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I am Worried about my Brother
October 2024 All Hallow Eve's Story Contest
Dear diary: I am so excited to finally have a diary of my very own!
Whoops, I guess since we just met, I should introduce myself.
My name is Ashley Duke, and I just turned 12 years old today.
When Mom said I was getting a diary, I was worried I might be a bit old for one, but my teacher told me lots of people throughout history have made diaries and journals, and some of those have become tools to help us to understand that person and the times they lived in.
I am not expecting my diary to become famous, but I feel better about
sharing my thoughts with you, dear diary.
Anyway, to continue introducing myself, I live in a small town in Alberta, Canada, not far from the border with the United States. I have a mom, a dad, and an older brother named Tommy, who shares a birthday with me, but was born two years earlier.
Today was a special day, not only was it our birthday, but Tommy was finally home again from the hospital.
See, he got really sick, and they had to replace his heart with one from someone who had died.
He seems much stronger than when I visited him in the hospital. The one weird thing was he now has a wig - with longer hair, and a kind of feminine style to it.
I knew he had been upset about losing most of his own hair, so a wig was expected, just not a feminine one. I thought about asking about it, but I focused on how glad I was that he was home.
****
Dear Diary, Tommy has been home 2 weeks, and it's getting harder and harder to ignore how much he has changed.
It isn't just that he is quieter now. I expected that after what he has gone through. But now, when I spend time with him, he seems more like a girl, like my sister instead of my brother.
****
Dear Diary, I caught Tommy looking at a website that had stories about boys turning into girls. Well, caught might be the right word, because he didn't seem upset at all that I saw him looking at it. He just gave me a smile and said that the site had some amazing writers on it, despite the fact they gave away their stories for free. He even printed off a story for me to read.
****
Dear Diary, I read the story Tommy gave me. It is about a boy who gets a heart transplant, and finds himself possessed by the spirit of the girl who gave up her heart, becoming more and more feminine. Is Tommy trying to tell me this is happening to him? What could I do if it was?
****
Dear Diary, I am pretty sure Tommy has been wearing girl clothes. Not dresses or skirts, but his tops and pants definitely look like they came from the girl side of the stores.
****
Dear Diary, my mom sat me down and told me Tommy wants to be called Talia, and confirmed he will be wearing girl clothes from now on.
I want to be a good sister, I want to support my sibling no matter what they wear or what name they go by, but I can't help wondering if this is really what they want or are they being controlled, possessed?
****
Dear Diary, it's almost Halloween, and it is gonna be different than any year before. Talia is going in a dress for the first time, as she will be dressed as a fairy. What is more, she talked mom into getting me a matching costume, so I am her mini fairy in training. She has been super nice to me, making me feel guilty for not accepting her transition at first. But sometimes, I still worry that Tommy is stuck inside somehow, watching a stranger take his body and shaping it into that of a girl, helpless to do anything to stop her. Maybe I am just being silly, maybe ghosts don’t exist in real life, and what happened to Tommy was that he was always a girl, who almost died while pretending to be a boy, and decided she couldn't pretend any longer. I hope that is the case, cause otherwise, I can’t imagine a worse thing for him . . .
End?
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Comments
great job
You avoided the cliches that have crept into my attempts for this contest and hinted at a real horror story: or maybe not!
horror or not?
who knows for sure?
glad you liked this story, and thanks for the comment. Huggles!
Scary
"I am worried about my brother" -- remembering a few things about your brother, I found this title scary.
Big Brother returned home from a heart transplant? Yikes, that *is* scary. I'm also reminded of an old news story about a young teen who donated his heart to his ex-girlfriend.
So either Big Brother has decided to wear a girl-costume, or he's trapped and possessed by the young lady whose heart he has?
-- Daphne Xu
that is the idea
nice, sweet story about coming out, or horror about being possessed?
you make the call!
Daisy?
I definitely think that this is the scariest story in the contest.
Not in the "Booh" style, with a short hartstopping scare, but on a more fundamental level.
Somehow I had expected Tommy Duke to prefer to be called Daisy.
Daisy is not a bad name
but I wanted to honor my friend Talia.
thanks for commenting, Bru, huggles!
A Good Name
Daisy's a great name. Now if only I could finish that $%&#! story.
-- Daphne Xu
Scary ending
Reminds me of those stories I've read here where a protagonist finds themselves trapped in a body not of their own choosing e.g. Swicher stories. But you have added a different element, possession. Well done.
>>> Kay
thank you very much, Kay
I am glad you enjoyed it enough to leave a comment, huggles!
Hopefully
Hopefully at some point she can sit down with her sister and ask the revealing question: "Had you always felt you were a girl, or did that start after the surgery?"
Of course if the answer is "No", then it may be time for salt circles, sage, priests... ;)
A lovely tale!
Yes is not a definitive answer though
Assuming the body has been taken over a yes would be consistent.
yeah, how could you trust the result
if Tommy is in fact helpless within, the girl piloting the body wont give the game away!
Aww, c'mon ...
Story is just begging for more.
= Story from Tommy/Talia's point of view ...
= Tommy is 'in there' but can only 'come out' in:
- Talia's diary, or
- in Ashley's diary ...
= Tommy is still in there, but content to let heart donor's spirit "drive".
= Tommy's diary from before transplant, and continuing into present time.
= Tommy and donor's spirit peacefully merging into Talia, but upset about being 'flat' with the wrong 'plumbing'.
= Tommy/Talia want to thank donor's family, but this is often discouraged/forbidden ... Well, with some amount of 'web sleuthing', and maybe a hacker friend ... 'T-T" finds family, and then ???
Any which way you pick, now what?
--- ---
Gotta tell ya, open heart surgery is =Scarey=, so I surmise a transplant is even scarier. Life-long atheist me was this >< close to asking for a Buddhist priest, and that was just for a valve job. If all here are lucky, you will never be asked if you want a "Do Not Resuscitate" (DNR) order. I said "No. Keep on jump-starting me until I am charcoal."
"Medicine is always advancing", so in the time of your story, tissue rejection is not an issue. This keeps this set-in-near-future story line 'cleaner'.
I didnt want to deal with tissue rejection
it would put an extra limit on the characters choices. by the way, "Keep on jump-starting me until I am charcoal."? really? I can only imagine the doctors giggled a little at that.
Not A Curse
Even if Talia is possessed, it is by a benevolent spirit.
Posssession is 9/10 of the law?
;)
I knew someone was going to make that joke
should have guessed it would be you, Bru!
I had to, nobody else did!
.
Sorry
Sorry, I didn't think of it at the time.
-- Daphne Xu
hey, no worries!
huggles!
benevolent ?
I dont know, forcing a transition doesnt sound very nice to me!
Perfect mix
Perfect mix of hope and horror, Dot — just right for Halloween. Is it a trick? Is it a treat? Talia might say the latter, but . . . what would pre-op Tommy say? No way to know! Look at it one way, it’s a duck. Look at it another way, it’s a rabbit.
Thanks for being an amazing author who gives away her stories for free!
— Emma
me, amazing?
aww shucks, you got me blushing!
Hmmm....
Maybe, just maybe the first heart was female also....something to think about, hmm... Finding out that our lives are fleeting is a wake-up and smell the roses kind of thing, just a thought. Loving Hugs, Talia
yeah, that could be the case
that would be less scary than being possessed, but not by much!
I suspect
She/ he is finally getting to live her authentic life, her sister should be very happy for her.
I am sure her sister would be happy for her
if only she didn't have that nagging doubt about the possibility that it isn't her sibling's choice. I know that doubt well, I often have it about my own transition, but that is a different horror story . . ..
A third possibility? Maybe.
A third possibility, but almost as horrifying in it's own way, not forced to be girl, and along for the ride. But changed his personalty and desires, a supernatural brainwashing/reprogramming, aka a death of the person he was inside, replaced with someone new. Of course if this is case he probably wont feel a thing, and she will be happy with it.
I have actually gotten similar feelings from, other stories here, stories not intentionally written as possible horror. Was it truly what they wanted, or did "whatever the circumstance was", force the choice on them? But,.. there was no one in the story that posed the question.
Eek, or Totally Not! Good Story!
~Hypatia >i< ..:::
eek or not
I have had doubts about where my drive toward being a woman comes from, so I understand that idea.
thanks for the comment, hon. huggles!
My desire
My desire to be feminine doesn't really come from anywhere; it just is. I was unaware of it until I was nine years old. But looking back to my earliest memories, I was in the company of my sisters as apposed to the company of my brother or my male cousins who lived close by. I assume it was my choice to hang with the girls as my mother was a stay at home mom and so it wouldn't have been a matter of babysitting me. (I was the youngest,)
Oh, as I grew up, my family got me into boy things and some of it took, but no more than it would a girl. I enjoy camping even, when my family was young, backpacking. But then my two daughters and my wife did too.
It was at about nine years of age that I really noticed that there were real differences between boys and girls -- not just physical differences. Also that was the time my gender expression wasn't entirely happy with the nitch that it was assigned and I began borrowing my sisters clothes. It was also the time when I asked questions that, looking back, weren't typical questions that a boy would ask and my sister answered them. In that way, she innocently taught me to be a girl. Things like "How do you know where to put perfume?" Now what boy needs to know that or even cares? She allowed me to watch as she straightened the seams on her nylons and so taught me that art. (I know that dates me. Really? Seams on nylons? No pantyhose (They didn't catch on until I was in high school or a little after I graduated.)
There were so many things that she did that I picked up on because I chose to hang around with her.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
I noticed the difference in kindergarten
they would make 2 lines, one for girls and one for boys, and I remember wondering why they put me in the boys' line.
Thanks for the comment hon. huggles!
Very, very thought provoking.
Yet another possibility is that Talia's brush with mortality made her realize that she needs to do what it takes to be happy sooner rather than later.
that is possible
its the less scary option, at least!
thanks for commenting, Ray, Huggles!
Ghosts...
I'm actually considering a rewrite / redo of one of my New Years stories from last year - the one called With Every Heartbeat - since now I don't need to stay in the 5K word limit I can try to develop the relationship between Katie who donated her heart to Danny. I didn't make the obvious boy w/ girl heart turns girl - and I wouldn't w/ the expansion, but I'd give both characters more dimension than I did w/ the contest limit in words. Thanks for this Dot. Enjoyed how you played it. Hugz!
XOXOXO
Rachel M. Moore...
I look forward to your edited story
I bet it will be good, cause how could it not with you writing it!
huggles!