Chapter 3: The Art of Being Ernest McBauchenshneider

POV: Jack

I am an Actor. Not the usual kind, for plays and movies and things. I know it sounds weird, but I live in a world that coexists with the “mortal” world. We learn about people. We learn how they act, how they think, how they feel. We learn how to put our heads in the bodies of others, to lose ourselves completely, to the point where we think we are someone else.

But why? I have absolutely no idea. As far as I know, I have always been an Actor. We all live together, on a small campus with two dormitories. Boys and girls. We look like “mortals”. At least most of the time. We can become invisible at will. Pretty cool, right? Not really. We can only make our bodies invisible, so unless you want to be running around naked everywhere, it isn’t very helpful.

My name is Courage. That’s another thing I don’t understand about my world. The naming system. Courage, really? Really? That’s why everybody calls me Jack.

* * *

“Jack, I haven’t gotten a job in two weeks! Is something wrong? Did I do something bad?” Oblivion paces back and forth, her long blonde hair following, unwillingly. I smile.

“Calm down. Sometimes I wonder if they should have named you Anxiety.” I sit down in the chair beside the desk and make myself comfortable. She raises her eyebrows at me, and the doorbell to the dorm goes off. Oblivion’s eyes light up.

“Ooh! That’s my delivery. I asked for some more socks. Is it just me, or can socks randomly disappear?”

“Everyone knows they spontaneously combust.” I say. She smiles again.

“I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll try not to burn your room down.”

“You do that.” Oblivion has been my best friend for well, forever. I look around her room. White walls, purple bedspread, desk, neat and perfect as always. Pretty much the opposite of my room. I forget what color my walls are. They’re so covered in posters, pictures, sticky notes, and random things I find interesting that you can’t see the walls underneath. Oblivion calls me a hoarder. I prefer collector, thank you very much. Oblivion walks back in the door, holding the box of socks.

“Purple! Aren’t they great!” She holds them up for me. Purple tie-die. Not my thing. I give her a so-so face.

“Well I don’t care what you think.” She sits down on her bed and uses scissors to cut those little plastic things that connect clothing items, and place the socks in her drawer.

“Do you not find it weird that Community has an endless supply of Amazon gift card money?” I ask.

“Not really. That’s just the way it is.” Classic Oblivion. Sometimes she seems a little, well, oblivious.

When we were little, the leader of the Actors, Community, would provide us clothes, but after Oblivion complained that she wanted “cool clothes” like the girls she acted in, Community gave everyone the password to an Amazon account. If you go to the gift card balance page, there is an infinity sign where the amount is supposed to go. What the heck?

“And anyways,” says Oblivion, “what’s wrong with free stuff?” I force a smile. Sometimes I wish I could be like her. Well in the “go along with everything” department. Not in the style department.

“Are all your socks purple?” I ask, to change the subject.

“Duh. Haven’t you noticed?” She closes her sock drawer and sits down next to me on the bed. “Unlike somebody, I don’t have to match my socks with my bow tie.” I blush. After seeing tons of high school boy’s closets, I have developed quite the sense of style in my opinion. Oblivion isn’t as much of a fan of it as I am, but to quote her, “I don’t care what you think.”  There’s a sharp rapping at the door, and Oblivion’s eyes light up for the second time. They do that a lot.

“Community? Come in!” A thirty something looking woman (who knows how old Actors

are) walks in. She has dark brown hair in a tight bun, and a stern looking nose.

“I have a job to deliver.” Oblivion stands up.

“For me?”

“No. For Courage.” I cringe. I’ve told her to call me Jack, but she refuses. She hands me a manilla folder, and I flash Oblivion an apologetic look as she sits back down on the bed.

“Don’t worry. You’ll get your chance.” says Community, showing the barest trace of a smile as she turns and leaves the room, shutting the door firmly behind.

“Told you she’s giving you a hard one!” Oblivion rolls her eyes.

“Don’t you have a suspender collection to straighten or something?” I can tell she’s feeling kind of jealous, so I decide to leave her alone for a bit. She always seems to think that my jobs are way cooler than hers. She's just being oblivious.

“I do have to study this new job.”

“What’s his name?” I open up the folder, to find the general information sheet on the very top. When I see the name, I try to contain my laughter, but a bit slips out anyway. “What is it?!”

“Ernest.” I give up holding it in, and we are soon laughing together. “Well I’ve got to go, I have to learn the art of being an Ernest.”

“Have fun!”

“I will!” I close the door much gentler than Community, then head across the green to the boys dormitory. When I get to my room, I close the blinds, turn off all the lights except for the warm glow of my desk lamp, and open up the folder again.

Ernest McBauchenshneider

Age: 16

Likes: Pickles, Quantum Mechanics, Kangaroos

Dislikes: Cucumbers, Smurfs, Blue cheese, Magenta, imperfect circles

School: James A. Garfield High School

Friends: N/A

GPA: 4.0

The farther down the sheet I read, the more and more I feel bad for Ernest McBauchenshneider. At least he could have some friends. If only I didn’t have to stick to the “no changing other people’s lives rule.” But what if I was doing it for good?

* * *

“Get in! We don’t have all day!” says Community, as she rushes me towards The Machine. As if there weren’t enough fishy things about my life. The Machine transports us to the bodies of the people we act in. But The Machine only does half the work. We have to do the rest. I would say the Transformation is definitely the hardest part of the process.

I get into what looks like one of those metal detectors at the airports. Even after all this time, the rush of adrenaline still comes. Deep breath.

“Are you ready?” Asks Community.

“Yep.” She presses a large purple button, and I feel all of the bits that make up my body scatter. That’s what the machine does. It detaches you from your body. My job is to reattach it somewhere new.

It’s completely black. Blacker than anything I’ve experienced outside the Transformation. I feel a force that is pushing my body apart. I don’t have much time. I hear a pulsing, I follow it. The closer I get, the louder the thumping is in my brain. When the noise is almost earsplitting, my body collapses back into itself. I made it. Breathe. For a few minutes, I get to sleep. When I wake up, at least for a day, I will be Ernest McBauchenshneider.

* * *

I wake up in the middle of Kangaroo land. I’m serious. Kangaroo wallpaper, Kangaroo bed, Kangaroo lampshade. As usual, the first thing I do is look in the mirror. I like to know what I look like before I start the day. As soon as I find the bathroom, I see that I’m short and chubby with freckles. Oh joy. I’m so excited to see what his wardrobe is made up of. I open up the shirt drawer to find that every single shirt contained therein has a kangaroo-esque pocket sewn on it. When the sheet said he liked Kangaroos, I didn’t know how serious it really was.

When I get to school, I bring out my inner nerd. At the campus we take normal classes like Math, English, and Science; and on top of that I have been in quite a few advanced courses, well at least for a day. When I know every answer in my classes, nobody blinks. I get bumped in the halls, but nothing too bad. I’ve had worse. Once, my head was dunked in a toilet. Let me tell you, if it’s not already obvious, that that is no fun.

        Throughout the day, I try to help Ernest make some friends, but to no prevail. Whenever I try to come up and talk to someone, they run away. Ernest must be a pretty weird guy.

        In the afternoon, I lie on Ernest's bed, trying to find a way to take advantage of my opportunity. What can I do now that I can't do in own body? I wouldn't say that Ernest's life is particularly interesting. My favorite part of Acting is meeting the person's friends, and Ernest doesn't seem to do very well in the friend department. Well, at least there's always next time. That's how it is when you're seemingly immortal.

        I get up off the bed, walk over to the kangaroo shaped desk, and sit down in the creaky old chair. I wait for a second to see if it will collapse under my weight, and when I’m assured that it’s okay, I start looking through the desks drawers for some drawing materials. When I find some graph paper and perfectly sharpened pencils, I start doodling circles. I doodle them until they fill up the page, and then some. Big circles, little circles. I get into kind of a zen mode, circle after circle. I finish 5 pages of circles (double sided) before I notice the clock. 11:23. I have to get to bed. I rummage around for some tape, stick my masterpieces to the wall above the bed, and fall into a deep, dreamless sleep...

Author's Note

Is the beginning explanation too abrupt?