Off with the Keanu head, off with his clothes, and into the Shania skin with Jim. It slides on to him almost too well, too easily...then he pops his head into its hollow one and seals it up. Disorientation... the feeling of bones re-shaping, muscles shifting and shrinking, a complete transformation of the lower abdomen and thereabouts, an extra set of memories loaded into a shifting brain...in no more than two minutes it's over, and a naked woman who looks precisely like Shania Twain is staring at herself in a convenient full-length mirror. "I'll be damned," she says in a perfect Shania voice. She realizes that though the self inside her is Jim's, she can act just like Shania -- to the tiniest detail, in fact -- at will. She laughs Shania's laugh and gets dressed in the attractive but not stunning street clothes that go with her new body. She tries talking more aloud, just to get used to her new voice, to practice wearing Shania's persona. "Sharon loves my music," she says, "and she's going to have ME at her birthday party tonight, not Jim!" Shania finds some shopping bags and puts her Jim clothes in one of them. She grabs a couple more suits, including one of a youngish Madonna, and stuffs them into the bag, and heads back through the skin warehouse.
Wed Jan 19 07:40:05 2000