walter walters was sixty-six years old and had been married to the same woman for forty years but he still wanted to have sex with every woman in the world.
since he was thirteen years old, walter had never really been conscious of anything much except women’s tits, legs, and asses, and occasionally, if they were really really good-looking, their faces.
even when he was eating, sleeping, going to school, or making a living as a financial analyst, the front of his brain was usually occupied with thinking about women, sex, and porn.
and then one morning, two months before his sixty-seventh birthday, he woke up from an unusually deep sleep, or at least one in which he could not remember dreaming.
he felt strange, although he at first did not realize why.
his wife, shirley, was on a cruise ship with a couple of her friends. she had been going on such cruises every year for the last ten years.
walter went downstairs and began making himself his usual big breakfast of eggs, sausages, and pancakes.
he still felt strange.
as he was pouring his second cup of coffee he realized why.
he was not thinking about sex.
in fact he could hardly remember what sex was, or what it had felt like, or why he had liked it so much and been so interested in it.
as he stuck his fork into his scrambled eggs, he noticed something he had never noticed before.
the eggs were yellow.
and the coffee - which he drank without cream or milk - was black. not just “black”, meaning no cream or milk, but the actual color black.
and the sausages, which he liked well done, were almost black too, but a little brown or almost red in streaks.
the toast was brown too, but a much lighter brown, almost yellow or white in spots.
as walter’s usual day progressed, he noticed many other things - things he had forgotten for the past fifty-three years.
as he walked to the bus stop, he looked up at the sky.
it was blue! really blue!
and the clouds - they were white!
and the buildings he walked past everyday looked strange.
to walter a building had always just been a building - you went inside one when it was cold or raining and then you were warm and dry.
but now he noticed that some of the buildings were taller than others. and some were not even quite the same shape as the others!
and those things in front of some of the buildings - they were trees!
and the air. it was a slightly chilly morning and he felt the cool air actually getting into his lungs.
and the people - at the bus stop and then in the bus and at work - he noticed they were wearing all sorts of different clothing. many of the women were dressed almost like men, and a surprising number of people, male and female and young and old, were wearing hats, including a lot of baseball caps of different colors.
this is interesting, thought walter. he decided he would go for a walk at lunch time instead of eating a sandwich or bagel at his desk and fantasising about threesomes and foursomes as he usually had, and check out this strange new world of sight and sound.
he just wondered how much longer he had to live, and how much time he had to explore his new found existence.
