Chapter 2: Learning the Shape of Things
Main Street hit different in person.
On screen, Schitt's Creek had always looked like a postcard of small-town decline—charming enough to be comedy, sad enough to be real. Standing on the actual sidewalk, feeling the uneven pavement through boots that had walked this route a thousand times without me, the charm was harder to find.
Café Tropical's awning sagged on one corner. Bob's Garage had more rust than I remembered. The storefronts between them carried that particular emptiness of businesses that might have been something once, before the highway rerouted or the factory closed or whatever force hollowed out small towns everywhere.
Sadder, I thought. Smaller.
Real.
I made myself walk slowly. Hands in pockets, head down, shuffling pace. Mutt's pace, probably. The drifter who'd grown up here and never quite left. Nobody looked twice at me—the few people on the street offered nods or half-waves I returned on instinct, muscle memory from a body that knew them.
That was strange too. The body felt right even when it shouldn't. Mutt's walk. Mutt's reflexive nod when old man Currie passed with his dog. Like I was wearing him instead of becoming him.
Don't think about that too hard.
Café Tropical's door stuck on the frame. I shoulder-checked it open—again, reflex—and stepped into warmth and the smell of coffee that might actually be drinkable.
Twyla stood behind the counter, arranging something I couldn't see. She looked up and her face did that thing faces do when they recognize someone they don't dislike.
"Mutt! Haven't seen you in a few days."
"Yeah." I cleared my throat. The voice still felt wrong coming out. "Been... figuring things out."
She nodded like that was the most normal answer in the world. "Coffee?"
"Please."
The café was quiet. Two tables occupied—an older couple I didn't recognize, a guy in a flannel staring at his phone. Nothing threatening. Nothing significant. Just people living their small-town morning.
Twyla poured coffee into a ceramic mug and slid it across the counter. "Anything else?"
"Just this."
I paid with crumpled bills from Mutt's wallet. The transaction felt impossibly normal. Money for coffee. The basics of human commerce, unchanged across whatever cosmic displacement had put me here.
Get it together. You're standing in a café, not exploring an alien planet.
I took a seat by the window and watched Twyla work.
That's when it happened.
Nothing dramatic. No flash of light, no system notifications, no voice in my head announcing ABILITY UNLOCKED or whatever. Just—
Twyla refilled the older couple's water glasses. Left hand for the woman, right hand for the man. She paused at their table for exactly three words of small talk, then moved to the guy with the phone, who she didn't refill at all because he'd finished his meal and was just lingering.
I watched the sequence and felt it... stick.
Every detail. The angle of her arm. The rhythm of her steps. The micro-decisions playing out in real time: water here, not there, conversation now, silence later. It catalogued itself somewhere in my head, clear and permanent, like someone had taken a photograph of the entire interaction and filed it away.
That's not normal.
I blinked. Looked away. Looked back.
Twyla was wiping down a table. My brain immediately registered her pattern—always clockwise, extra attention to the corners, the way she hummed something I couldn't quite name. Filed. Permanent.
That's really not normal.
The coffee cup was warm in my hands. I made myself drink, made myself breathe, made myself not look around like a crazy person cataloguing everyone's movements.
What is this?
Not remembering. Remembering was what I'd been doing—recalling episodes, plot points, character arcs from a show I'd watched. This was different. This was recording. New information, absorbed perfectly, effortlessly, like my brain had upgraded its filing system without asking permission.
Twyla came over. "Everything okay? You look kind of... intense."
"Just thinking."
"About anything interesting?"
About why I'm suddenly remembering your movements with photographic precision. About whether this is a symptom of transmigration or psychosis or both.
"Career stuff," I said. "Life stuff. You know."
She smiled. Warm. Genuine. "I've been there. The past few years were rough for me too, but things can turn around when you least expect it."
Lottery money, my brain supplied. She won eight million dollars and told no one because she wanted real relationships, not transactional ones.
I knew that. Future knowledge. Show knowledge.
What I didn't know—couldn't have known—was the exact way her smile shifted when she said turn around. The microexpression that flickered before the practiced optimism smoothed it over. Filed. Permanent.
"Thanks, Twyla. I appreciate that."
She moved away. I stared at my coffee and tried to process what was happening.
You're different now. Not just in body—in mind too. Something changed, something came with the transmigration, and you're going to have to figure out what.
The door stuck on its frame again. Bob Currie walked in—older, tired, wiping his hands on a rag like he'd just come from the garage.
"Mutt." A nod.
"Bob."
He ordered something at the counter. My brain catalogued his posture, his gait, the way his eyes moved when Twyla spoke to him. Everything filed away with mechanical precision.
There's something else, I thought, watching Bob pick up his to-go cup. Something about the way he held it. His hands. The efficiency of his movements despite his shuffling presentation.
He was good at what he did. Really good. The kind of competence that hid under years of small-town entropy and learned helplessness. Most people probably looked at Bob and saw the garage owner who'd given up on life. But his hands—
His hands knew exactly what they were doing.
I finished my coffee and left money on the table. Too much, probably. I didn't care.
Outside, Main Street spread before me with all its faded potential. The motel sign flickered at the far end, something I'd never noticed in the show but couldn't unsee now.
Two weeks until the Roses arrive. Two weeks to figure out what you can do. What you should do. Whether any of this matters.
Bob waved through the garage window as I passed. I waved back.
The sign on his door read HELP WANTED.
I filed that away too.
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