to get some sensation back in my fingertips.

We started to move again, my dad weaving us through and around the car park, heading towards the exit. He was doing a good job of making especially sure that he didn’t hit any of the people that were walking in front of us. My dad was always one of those people to joke about speeding up instead of slowing down if he saw a pedestrian in front of him, but he never actually did it. He was all bark and no bite.

The traffic on the motorway seemed to be moving a little bit more freely now, and we resumed our journey home. There were beautiful, rolling green fields either side of the road and I had to wonder what natural beauty spot had been destroyed just to construct the river of asphalt that we were moving along. There was a copse of trees at the top of one of those rolling hills, the same that I’d seen earlier, and it looked like even more vehicles had amassed around the site now.

A wave of giddiness had me blinking and shaking my head, but it quickly subsided. With a slight scowl of concern, I opened the bottle of water and took a few mouthfuls. The bottle was plastic, reminding me that even I couldn’t escape contributing to the pollution of the planet if other people were going to do it on my behalf.

Absent-mindedly flexing my fingers, I pulled my headphones back up to my ears and resumed listening to my playlist from before. It was a new album from one of my favourite bands and I was just starting to get to the point where I had a clear image in my mind of what the different songs meant and how they all connected together. It made me smile when bands did that, linking their song-stories together into one big tapestry of art.

I zoned out and tried to see her in my mind’s eye. The young woman that my mind kept on telling me that I should be – that I was. She was beautiful and I laughed inwardly at myself. Of course I would want to be beautiful. Who doesn’t want to be beautiful? There’s literally like trillion dollar industries set up to make women and girls want to be pretty. Still, there she was. Who I should be.

She had this thick, shoulder-length hair that was tied up in a braid – except there was a reddish tinge to it, instead of the straight up chocolate brown that my own hair was. Her cheekbones were high, her jawline softly curved. She had those almond-shaped eyes that were friendly, but you knew could harden into a warrior princess’s stare at any moment.

Being transgender wasn’t something that was a revelation to me. I’d known ever since I was very little. The dysphoria came in waves, of course. An immense sadness and depression that I had been feeling for the past six months. I’d felt it many times before, but never, ever, this intensely. I didn’t know if this time I would have the strength to push it down.

A wave of fatigue rolled over me and I let out a quiet yawn and closed my eyes again. This time I took one of my pillows and placed it against my head to cushion it from the coldness of the window next to me. After a couple of minutes, I reached for my duvet and pulled that over me, too. Was it getting cold, or was it me?

Dreams overtook me after a while, though usually my dreams were a bit chaotic. This one felt a bit more… structured? I found that I was standing out in an emerald green field of grass, with the sun shining bright overhead. There had been a high badminton net set up and I was playing badminton with someone that looked very much like Claire.

----

I was groggy when I woke up after what felt like maybe an hour and a half, my neck aching from the awkward angle it had taken when I was asleep. In fact, most of my body ached now and I did my best to stretch out within the confines of our family car. I yawned as I did and removed my earbuds again, that same soreness coming back from having them in for too long.

A glance out of the window was all it took to tell me that we were nearly home. I could actually recognise where we were now, with the familiar buildings and landmarks.

Mum must have heard me because she looked back to me with a soft smile, and a questioning tilt of her head. I gave her a thumbs up with my right hand, making her visibly relax, and she turned back to watching the road ahead.

It was good that she did because that was when I noticed the pins and needles crawling its way up my right arm. My nose scrunched up a little from the discomfort. I saw my Dad’s eyes watching me in his rear-view mirror though and I dropped my hand back down to my lap, causing it to feel like it was buzzing all over again.

“Good afternoon, sleeping beauty,” my Dad teased as he watched me through the rear-view mirror, causing me to blush and turn my head away to look out the window again. My reaction made him laugh to himself but he didn’t say anything else, his eyes returning to the road ahead. I clamped back down on my emotions again, refusing to allow him to see how much that comment had hurt. Oh yeah, this summer was going to be great. Super duper.

We pulled off the motorway and onto a single carriageway road that led into our hometown about fifteen minutes later. This was the place where I had been born and where my parents still lived – they didn’t really move around much. We passed through what most Americans would call ‘suburbia’ although I don’t think we really have a name for it, passing road after windy road of newly built, paper-thin-walled homes.

There was some minor chit-chat back and forth between us as we arrived closer and closer to home. My heart sank deeper and deeper in my chest as the time of our arrival approached. The familiarity of being so close to home was setting off the beginnings of a panic attack and I closed my eyes to try to contain it, to calm myself. Taking deep breaths, I tried to ignore that I could already feel the way that my mind was shifting to how it had been, before I’d left for university.

When people talk about ‘worlds colliding’, this was the exact opposite. I was being torn apart by the gravity of two entirely different worlds. This was me being pulled out of a place where I was at least moderately gloomy, and into somewhere where I was utterly miserable. It was a step backwards in my life when I was barely struggling to keep my head above water, emotionally.

Dad must have put the air conditioning on because it started to get cold again. I pulled my duvet back around me as we arrived at the turning for our street, my eyes immediately darting from place to familiar place to try to spot what had changed since I’d been gone.

A fence had been painted here, a house sold there, but otherwise the road that had been my entire life up until nine months ago was more or less how it had always been. One thing I did notice was that the woods that had been just on the other side of our house had been replaced by signs of new construction. Not quite the same then…

We reversed back onto the driveway and the quiet vibration of the engine finally stilled. I took a deep breath and groaned, reaching for the handle to open the door.

“Please take all of your things up to your room, Davie,” mum instructed as I dragged myself out of the car. I grumbled some kind of a reply that seemed to satisfy her.

We spent a few minutes carrying my things inside, but not before Sarah, my younger sister, came bounding down the stairs to see us.

“Hey, Rah,” I called up to her as I saw her. She ran towards me, the ankle socks on her feet sliding a little on the wooden floor of our hallway as she crossed the distance.

Sarah was a few centimetres taller than mum, but still a good few centimetres shorter than dad and I. She had slightly lighter brown hair than I did, which she liked to wear in ponytails or braids. Today she had it up in a loose plait and was wearing a purple and black t-shirt with a pair of black leggings. She was just coming up to her seventeenth birthday and so had already started to look at university places herself.

She reached out for a hug as she saw me, and I had to put down what I was carrying to allow her. Here it goes, big brother time. I pulled her into what I hoped was some kind of imitation of a ‘brotherly’ hug, and held her for a moment or two, before letting her go.

We’d always been pretty close, and I’d been acutely aware of the fact that I was her role model the entire time we’d been growing up. She’d always wanted to join in on the things that I was doing, and I’d played with her when she had no one else. Since she began secondary (high) school, though, she had started to find her own way in the world and we’d started to draw apart. Puberty hadn’t helped, as societal expectations and my own envy made it much more difficult for us to find things we had in common.

It’s still nice to see the little squirt, though.

“Did you stop shaving or something?” she asked me with an amused grin as she reached up and ran her fingers across my cheek and jaw. I could feel the ice in my stomach grow as she did it. I had been trying to ignore it but she’d just pulled it straight into the forefront of my mind.

I… just couldn’t answer that question and so she’d stopped looking at me, the expectation of a reply dying in her eyes after a few awkward moments.

I tried to salvage the situation with a reassuring smile, but even I could tell that it was hollow and didn’t reach my eyes. “How’ve you been, squirt?” I asked instead, trying to move the conversation on as I picked up my things that I’d left on the floor.

“Oh, you know… getting by!” she replied with an enthusiastic smile, looking up at me as I shifted my weight to start walking upstairs. “I think all my exams went well! And I got accepted to the same uni you go to if I get the marks I’m expected to, next year!”

I stopped and looked at her again with puzzlement, though a smile spread its way unexpectedly across my face. “A conditional offer, yeah? Nice! Good bloody job!” I said with actual happiness in my voice for the first time that I could remember, “psychology, wasn’t it?”

“Yup!” she nodded, her smile turning into a beam.

My eyebrows flicked up slightly and I nodded, “Wow, yeah no really. Well bloody done. It’s really hard to get accept for psychology. I’m proud of you, Rah.”

She continued to beam at me and then added, somewhat slyly, her hands clasping together behind her back, “It means we’ll be there together, you know. For like, a year?”

My mind ground to a halt at the idea of that. The smile freezing on my face. What would that be like? My sister at university with me? Another part of my family world breaking into my Fortress of Solitude?

“Dee?” she eventually asked when I didn’t reply, eyebrows pushing together in concern. We used different names for each other than our parents did. I didn’t actually mind Dee – really I preferred it to anything else that anyone called me. It still didn’t feel right though.

I blinked a couple of times and nodded, “That’d be pretty cool, actually. Yeah.”