Through the Looking Glass

James blinked.

He groaned, blinking the white space from the front of his eyes, when it cleared and he was no longer insensate, he found himself lying face up on the floor of a room he had not been in, in a very long time. James looked up at the ceiling and realized that It had been about sixty five years since he had last seen it from this perspective.

He blinked again and then let out a whoop!

It was the ceiling of his bedroom, a converted study in his family’s home, back when they were still a family. Once he left for college, his father converted it back into an office, so whenever he visited afterward, he had to either sleep in the unfinished basement where his bed had been moved or roll out a sleeping bag on the office’s hardwood floor. Shortly after Amanda and James graduated, their parents divorced and sold the house.

Lying there, James realized that he had missed his old bedroom, even though it was the smallest one. Since it had originally been an office, it had decent sound insulation, allowing him to play his music at night without disturbing his sisters or anyone downstairs. He looked to the side where the bay windows were, their white curtains letting in the morning light. The blackout curtains from his high school years were nowhere to be seen.

Rolling on his side, he stood up and walked to the windows. What he missed the most about his old bedroom was the view. It overlooked their entire backyard and had been responsible for some pretty awesome memories. He remembered being too self-conscious in high school to swim when there were any of his mom’s or sisters’ friends around. Of course, that didn’t stop him from spying on them when they were sunning themselves. He had felt like a pervert in his original memories, but thinking about it now, his sisters must have known, because his bay windows directly overlooked the hot tub, the pool, and where the lounge chairs sat.

That had been the start of his escalating guilt. He had stared out at them while they had been sunbathing and had quite often rubbed one off to it. But in time, he had asked for blackout curtains after he’d heard his sister’s friends whispering about his peeping. It had caused him embarrassment, and he started to shut down.

James realized that it was around that time he had started to turn into a mouthy and apathetic teenager. It had in part been what had chased everyone off and by the time he had realized his mistakes and had matured, it had been too late to fix anything. Now though, he had the opportunity to avoid his most egregious mistakes by fixing things before they became a problem.

Slowly turning around, he inspected his room, seeing his childhood refuge or fortress of solitude for the first time in almost seventy years. As James took the room in, the first thing that hit was an unexpected wave of nostalgia. The second thing was the smell of teenage funk. Turning back to the windows and brushing the curtains apart, he strained to open his windows--they obviously hadn’t been opened in many years. After finally getting them open, James welcomed the breeze of fresh air billowing out the curtains. He turned back to his room and started cataloging it.

Two bedside tables with lamps sat by the head of the bed, one had an unplugged alarm clock/radio, the other had a small stack of science-fiction paperbacks. At the foot of his bed was a towering pile of jeans, pants, shorts, and t-shirts, both washed and unwashed. Sleeved shirts lay on the floor of his closet. His dresser drawers were half open with sleeves or shirts hanging out. Was there even a clean pair of underwear in the room?

Looking down at himself, his jeans were loose-fit, Levi’s 501s button-fly jeans. James noted that his black, high top with Velcro strap Reeboks sat next to his wardrobe. Oddly this reminded him of Back to the Future, the thought caused him to grin.

“Great Scott,” he said aloud.

His dresser drawers were filled with t-shirts--AC-DC, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd--because he loved the old “classic rock” bands. He looked down and saw that he was wearing a Doors tee shirt with Jim Morrison’s face.

He held up his fingers in the Rock ‘N Roll salute, “Rock on Jim, you crazy bastard.”

James looked at the rest of the room, AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses, Aerosmith, Whitesnake, and Metallica posters adorned his walls; they were his go-to bands at the time. Truth be told, they still were, even many decades later. Did he get old or did his tastes mature? While his taste did seem to diversify as time passed, he never completely abandoned the groups he grew up with.

Access to music got easier when portable MP3 players came out, but it wasn’t until smartphones became common in the mid-to-late 2000s that it completely changed. Once the technology was widely adopted, most people stopped purchasing cassettes and CDs since music downloads made getting music so much faster and easier. With that came exposure to music that people might not have ever had a chance to, or made the effort to, listen to.

‘Good times,’ he mused.

Above his unmade bed--a basic four poster with 4-inch thick posts, the bottom half of a bunk bed with crumpled sheets, and a patchwork quilt pattern comforter--was a poster of Randy Rhoads with his Flying V guitar. Underneath the bed was an electronic keyboard, a Casio MT-540 MIDI keyboard--Amanda’s. In the corner of the room, next to a black dresser cluttered with Star Wars figures and a half built model of the Millennium Falcon rested a 1979 Yamaha SL-1200 guitar – the guitar looked like the classic Gibson Les Paul with sunburst finish. Sadly, it was out of tune and long neglected.

He had pitched Amanda on the idea that they could form a band, her on keyboard and him on guitar. He had bugged his parents for a guitar for months, and last Christmas they had surprised him with the expensive knock-off. For a few months, he practiced every waking hour, imagining himself in front of a Marshall stack, playing “Crazy Train” in front of an adoring crowd. His Vox practice amp didn’t give him the volume he wanted, to which his parents were eternally grateful. He learned the chords and some of the lyrics to “Crazy Train” and a little of The Scorpions “No One Like You” before gradually losing interest. With his waning interest, Amanda had stopped practicing as well.

But that had now changed; he was no longer the indifferent teenager that he once was. Staring at the guitar, he realized that he could actually play the damn thing. Memories of him practicing floated through his brain and the seed of an idea began to germinate.

He chuckled, shook his head, and continued his observations of the room. On his bookshelf was “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy – he had made it most of the way through “The Fellowship of the Ring” before the book went back onto the bookshelf next to the other two volumes that had never had the covers cracked. Other books included Dune - oh yes, he liked Dune, but he had never completed the original series, much less the ones by Herbert’s son. He planned to change that this time around.

There was a Crown CDK-3300R stereo system--turntable, compact disc changer, dual cassette player/recorder, and tuner all in one--that was designed to look like separate components but was really one unit, with speakers that towered above the height of the unit. He noticed that the Judas Priest “British Steel” album was on the turntable. Some KISS albums were in a pile next to it, along with a lone John Denver album that a well-meaning aunt had bought him for Christmas one year, which was still in the original plastic wrap.

In the time it took for him to absorb a complete portrait of his room, barely a second had elapsed. He had soaked up the details like a sponge, a benefit of his ability to take a comprehensive stock of his surroundings and file the information away, and summon every piece of information on a whim, at any time going forward.

But in the course of those few seconds, something must have changed because the room felt unfamiliar, cramped, messy, and certainly not a place that was conducive to living. It also stank. He had opened the windows to air it out but even that wasn’t helping fast enough to his liking.

He frowned, ‘This couldn’t be my room? Was I really this messy?’

With this realization in mind, James came to the fundamental belief that the passage of time must have warped his perception of his room, contents, and even his teenage years.

He sighed.

He knew that if he accessed his memories, they would show him the truth, that he saw everything through rose-colored glasses, which hid the uncomfortable reality. At least now he had the advantage of decades of life to understand and process that discomfort.

Back then, or rather now, calling it organized chaos would be putting it nicely. Here he’s just a teenager. And no teenager in the history of mankind tidied their rooms, if they had a choice. But now he was more than just a teenager with a teenage mind. He had the mind of an adult and needed to act like it, especially if he wanted to gain respect from the members of his family.

So the question now, was what to do? James mused for just a second. First things first, sort out his shit hole of a room. The 83-year-old man in his mind was already offended at the sight of it. Having lived in an almost Spartan environment during his later years meant that the room, with everything strewn about, really felt quite cluttered and overwhelming.

James got to work, picking up the clothing and singing while he did so. With so many songs over his life, his favorite right now, while he worked, was Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Have You Ever Seen The Rain.” He hummed the song while he worked, scooping up the clothing into a basket.

His clothing was now off the floor but that was only half the job. He scowled at his bed and walked over, pulling it off and sniffing it. He searched through his memory. Yes, it had been changed recently. He quickly made the bed and pulled on the duvet and straightened it.

He then turned to his cassettes, CDs, and vinyls (back then they were simply “records”) and frowned. In one uninterrupted burst, James gathered them all together and divided them into two separate piles, each of which he then subdivided into further categories, such as swing, be-bop, fusion, baroque, opera, and so on. He then put each category into alphabetical order. Once done, he slotted them all back into place and paused, nodding. He remembered the first time around, being ashamed of having some of this music, as they were not “cool”. But later on in life as he matured, so too did his tastes and he found that he then appreciated them. ‘Perfect.’

The room finally had some semblance of organization. With the wishes had come the changes to his body and mind; while before it had been unfocused, all over the place, and completely disorganized, it was now concentrated like a laser beam. It had even made him abstemious, which in itself was something completely new.

Like his mind, the room felt less cluttered with a decent flow of energy. He chuckled; his Feng Shui was good. A cluttered room was a cluttered mind. He smiled, feeling very Yoda-like.

He then grabbed the hamper basket full of his clothes and made his way down to the laundry room. Once there, he separated the clothes into piles. He then sniffed what he was wearing and frowned. He needed to take a shower anyway, so he might as well wash his clothes as well. He stripped and added them to the piles. Picking up the first pile, her dumped them into the washing machine. After pouring in some detergent, he started the washing machine on a heavy cycle and headed for the shower to clean off the funk, grabbing a clean towel from the linen closet as he passed by.

Deciding to use his parents’ bathroom, due to convenience, he made his way through their room. Passing their full-length mirror, he paused and almost did a double take.

“Whoa.”

James stared at his reflection. By his late forties, he needed glasses. At 83, what hair he had was white and his skin was wrinkled, and spotted. Now, the glasses that he’d had to wear for the last forty years of his life were unneeded. His once dull eyes were now sharp and almost seemed to twinkle--even his sapphire blue eyes seemed clearer somehow. Gone were the lines and wrinkles that had been etched deep into his skin by the passage of time. Instead of a thin white cap, his hair was a thick, dark blond mop that had a ruffled look to it. As Gin had promised, by returning to his teen years, he had regained his youth and improved health.

However, even when he compared his memories of his appearance in his teens, there were now stark differences. Puberty had stuck him with acne and, according to the djinn, his anxiety had magnified it. By high school, his acne had gotten much worse and his social anxiety had grown. Now, the mess of pimples that would plague his face for another ten years and cause him to dread being in photos were gone. His face was now clear, as if he had never had a single blemish. His teeth were straight and bright white.

He hummed, a few lines coming to mind.

‘Every time that I look in the mirror All these lines on my face getting clearer The past is gone It went by like dusk to dawn’

James smiled and saluted his thanks to the Djinni, before he took in the rest of his body. It wasn’t toned, no six pack yet, but he could see that it had lots of potential. And more importantly, no excess fat at his waist. This was exactly what James wanted. He looked lower still.

James then started laughing. He was still young and skinny, just starting to fill out, but there between his legs was nothing short of a log.

He couldn’t help but stare while shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Jesus! Is that really mine?’

Like a whisper in the wind, he heard a quiet voice in the back of his mind, ‘you’re welcome.’

Giving the djinn a mental thumbs-up, he went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Once the water was sufficiently hot, he got in and luxuriated in the steaming water. After his head was completely soaked, he started washing his hair with his dad’s shampoo. After building a head of suds, he grabbed the plain white bar of soap and started scrubbing and lathering up every inch of his body. When he was done, he thoroughly rinsed off before he turned off the water.

For a minute, James just stood in the dissipating steam, marveling that nothing ached. He then stepped out and dried off.

Leaving the bathroom, he heard the washing machine still running, and knowing that he had no clean clothing, decided ‘fuck it, no one will be back for a while,’ and continued to strut around naked.

Walking to the living room, he saw trash scattered around and the cushions on the floor. He recalled hearing the television blaring before he shut the door to sleep. His mother and sisters were watching the movie “Love Affair.” For a second his teenage brain thought he should leave the mess for them to clean up, but his sensible, mature mind overrode it. Rachael was at her summer internship at the bank, Cheryl was at cheerleading camp, and Amanda was at tennis camp. That would have left his mom, who was working at the library, to clean up the mess before everyone got home.

James shook his head and started methodically cleaning up the living room. He had been tempted to fall into his original pattern of justifying his not helping, when it would be better for everyone if he helped pull his weight with the chores. After all, it wasn’t as if his sisters regularly failed to clean up, they had probably stayed up too late and not woken in time to clean up before they had to leave early this morning.

After picking up the popcorn bowls, he stacked the bowls in the sink before going to the broom closet to grab the vacuum cleaner. After plugging it in, he began vacuuming the small pieces of popcorn off the floor and sofa. He finished up and feeling satisfied that there was nothing more to clean up, wound up the cord and put the vacuum away. Coming back, he replaced the cushions and picked up the trash that was too big for the vacuum

Hearing the washer’s timer go off, James went back to the laundry room and transferred the first load to the dryer. He emptied the lint catcher and tossed in a dryer sheet, before closing and starting it. He then took his pile of whites and put them in the washer, along with the detergent. After starting the wash cycle, he decided to fix a late lunch for himself.

James moved to the kitchen and looked in the fridge. His teenage self would have said there was nothing to eat. Now, with his experience and new memories, he saw that there was a veritable feast. He pulled out ingredients for a chicken salad, laying it on the counter, grabbed the cutting board, and a chef’s knife. Glancing at the blade, his now superb vision confirmed its sharpness.

He first sliced the lettuce into thin strips and dumped them into a stainless steel mixing bowl. Next, he cut some cubes of leftover baked chicken that was cooked the day before. He then chopped some tomatoes and bell peppers, and thinly sliced some onions before finding a packet of croutons. He grated some blue cheese into the bowl and dropped in a scoop of mayonnaise before mixing everything together. Then he chose a frying pan, poured some olive oil in it, placed it on the stove, and turned on the flame. As the oil heated up, James remembered that he was rather naked and grabbed the apron and put it on, tying it behind him. No sense risking oil burns over his dick and balls, besides being painful, they’d look unsightly.

The oiled frying pan was soon hot enough, so he put in the cubes of chicken and started stir-frying them. While the chicken fried in the oil, he grabbed a glass and put some ice from the front of the fridge, before filling the glass with a bottle of water in the fridge. He sipped the water as he stirred the chicken and vegetables in the pan.

Soon the chicken looked ready and he added in the uncooked vegetables, quickly frying them. He drained the oil and dumped everything into a bowl, he got some lettuce and broke it up and mixed it in. Next was some mayo, grated blue cheese for the perfect dressing, a tip he had picked up off a TV cooking show of all places and mixed it all together. The last part, the pièce de résistance was croutons which he liberally sprinkled on top.