Lauren couldn’t get over that dream, how had she known some much about Lonnas’ life? It was almost as if she had lived it and not Lonna. As if she was Lauren Tran as she had been told in the dream and not Lauren Rodriguez no that could never happen. She was washing her hair and noticed something about her arm. Her skin seemed different to her somehow the color of it was wrong but how? It seemed paler somehow. it was tanned but it was a paler shade than she usually got at the beach and she had not been to the beach in months it was far too cold to go to the beach at this time of the year.
This tan seemed to cover her from head to toe. She looked again and could not see any change in the tan color that would be covered by her bikini. She was not that brave to go topless no matter what time of the year it was. She had to be imagining it as she continued to wash her new black hair that she had gotten from Lonna yesterday. At least a change in hair color wasn’t that bad she thought to herself.
She stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around herself. There was that tan again. Maybe that dream had shaken her more than she had first thought. She wrapped a towel around her head and went to make a coffee, This was something else that she had picked up from Lonna but over the last three days, she had grown to enjoy the taste of the coffee. She lifted the cup to her mouth to enjoy it once more. She turned the radio on to hear the news something else that had become part of her morning routine. It was not a new routine anymore as this would be the third time this week that she was doing these things. The only day she had not started the day like this was Monday the day she had found the stone and the day all this had started.
She had now spent more than half the week as a teacher at the school where at the beginning of the week she had been a student. She had spent three full days as a member of staff there and had only been a student there for about half an hour. That was until she and Lonna had met up with each other that Monday morning. Here she was about to spend a fourth day there. She went to her closet to pick out an outfit for the day.
She knew that she had to look smart and not as scruffy as some of the students did. She picked out a white blouse and a pink skirt. The blouse has a collar and buttons down the front. The skirt is high-waisted and has a slim fit. Next was a pair of white high heels. Followed by a white handbag. She went to dry her long, black hair and to put on light makeup. That was when she saw it, another change had happened. Had the dream been more than a dream? She couldn’t have, could she?
She went to find the bag she had been using the day before. It took her all of two minutes to locate it. It was in the sitting room. She nervously opened it and found her driving license. She turned it over slowly to see what had changed.
Name: Lauren Tran D.O.B 06.02.1996 Place of birth: Hanoi
She had grown used to her age changing by now. It seemed that every morning that she woke up she had lost some more of her life to the stone. The two changes that caught her eye this morning were big ones. For some reason her eyes passed by the name field she was not ready for that yet. She found herself staring at Place of birth: Hanoi. Where was that she wondered. All she knew was that was somewhere overseas, so now she was an immigrant. She did not have a problem with immigrants she knew that she had not been until that morning. She could deal with this after all it did not matter where people had been born it was only a place. Then came the big one she finally got up the nerve to look at the name field it boldly showed that she was no longer Lauren Rodriguez as she had been all of her life up until that morning she was now Lauren Tran.
She thought back at that moment to the dream or nightmare and the piece of paper that she had read out in it. “With the receipt of this document, the woman formerly known as Lauren Rodriguez will hereby and forever more be Lauren Tran.” It couldn’t be true, could it? That dream had taken her away from her family, the family, and the woman who had raised her. Aunt Nguyên was now the one who had raised her when she had taken her in after the death of her Mother and Father when she was eight. No, that had been Lonna hadn’t, or had it, She was not sure anymore. What else had changed now that she was no longer a member of the Rodriguez family and was now a member of the Tran family instead?
Lauren sat back down in her bedroom and tried to hold back the tears that she knew were welling up inside her. It took her about half an hour to stop crying, she knew there was nothing that she could do to reverse this latest set of changes just like the ones before them. She wished there was a way back to her old life back to who she had been before all of this had started. She turned to the mirror on her closet door and said “Hello Lauren Tran it is a pleasure to meet you.”
She had to be brave after all she was an adult wasn’t she? She went to get ready as she had been doing before she had finally noticed this latest round of changes. She went to put on the outfit that she had picked out from her closet. She stopped again after putting on her underwear. She had spent the whole morning so far saying that everything in the house was hers and not Lonna’s. Was this another change that she had failed to notice? She decided not to get too worried about it. Everything in the condo belonged to Ms Tran and at that moment she was a Ms Tran according to the driving license anyway maybe not the one who had bought these things.
This was the only way that she could deal with this new reality. If she was to think about it any other way she knew she would go mad, so she had no other choice in the matter. She walked towards the front door of the condo catching her long hair cascading gracefully over her shoulders, framing her youthful-looking face. If she didn’t know better she was a woman in her mid-twenties instead of her late- twenties with that thought in her head she walked out to her car to start the journey to what was sure to be a long and strange day at her work.
