The Great Event

The “Great Event” still defied science. No one could explain why, in the blink of an eye, the essence and anatomy of people nearby had somehow become mixed together in a sort of biological Russian roulette.

Unfortunately for Paul, he had been at home surrounded by women: his wife, his teenage daughter, and the family’s housekeeper.

The physical transformation was devastating.

Paul watched his calloused bricklayer’s arms shrink, replaced by soft, almost luminous skin. His silhouette gained generous curves that he recognized from the housekeeper, while his impossibly defined waist seemed to have been borrowed from some other adult woman caught in the phenomenon.

He raised his hands to his face.

His rugged beard was gone.

In its place were delicate features, his wife’s magnetic smile, and, to his absolute horror, the voluminous, impeccably styled hair of Mrs. Greta, the neighborhood gossip.

Except it wasn’t quite the same.

The hair was now glossy black, carefully curled and pinned into an elegant updo, as if Greta had stepped straight out of a 1950s photograph.

Paul stared at himself in the mirror for several seconds.

“This can’t be real.”

He blinked.

The woman in the mirror blinked back.

“Oh, no…”

But the worst transformation hadn’t happened to his body.

Something snapped inside his mind.

Paul’s rough masculinity—the man who couldn’t tell a necktie from a dish towel and considered “dressing up” to mean changing his sweaty T-shirt before leaving the house—was suddenly buried beneath an avalanche of refined tastes.

Suddenly, cheap perfume seemed offensive.

Synthetic fabrics were irritating.

And haute couture?

Haute couture suddenly felt like a matter of survival.

“What’s happening to me?”

He opened the wardrobe.

Ripped jeans.

Paul grimaced.

“An insult to good tailoring.”

He froze.

“I didn’t say that.”

Or rather…

He had.

But the sentence had appeared in his mind with the effortless certainty of someone who had spent their entire life judging clothes on fashion runways.

His new hands, delicate and perfectly manicured, began working on their own.

Lipstick.

Eyeliner.

Powder.

Paul watched in horror as his fingers moved with a precision he had never possessed.

The eyeliner was perfect on the first try.

He stared at the mirror.

“That was luck.”

He tried again.

Perfect.

“That was really good luck.”

A third attempt.

Perfect.

Paul sighed.

“I know how to do makeup.”

And somehow, that realization was more frightening than the transformation itself.

Then a memory surfaced.

The attic.

His mother had kept some old clothes up there for years—elegant pieces from another era. After her death, Paul had packed everything into boxes, promising himself that one day he would donate them.

One day.

Apparently, that day had arrived.

He rushed upstairs—or at least tried to.

On the third step, he realized he was walking differently.

By the fifth, he automatically corrected his posture.

By the eighth, he straightened his shoulders.

On the tenth, he stopped.

“I’m fixing my posture.”

Paul shook his head.

“This is getting ridiculous.”

A little while later, he returned to the living room carrying an old box.

He opened it.

And went silent.

Dresses.

Gloves.

Accessories.

Pearls.

Carefully preserved fabrics.

Paul should have closed the box.

Instead, his eyes lit up.

“Oh…”

He picked up a white floral dress.

His fingers brushed over the fabric.

For a few seconds, the horrified expression disappeared from his face.

“This is beautiful.”

An hour later, Paul stood in front of the mirror.

He was wearing an elegant white floral dress with a full, flowing skirt and delicate pink ruffles along the hem. A pearl necklace rested against his chest, accompanied by matching earrings. A pair of pale pink high heels completed the outfit.

He stood completely still.

He didn’t look like Paul.

Not remotely.

He looked like a sophisticated woman who had just stepped out of a vintage photograph.

Paul slowly lowered himself onto the gray sofa.

And then something else happened.

His legs crossed naturally.

The skirt spread over his knees like a flower.

His back straightened.

One hand rested elegantly over the other.

Paul’s eyes widened.

“Stop.”

His body didn’t.

He adjusted a strand of hair.

Then the necklace.

Then checked the way the skirt fell.

He looked at his reflection in the window.

He tried to make a horrified expression.

His new, treacherous face answered with a wide, red-lipped, absolutely charming smile.

“I hate this.”

His right hand automatically rose and adjusted one of the pearls.

Paul stared at the gesture.

“I really hate this.”

Silence.

He stood up.

Took two steps.

Stopped.

Turned around.

Tried again.

This time, he walked down the hallway in perfect balance, his heels clicking confidently against the floor.

One step.

Two.

Three.

On the fourth, he subtly shifted his hips to test how the skirt moved.

Paul froze.

“No.”

Another step.

“Absolutely not.”

Another.

Then he looked at himself in the hallway mirror.

Turned sideways.

Examined the way the dress fell.

Smiled.

“…It looks really good.”

Paul closed his eyes.

“How the hell am I supposed to explain this at the construction site tomorrow?”

And while muttering the question, he continued walking down the hallway, practicing his high-heel stride as if he were preparing for a fashion runway.

The most worrying part?

He was already starting to think he needed a second dress.

Tomorrow would be Future Paul’s problem.