I woke up to the sound of a crowing rooster. That was new.
I sat up in bed and looked down. I had breasts. I checked downstairs.
"That is what I asked for," I said. "It was inevitable. But what has happened here, what happened to my room! And why is it so cold!"
I was in a rustic sort of log cabin, I guess you could call it. Rainwater was dripping from the ceiling. The shoddy furniture around my room seemed to be handmade, and shoddily at that, as mass-produced machined parts would never have such poor tolerances and would adhere to strict specifications. My bed itself seemed to have no mattresses but rather was comprised of layers of thick wool sheets over a wooden pedestal. Also, there was no electricity, apparently. On my table was an oil lamp.
I found a wardrobe and looked inside. In it were large-fibered, also wool clothes. They clearly were also not mass-produced. They were nothing like the store-bought clothing with incredibly fine weave as you would find in stores, the product of hundreds of years of industrialization. But at least they were utilitarian. Apparently if the entire human race was comprised of females, things such as dresses would have never been invented. Score one for preventing women from ever having been oppressed by men on that one.
After I was dressed, I left my room. Which turned out to be one of two rooms in a tiny house. The other room had a big cast-iron wood-burning stove, with a flue and a chimney leading up. "Where's a microwave oven when you need one," I said. "I guess it doesn't matter, since I don't seem to have electric power."
"Cockaoooooo!!!!" There was that rooster again. It actually had been doing that the whole time, I just had been trying to ignore it. I soon found out it would not shut up.
I left my little home and found that I was on some sort of small farm. There were no paved roads in sight. A hundred feet to the side, there was a horse mulling around inside a fence.
"You're up late," a voice said behind me. I snapped around. It was my mother. She looked horrible. She looked 10 or 20 years older than she should, draped in sagging, leathery skin, like she had spent long hours working under scathing sunlight for her whole life. "Idle hands are tartarus's workshop," she said.
"Tartarus?" I asked.
"Your sister is sick," mom said. "I hope to Athena that it is not the plague. I fear it is punishment from the gods for our failure to destroy the heathens in our holy campaign. But we will persevere against the evil heathens and send them all to tartarus where they belong. Athena is on our side."
"The plague, as in the bubonic plague?" I asked. "Like in the middle ages?"
"I know not of these middle ages, but yes, bubonic plague. Sadly, an uncurable curse, sent by the gods as punishment for the sins of womankind."
"What about antibiotics?" I asked.
"Antiwhatnocs?" she answered. "Anyway, Jean I need you to run into town to pay the apothecary for fresh leeches. I am afraid your sister has run through her allotment. We need fresh leeches to safely let out the bad blood from your sister or else she will surely die. Here, give the apothecary this silver coin."
Mom handed me an irregularly minted silver coin. It looked like the sort of thing that was made before they were stamped by machines, it wasn't a very good circle in shape. "Let me see her first, mom."
"Very well, child. But she too is in town, in the sickhouse."
"The sickhouse?"
"Yes, the sickhouse, the one the local apocethary has on the side of his shop. You'd best get a move on," and mom nodded in the direction of down the hill I had grown up on. At the bottom of the hill was what looked like a little rural village.
I trudged down the hill and into town. On the side of the dirt road, as I entered the gate of the village, there was a giant statue of some giant Greek goddess. "That must be Athena," I said to myself.
I didn't know which building was the apothecary's or what her sickhouse looked like. I passed by a huge building. I walked in. They were performing a human sacrifice inside.
"What the he... tartarus... is going on in here!" I yelled in horror.
"A sacrifice."
"WHY?"
"Of course, to appease the gods, to curry favor in our great campaign against the evil heathens, those dastardly followers of their obscene prophet Mahmuna, and to ask for the curse of the plague to be lifted from our land."
"That's barbaric!" I said. "That isn't going to curry favor with anyone!"
"Blasphemy!" someone yelled. "OUT! Get OUT of this place of worship blasphemer!" a grizzled old woman with a scepter said in a scratchy voice. "Back in my day, we used to burn blasphemers like you at the stake!"
"Ok, I'm leaving, but can someone tell me where the apothecary is? Please, it's my sister, she needs help!"
"All right, child. Just turn right when you leave here and it's the 4th building on your right."
I dodged horse crap as I walked down the dirt road and found the apothecary's shop. When I walked in, I saw a girl who was ghost white. Could she be de... oh god, they were covering her up in a sheet! Next to her cot was a basin filled with a red liquid. I found Zoe. She was looking much better than THAT one, but still pale.
"Hi Jean!" she said cheerfully. "They're just about to let out some of the bad blood. They had me bled with leeches a while ago, but it seems I have had a relapse. I'm afraid I must have sinned too much and I fear I have incurred the wrath of the gods. But look at you, you're looking pretty good!"
"Zoe, we've got to get you out of here!" I said.
"What? But I need treatment. They need to get the evil spirits out of me or I'll die," Zoe said.
"Oh god, what have I done," I said to myself. "I wanted to make the world a better place."
Just then, we heard the distant gallop of horses approaching. Zoe and I looked out the door. Some of the horses sounds stopped right outside. A woman in an elaborate war garb dismounted from one of the horses and marched in.
"Everyone here, I am Tahira. Emmissary of the glorious empire of the one true god and her holy prophet Mahmuna. I am here to deliver a message. We have taken this town, this entire area. You are to abandon your filthy devotion to your false goddess and becomes followers of Mahmuna, or you will be executed like the filthy infidel vermin you currently are."
"Hey now," I spoke up. "We're all women here! We don't need to be a bunch of savages! Let's get together in sisterhood and talk about this like civilized..."
"SILENCE infidel! You will follow our orders or you will be BEHEADED. Insolence will NOT be tolerated! We will be back tomorrow. If anyone wishes to be sent to your false goddess EARLY, you can still be followers of your ignorant savage religion when we return. We expect to see your statue of this Athena at the gates of your town to be hacked to bits when we return, as a sign of your compliance! Worry not, this Athena is a false goddess and you will get no wrath from angering her. You will however incur favor with the true goddess by abandoning your blasphemous ways and joining the side of light. That is all."
She marched out.
I stood there in disgust and horror.
"Maybe blaming all the problems of the human race on men wasn't productive after all," I grumbled to myself. "It's probably better to have civilization as I know it back. Or at least electricity and running water. And science. Science is good. I wonder how best to undo this."
