As Zoe began to feel strange, she glanced down at the new name tag. It said Agnes. She didn't know who Agnes was, but the person who ran off with her name tag was definitely not a girl. The guy must have stolen more than just Zoe's name tag. Perhaps he thought it would be funny to randomly switch people?
Zoe wasn't laughing.
As her gothic clothes began to change and she began to lose years of her life, she watched the guy who stole her name tag. He slapped it onto a middle-aged woman who was holding the hand of a little girl, then grabbed the woman's name tag. Two men tackled him.
Zoe wanted to chase after him and try to get back what was hers, but she slowly began to feel less and less up to it. She peered through the glasses that had appeared on her face and felt a sudden jolt as one of her knees was replaced by an artificial one.
She was surprised, she didn't feel old. Tired maybe, not quite as fast as she used to be. She must be in her seventies. She also didn't feel angry. She felt the patience and calm that came with age. The nice young men who had tackled the troublemaker would get her thanks.
She began to move toward them. She saw the mother release her daughter's hand, her nail polish turning black along with her clothes, turning into a gothic outfit. Zoe saw the maturity start to slip from her face, replaced by anger. Did she really look that way? Angry all the time? She'd thought seeing things from outside her normal self was a waste of time.
The new teenage goth turned to her former daughter. There was a sense of some obligation on her part toward the girl, but not a desire to have that obligation.
Meanwhile, the two men lifted the troublemaker up, holding him firmly. The stolen nametag from the middle-aged mother lay on the floor.
