Sibylla stared at the pockets in her skin.
“I don’t remember those being there before,” she thought as she started patting them down, like a tradie looking for where she’d left her keys.
The pockets were neat and without any scar tissue. Some were voluminous with generous give. She imagined she could store a small kitten in the one on her belly. Most were small. It all depended on where they sat anatomically.
She found a button in one pocked on her left forearm, but couldn’t remember where it came from. There was one that held some peppermints and another with something gelatinous that made her gag.
“How gross!” She said out loud to no-one.
Then she found a piece of paper that had been folded sixteen times and snugly sat in the pocket on the outside of her right thigh.
Sibylla looked all around wishing for the answer to her questions to be written somewhere, or a wizard or faerie to appear to explain the meaning of it all. But walls held no messages and magical folk were not making themselves known.
With shaking hands she turned the folded note over and over and then started to unfold it, tentatively, as if something horrible was going to jump out from one of the folds.
“Spiders!” She thought with a shudder and another impulsive gag. “It better not have anything to do with spiders.” Even thinking of the word terrified her. She compulsively wiped her hair and checked her clothes for any lurking arachnids.
“What if they are hiding in my skin pockets? What if they are breeding in there?”
Sibylla took several long deep breaths and dropped the folded paper to the floor. Her trusty pair of Doc Martins stomped down seventeen time on the paper. Satisfied that no teeny weeny spiders would come scurrying out from the folds, she continued to unwrap the sheet of paper.
The parchment was old. Some pages were stuck together and she had to carefully prize apart the folds. No spiders, but what she saw made her shake even more.
It was a love letter. Not any ordinary love letter between two strangers. It was a love letter from her future wife to her future self.
“I didn’t even know I was gay!” She thought with some surprise at her lack of self awareness. And then everything started to fall into place.
Sibylla was bought back to the present as the love letter from the future began to disintegrate in her hands. Quickly she reread it, to commit it to memory. She patted down her skin pockets again, hoping to find a mobile phone so she could snap a copy of the letter before it was completely dust.
Naturally, there’s nothing of any use in these pockets, she thinks.
The mysteries kept mounting. Where was she, in space and time? Why did she have an ancient letter from the future? Was she already dead? Did she miss her whole life with her future or past wife? And why the heck did she have pockets in her skin?
All the strangeness of the day began to take its toll on Sibylla. She sunk to the floor and broke down sobbing for her lost love, the wife she never knew, the happiness she had been deprived.
She felt a sensation in her large belly pocket and put her hands in to see what it was. Sibylla was surprised to find the pocket even bigger than she thought. Her hands reached down, further and further until she was totally inside the belly pocket. It was warm and for the first time today, Sibylla felt safe. The pocket, (“it’s rather like a kangaroo pouch,” she thought sleepily), began to gently pulse and soothe her.
Sleep and dreaming replaced the troubled thoughts and questions in Sibylla’s mind. In her dream she was a canary. There was another canary on the perch next to her. They were the same size. They tapped their beaks together and preened each other. She couldn’t recall much more from the dream, but knew it felt like destiny. She peacefully awaited her canary lover.
Amanda Gambas Author 