The Sight
By
Nick B

 © Nick B 2008
Excellently proofed by Gabi

Darryl starts to get to grips with his new abilities and has an unexpected meeting...

Chapter 3

Darryl went white. He knew that Paul was his uncle and his best friend, but didn’t realise what he had been through with regards to the operation and the effect it was having on him could be that obvious.

“What do you mean, I’ve changed?” he asked, trying to be as nonchalant about it as possible.

“Well, there’s just something about you that’s different.”

Apart from the fact the neither leg worked due to either bandaging or a plaster cast, various cuts, grazes, bruises and his left eye looked like he’d taken a slug from Mike Tyson, there wasn’t that much else that had visibly changed was there?

“I look a mess.”

“Nothing new there.”

“Thanks,” said Darryl dryly. “I can’t think of anything else.”

“I can’t put my finger on it either.”

They sat quietly for a few moments before Darryl said, “I know it’s not a nice thing to say, but I’m happier not to have to talk to mum. She can make things very difficult.”

“I know. Why d’you think I’m still here?”

“I did wonder. Did you two have a bit of a falling out or something?”

“Or something, yes. I don’t think we ever fell in, so we can’t very well fall out can we?”

That tickled Darryl and it was the first time he had laughed in three days.

“That’s better. I think it was your serious look, the frown. I don’t think I’ve seen you looking quite like that in all the time I’ve known you.”

Inwardly, Darryl breathed a sigh of relief. All the time he thought that Paul could see something else different, not that he simply was frowning more. Perhaps this was going to be alright after all. He could stop with Paul and Doris and try and figure this all out on his terms.

He was happier when Paul left. He had been cheered up and felt better than he had since arriving. What was also odd, was the hum that had invaded his ears, brain–whatever, was either something he had got used to or had gone away altogether. Whatever had happened, there wasn’t that jaw-jangling, teeth rattling buzz, hum or otherwise brain-numbing noise that had been such a pain over the last couple of days.

Paul had cheered Darryl up and put his mind at rest without actually saying anything. It’s funny how some people can do that and by nine that evening, Darryl was falling asleep.
It had been an exhausting day all things considered. Nurses came and went, bustling through their duties, some talking, some not and all inundating him with feelings of one sort or another. He wasn’t getting used to it inasmuch as he was becoming more prepared. After the tidal-wave of emotion that swept him out of consciousness early in the day, he made sure he readied himself although, more often than not, it caught him by surprise.

“You’ll get used to it,” said a voice.

“I don’t know that I want to,” he answered as his eyes shut firm and he drifted off.

---

It was a bright, white room in which he found himself when he opened his eyes. It was calm and restful even though it was unfamiliar territory. Two people advanced, smiling benignly.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” said one; a short, rotund woman with a kindly face.

“You have?”

“Do you not recognise us?”

“Um, no.”

“We’re your grandparents.”

“You can’t be. I know my nan and granddad and neither of you are either of them.”

“Your other grandparents,” said the woman, rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

“Oh.”

“We’ve been waiting for this and now it’s finally here.”

“It is?”

“Yes. It’s the time that our first grandchild takes up the sight.”

“What’s the sight?”

“Your birthright. Your destiny.”

“Er, I’m not with you here.”

“It goes to the first born girl. It’s been this way for generations without fail and you’re the next in a long line of those who have carried this gift in our family. I have carried it and now you will too.”

“There’s just one small problem...”

“There’s no problem; for it has been ordained and has been thus for generation after generation. It is time for thee to–” said the other, a tall thin man, whose features looked very familiar, but who was cut short by the woman.

“Don’t start with all that ‘thee-ing’ and ‘thou-ing’, Padraig, just keep it simple.”

“But it seemed appropriate, Mariella.”

“Well, it isn’t,” she said, rolling her eyes and tutting loudly. “So don’t.”

“You don’t seem to understand––” said Darryl, quickly trying to prevent what appeared to be an argument escalating.

“Oh, but we do. We’ve been waiting for this and you cannot deny your destiny,” said Mariella.

“You can’t,” agreed Padraig, unsure as to whether to shake his head in agreement of the negative or to nod in agreement with the fact that Mariella was correct. The resultant ‘nake’ or ‘shod’ served only to make Padraig giddy and confuse all three of them.

“No, you don’t understand,” said Darryl. “It’s all very nice and I really hate to break with tradition, but––” he thought for a moment, scratching his chin trying to figure a way of letting these people down gently. “I don’t think I’m the one you seek.”

“Absurd!” exclaimed the woman, her eyes flaring. “Absolute rubbish! You are our first born granddaughter, our only grandchild for that matter and this is how we know that you ARE the one.”

“Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but you’re wrong; I’m not really a girl.” He felt badly for being quite so blunt, but direct tactics were obviously the only way forward here. Darryl could see that these people believed what they believed and the only way to prevent this from going further was to be direct or as near a facsimile of direct as he could get.

The two people excused themselves and moved a few paces away into the room. There, they talked to one another, the conversation getting quite heated judging by the amount of gesticulating there was going on.

Eventually, the two figures turned to face Darryl, smoothed down their clothing and settled themselves before returning those few short paces to where they were in standing once again in front of him.

“Are you sure?” asked Mariella, scrutinising him from his feet to the top of his head.

“Quite,” replied Darryl. “Positive even.”

The two of them turned and moved away a few paces and once again, the conversation got quite intense amidst the flailing arms until Padraig advanced on Darryl.

“Look, this is all a bit ‘not as it should be’. This has never happened before. Just a minute, please,” he said and turned to go back to Mariella, who although it wasn’t easy to see, did not appear to be taking this well.

Moments later, they were standing before Darryl and it was evident from the tear-stains on Mariella’s face that she was one unhappy bunny.

“Um, can we get back to you on this?” asked Padraig.

“Of course,” replied Darryl.

“Thanks. You’ve been very understanding,” said the thin man and with that they vanished; quite literally, there they were–gone!

Darryl awoke with a start. He looked around him and could see the subdued night lighting of the ward. He could hear the occasional groan from the other patients and everything seemed to be as it should be.

“Whoa! Weird!” he muttered softly.

It was clear to him that all this worry about being turned into a girl was having a bad effect. The fact that he had suddenly developed this strange ability–whether permanent or temporary–was neither here nor there, really. He was more afraid of the trouble a change of sex would cause at school because of suddenly becoming a “freak” as he was sure he would be seen by most of them and that didn’t sit too well.

He had enough on his plate with finishing school without this sudden change of sex and whether either his friends or others at school would accept his current predicament as reason enough for becoming a girl–well, that remained to be seen.

It was with more confusion that he finally fell asleep again. Fortunately though, his dreams did not include two old folks with any more peculiar messages.

---

The next morning, Darryl found that he could no longer hear the hum or buzz and could also open both eyes.

Although vision from the left one was blurry, his right one was functioning just fine and for the first time–pardon the pun, things appeared to be looking up. Without that incessant noise in his head all day, perhaps he could concentrate on getting well, on whether or not being a girl instead of a boy was as good an idea as the doctors seemed to think and how cool it was going to be spending time with Paul and Doris.

Unfortunately, his concentration upon anything was going to have to wait and the view from either eye was of a crowd of young people in white lab-coats all following one of the doctors around

“Here we have Mr. Groves. He had a nasty accident on a motorcycle and as you can see; his face seemed to take the majority of the impact upon landing. Not a wise choice to make,” said the doctor, which got a slight ripple of sniggers and giggles from the assembled students.
Darryl, though, was not impressed.

“How are we today?” he asked, flicking the pages of the chart back and replacing it back at the foot of the bed.
Darryl went straight into it.

“Well, you’re still trying to get over the fact that your wife left you and the dark-haired girl to your left wishes that she could tell her best friend how she really feels. The tall fellow to her right and just behind her is suffering from a hangover after drinking far too much in the pub last night–the Buccaneer wasn’t it? To your left, the gorgeous redhead would like to–“

“I think that’s enough. I meant how are you?”

“Well then why didn’t you say that?”

“I did.”

“No, doctor. You asked, ‘how are we today’. I assumed that you meant what you said and tried to give you as concise an answer as possible.” The assembled students actually laughed out loud, much to the distress of the doctor who immediately hurried them along to the next bed.

One of the students however was slow in moving with the rest of the crowd.

“How did you know?”

“I don’t know. I just did. Was I right?” he asked and the student blushed to the roots of her hair and nodded.

“I really don’t know what to do.”

“I would tell her. If nothing else, it will set things straight between you. I don’t know how she feels, but I don’t think she’ll be angry or disown you for it.”

“Thanks. I’ll try that. Was that true about his wife?” she asked, but Darryl didn’t know. He assumed so because it’s what his head told him, but who knows? He shrugged.

“Thanks again,” she said and hurried off to her colleagues.

He was a little shell-shocked after that. The fact that without any prompting from him, his head had supplied information, at least twenty-five percent of which was right on the button and presumably, since the male student with the hangover had had the good grace to blush, he wasn’t too far off the mark there either. It was eye opening to say the least and he wasn’t sure he wanted the responsibility of all this.

The more he thought about it, the more it grew, eating away at him.

“I shouldn’t have to think about things like this,” he muttered.

He felt dumped on; screwed into a round hole when he was anything but a round peg and once again, that frown reappeared on his face; that serious look that took him from a happy-go-lucky boy of sixteen to a serious young man who was trying to come to terms with the fact that he might now be a she, which would make him a serious young woman who, to add insult to injury, was going to be a serious young woman who could see into the minds of others.

This was turning into a few very weird days indeed.

---

Visiting time took all the stress away because Paul came alone. For some reason, Gemma couldn’t make it and frankly, Darryl was happier for it.

Whenever she was around, his mum could make the atmosphere very frosty, with a canny knack of being able to alienate people for no good reason, and certainly make his life very miserable. So Paul and Darryl spent a good couple of hours just chewing the cud or shooting the breeze, whatever and thoroughly enjoying it.

“You have changed though,” said Paul suddenly.

“Good or bad.”

“Oh good; definitely good, but somehow, you look as though you’re looking right into people.”

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Mr. Groves?” said a voice. “I’m sorry to barge in, but I’ve been running late. I wanted to say you’re free to go home tomorrow. We have a few things we’ll need to sort out with you, but other than that, you should be out of here by lunch time.”

“That’s good news,” said Paul. “I’ll come round at about one to pick you up.”

That left Darryl with something of a problem. Sooner or later it was going to come out anyway, but how long was he going to be able to hide the fact that he was no longer the “he” they had all come to know?

He slept little that night. He tossed and turned after remembering that he had told the woman in his dreams that he really was a boy and was quite prepared to prove it.

Did that mean that he didn’t want to be a girl?

Not in so many words, but his preference was definitely leaning towards staying as he was, with what he knew and more to the point, what he was truly comfortable with.

Perhaps it was just him failing to accept the inevitable; a failure to see that the old ways were gone and the new ways were fast approaching.

Maybe.

He was more sure that his worst fears were true and he tried hard to forget what was going on while ideas for how the dialogue to explain how once he had a fairly normal male groin area which was now gone and a pretty, feminine one was now in its place.

It was difficult to say the least, with alternatives entering and leaving his head like a bunch of X-Factor hopefuls, but with little or no success and as so often happens, he had no sooner fallen asleep when he was being woken again.

“We’re going to have to remove this catheter,” said the sister, drawing the curtain around his bed. “Now it might cause a little discomfort.”

---

To be continued…