Memory lapses

Josh sighed, looking around his house for a suitable shirt to wear from his shrinking wardrobe before giving up and taking a seat by the stairs to catch his breath. It had seemed like the perfect opportunity: Work an online job from the US, earn in dollars, and move somewhere in Latin America where the local currency went a lot further. He had even managed to rent out a beautiful house in the historic district of town for a steal after another expat had broken his lease early and moved out unexpectedly.

It had been great at first, although, he had been having second thoughts recently. His lease was coming up soon and as much as he was saving money by living in Colombia, he was starting to get worried about how quickly time was flying by. He hadn’t noticed it at first, but now it seemed like entire days would go without him remembering a single thing he’d done.

The memory lapses had started about two weeks in, about the same time he started losing weight. It started off small, finding food in the fridge he didn’t remember buying, losing track of his clothes on laundry day only to find some woman’s clothes in their place in his closet. He couldn’t even remember the day he started wearing bras, but it couldn’t have been recently. He had needed the support for his breasts since he had hit puberty early as a teen, hadn’t he? It wasn’t like a body like this had appeared out of nowhere, after all. He remembered all the jealous looks the other girls at school had shot at him when his curves started coming in. He had always been on the bustier side, just like all the women in his family. 

Either way, Josh thought, snapping himself back, why would he go back to the US when his whole life was here? Besides, it wasn’t like he spoke much English. He vaguely remembered a time where he could, when Spanish had been the foreign language to him, but it almost felt like a distant memory to him. Had it only been three months since He had come here? It felt like years.

The longer he stayed in the house, the more it sapped away at his identity, the years of the neighborhood’s built in history seeping back in to fill in the gaps. Like the tan that had slowly built up on his skin day by day, or the fact that even though he had just gotten his hair cut last week, it now looked longer and darker than ever.

He even found it hard to remember his own name some days, another one frustratingly resting on the top of his tongue, not to mention the times he had lost track of time for a few hours just to snap out of it in the middle of doing his makeup or trying on one of the new dresses he kept finding in his closet.

He had forgotten to clock in to work for the past few days now too, not that he especially cared that much anymore - He had been thinking about getting a new job closer to home, maybe somewhere in town.

-

Paola blinked. She had had another one of those weird daydreams again where she was born as a man instead of herself. It must be the house, she reminded herself as she brushed some flyaway curls of hair out of her face and adjusted her tank top as she sat up on the step. They had been more common when she first moved in, but they still came up from time to time even a few months later.

She made a mental note to be better about cleaning the house in the future - Last time she had gone through her room she had found a passport and a suitcase of clothes belonging to whoever lived here before her. Some foreign guy who had forgotten his things when he left. It was about time she boxed all that stuff up and gave it away anyways, it wasn’t like there was any use hanging onto it anyways.

Although, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to pack up her stuff and find a new place along with it. It was nice, but a little too expensive for her budget. The only people who could afford living there were those rich foreign expats nowadays, and it would be nice to get a place closer to town where she’d be around more locals.

It was the right thing to do to stay in town anyways, she decided. Colombia didn’t need another short-term digital nomad tech bro to take advantage of its natural beauty. Besides, she smiled, her thoughts moving to the guy in town she had been seeing on the side for the past few weeks, a local woman who took pride in her country’s culture, who was ready to settle down and start a family was a much more valuable contribution the country, anyways.