The Changing

Terrible social/cultural practices being used in a modern commonplace as the norm: Yearly reincarnation into different species

“Remember hon, you’ll have to stop by and feed Melony on the way home from work, you know Roger still cares about her.” Of course, I knew I had to stop by and feed her. I wasn’t forgetful, I was just getting annoyed by all of it, the responsibility of keeping track of it all. It had only been a month since the year’s annual “changing”, and Em and I were already up to our ears in troves of communal chores. Em didn’t mind the extra tasks. She saw them as just a natural byproduct of the Changing each year; Something that couldn’t be helped, but she couldn’t feed Melony today. I knew it for what it was: a waste of my time. It wasn’t my fault that Melony, our close friend for about twelve years now, had digressed into a poodle. I suppose it wasn’t her fault either, we didn’t choose what we would emerge as at the start of each year after the annual Changing, it was all up to chance. Some of us would wake up as crickets for a year, or maybe an anteater. The lucky ones got to stay the same as humans for another year, but that rarely happened. Me? I had been a dog last year, like Melony, but I wasn’t a poodle. I came out of last year’s Changing as a great Dane. God, that was a good year. Em had got lucky as a baboon, so she still had the privilege of opposable thumbs. This year though, we both lucked out, we were the only couple on the block that were both human this year. It was amazing to come to work again with a suit instead of a collar, but then again, we got stuck with all the lame chores of the community. We were the most able, and so we had to help out the ones on our block that couldn’t drive their kids home because they were a frog or whatever. That included feeding Melony. Roger, her husband, couldn’t do it. He was away on a business trip. I guess it could’ve been worse for him, he came out of this year’s Changing as a duck, so guess who doesn’t have to pay for airfare? Lucky duck. Next year, I hope I’m a caterpillar. Hopefully Em will step on me.