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A shower. That’s what I needed to wake me up. I lifted off my nightgown and went to turn on the shower, but it wasn’t where it should be. It was in a different corner. Weird. Inching my eyes open a little further I noticed that everything was different.

This wasn’t my bathroom!

Had I slept at someone else’s house last night? No, I distinctly remembered crawling into my bed at eleven forty-five, after washing my face and applying Age-Proof Smoothing Serum. So where the hell was I?

My eyes darted around the strange bathroom and the even stranger contraption on the wall of the shower. There was also a device against the far wall that resembled a giant hand-dryer, large enough to fit a person. I looked in the mirror and saw the scariest thing I’d ever seen in my entire life staring back at me. Wrinkles … a ton of them.

Crow’s feet, laughter lines, forehead furrows and … Oh. My. God. Were there wrinkles on … my lips? I squinted and leaned closer to the mirror. If that wasn’t bad enough, I even had a few rogue hairs on my chin and a neck that looked like a turkey’s. Plus, no longer did my hair resemble a silky black cascading waterfall, but instead a burnt-out forest with pathetic little branches of smoky-grey hairs poking out from my scalp. This had to be a nightmare! Yes, that must be it. I’d had one drink too many last night and now I was paying the price.

But it felt so real
! Maybe someone spiked my drink. I didn’t know how, but it was possible. I bet it was that creepy dude hiding behind his phone at the table nearby. Probably filmed me too, the jerk. I bet I’m being viewed on YouTube as we speak. And maybe it’s going viral and I’d be in tomorrow’s newspaper:
Exposed! Aspiring Supermodel Kelli Crawford Is An Alcoholic
!

My hands cautiously touched the face that
was
me but
wasn’t
. I took a step back and then another, edging away from the nightmarish vision in the mirror. Until the cold edge of the bathtub collided with my legs. I fell backwards, knocking over some bottles. A glass vase fell to the floor with a high-pitched, splintering smash. Glass shards launched themselves up into the air like rockets, puncturing the skin on my left arm and dark red blobs of blood bulged out. “Ouch!” I winced, grasping my arm.

And then I saw something even scarier. In terror, I struggled to lift myself from the bath, flailing around naked like a fish out of water, falling back in twice—until I finally stood again at the mirror, my mouth gaping. I lowered my hands to my abdomen, lifting and prodding clumps of loose skin that felt like a bag of jelly.

What in the name of Dior happened to my flat stomach? Not only did I have a freaking jelly belly, my breasts drooped so far south they were practically residents of Antarctica!

There is no God
.

Nope, this wasn’t a nightmare and I’m positive no one could have spiked my drink. This was real. I could feel it. Not to mention see it. Here I was; still me, but … old. And if the hideous vision before me was anything to go by, there was no way in hell I was turning around to look at my arse.

“What was that noise, did something break?” A man barged into the bathroom.

“Arghh!!” I instinctively covered myself as much as possible with my hands, cowering in the corner near the toilet, my eyes searching frantically for a towel. Why were there no towels in this bathroom? My nightgown, oh thank God! I picked it up and held it in front of me. “Get out of here!” I shooed him backwards like an annoying insect, but he kept coming towards me.

“What’s the matter, honey?” He glanced at the vase remnants on the floor and then at my arm, blood dripping from the wound. “Are you alright?” The brown-haired man eyed me with genuine concern. His skin oozed the spicy scent of an aftershave I didn’t recognise.

“I’m fine, go away!” He appeared perplexed at the continued shooing movements I made with my hands.

“Okay, okay. I just wanted to make sure you were alright. And wish my wife a happy birthday, of course.” He leaned in for a kiss but I pushed him off, horror overtaking me.

Wife? I wasn’t his wife and this old guy certainly wasn’t my husband! Grant was supposed to be my husband. Well, after tonight’s inevitable proposal. Oh God, tonight! My birthday party. I couldn’t go looking like this!

A high-pitched jingling sound interrupted my thoughts and the man made a strange movement; pinching his watch with his thumb and forefinger and appearing to pull some invisible strand to his ear.

What was he doing?

“William speaking,” he said, as he walked out. Finally.

William? Who the heck was he and why was he saying I’m his wife? This was all too weird. Dizzy, I held onto the wall as I racked my brain for an answer, a solution, anything to make sense of this … situation. William … his eyes looked kind of familiar and the way he walked out of the room, that bouncy stride. I’d seen him before … somewhere.

I know! I clicked my fingers. William McSnelly from my school days. Could it really be chubby-no-friends William McSnelly who never seemed to notice the multiple
Kick Me
post-its stuck to his back? Wow, he’d actually turned out alright. Okay so he’s ancient, but for an old guy he’s not bad.

Wait … if I was married to William McSnelly, then that would make me … Oh God, no!

Kelli McSnelly.
Shoot me now
. I didn’t end up with McDreamy or McSexy, uh-uh. I ended up with McSnelly, or
McSmelly
as the kids at school used to call him. Me included … and now I was Mrs McSmelly.

Like a wilting plant my body softened, my hand slid down the wall and the nightgown escaped my grip. Instead of landing on the floor, my butt landed sharply on the cold toilet seat, the shock of it interrupting my Oscar-worthy fainting episode and causing me to stand up suddenly. I could hear William talking outside the door and when he said goodbye to whoever he was speaking to, I quickly picked my nightgown up off the floor and fed my head and arms through it.

“Kel, what’s going on?” William re-entered the bathroom that was beginning to feel like a prison. A cruel, although seemingly sanitary prison with no towels and weird mirrors that made me look old.

All I could do was shake my head in disbelief, my body soon following suit. My hands trembled and my breath came in short gasps. “Where am I? Why do I look so old?” William touched his hand to my shoulder and I flinched, although his touch seemed strangely comforting. “I don’t understand. Yesterday I was young and happy and now I’m an old shuddering mess!”

“C’mon honey, you look great for your age. And you’re only fifty, don’t be so hard on yourself,” William said, rubbing my shoulder.

“Fifty?” I blurted, almost choking as the word launched from the slingshot of my voice box. “I’m not fifty! I’m supposed to be twenty five!” I shook his hand away from my shoulder and he dropped it to his side. “Why aren’t I twenty five?”

“Honey, it’s natural to feel emotional on a day like today. I mean who wouldn’t love to be twenty five again?” William smiled. “But you’re still beautiful and today’s going to be great, especially tonight’s party. Come seven o’clock our house will fill with all the important people in your life. You must be looking forward to that?” He lifted my chin with his finger and I reluctantly met his gaze.

Looking forward? I wanted to go backward! Back to my real life and my real self, where I was only twenty five and my stomach didn’t resemble my father’s beer belly. Soon they’d be calling me Kelli Jelly Belly McSmelly. Oh, how on Earth did this happen? What the hell was going on?
I can’t take this anymore
!

“Where’s Grant? I need Grant!” I said, shoving his hand away.

“Grant? Who’s … oh, surely you don’t mean Grant, your ex?”

“Yes. No! I mean, he’s not my ex!”

“Honey, you haven’t had anything to do with him since we started dating twenty five years ago.” William’s expression changed to a frown. “Or, have you?”

“Twenty five years ago? But Grant and I … we … he was supposed to propose to me on my birthday.”

“Kelli, you broke off your relationship with him, remember?”

“I did?” It’s quite possible I’d gone mad.

William nodded. “But I proposed and you said yes. And here we are, still happily married after almost a quarter of a century.”

Okay Kelli, just breathe. In … and … out. There had to be some explanation for all of this. Think! Maybe I’d had a bump to the head and have amnesia. That could be it. I’d simply lost all memories from the last twenty five years. Yes, I could have fallen in the bathroom and sustained a head injury. I did remember falling, although that was after I noticed I’d become old. Maybe it happened yesterday, as in my forty-nine-year-old yesterday and now I’d lost my memory. But my head didn’t hurt or anything.

I walked over to the dreaded mirror again, but failed to see any suspicious bruise or lump. It must have happened before. Maybe I woke up as my normal twenty-five-year-old self on my birthday and had some sort of accident then. And maybe William was the paramedic or doctor who treated me, and I fell in love with him because he looked after me. But Grant would have looked after me, wouldn’t he? Time I pulled myself together and asked some questions.

“Um, William?”

“Yes?”

“Have I ever had any sort of accident, perhaps a head injury of some kind?” I asked feebly.

“No,” he replied, confusion and concern meshed together on his face. “Why, do you feel sick or something? Are you having a bad headache, is that it?”

“No, my head’s fine, I just …” Geez, I felt like Drew Barrymore’s character in Fifty First Dates and William was Adam Sandler, humouring me in my unfortunate condition so I didn’t lose the plot. Hmm, a bit too late for that … but anyway. “I just feel like time has caught up with me, that’s all. Life seems to have gone by so fast.” If I played along and kept it together, maybe this terrible morning would somehow go away and I’d be transported back to my normal life.

I needed a shower. I’d close my eyes and focus on the water and my fifty-year-old self would wash away and when I opened my eyes I’d be twenty five again. Worth a shot.

Except the shower had no faucets and I didn’t have any idea how to turn the bloody thing on. “I think I’ll feel better after a shower. William, er … honey, can you take a look at the shower thingy? I think it needs fixing.”

This seemed to please William, as he rolled up his sleeves and walked over to the contraption on the wall. “Let’s have a look.” He pressed a few buttons and waved his hand under the diamond-shaped showerhead, and the second time he did so, water streamed from the tiny holes. “Works fine,” he said.

“Could you try turning it off for me too, just to test it?”

He pressed a button on the top side of the contraption and the water flow came to an abrupt halt. “That works fine too.” He smiled and turned towards the door. “See you in the kitchen for breakfast.”

“Wait!” I lunged at him. “Could you turn it on again, you know, to save you having to come back in, just in case it plays up again?”

“Anything for the birthday girl.” William repeated his earlier process and this time I watched him like a hawk. He pressed one button on each of the three rows and a red button in the middle, then waved his hand twice under the shower head.

Got it. I think. Well, hopefully I’d be out of here soon and wouldn’t have to use this thing again.

When William closed the bathroom door behind him, I took my rather confused nightgown off again and stepped under the stream of water. The pressure and warmth soothed my skin and for a while I felt like my old self. I mean my young self. I imagined being in my own shower in my own apartment, looking forward to my twenty-fifth birthday party at the hippest restaurant in the city, followed by a beautiful speech from Grant and culminating in his proposal by which I’d look completely surprised, and accept the DSJ engagement ring with a resounding
yes
!

Pleased with my visualisation attempt, I opened my eyes and prepared to say a silent thank you to the universe upon seeing my familiar bathroom and youthful face in the mirror. Instead, I said a few not-so-silent profanities upon seeing the same unfamiliar bathroom that was fast becoming my least favourite place in the world.

I thumped my fist on the button on top of the shower contraption, stopping the water flow and stepped out of the shower. Clamping my lips tightly together to stop from screaming, I crept towards the mirror, knowing all too well what would greet me.

The same crow’s feet I’d seen before that framed my eyes like a broken fence around a dilapidated old house. Damn!

The same laughter lines formed an arc around my mouth, looking more like remnants of inconsolable sobbing. Bugger!

Lip wrinkles, a saggy neck and forehead furrows that have turned my face into a landscape rivalling The Andes mountain ranges. Crap!

And of course, the
piece de resistance
; Kelli’s jelly belly. Yep, despite my impressive visualisation, I’m still fifty!

Damn. Bugger. Crap. Multiplied by ten.

Desperate to dry off and cover my hideous body, I automatically reached for a non-existent towel. Having run out of expletives, I simply said, “Brilliant. Just brilliant.”

Standing with my hands on my hips, I examined the giant hand-dryer thingamajig and tilted my head to the side, furrowing my already furrowed brows. It must be used in place of towels, there’s no other possible explanation. I prodded and poked the machine tentatively but nothing happened, so I inched myself between the two parts of the machine, hoping it wasn’t some kind of vice that would squish my body into oblivion. Although, on second thoughts …

“How do I turn it on?” I asked myself out aloud and at that moment, jets of warm air pushed against my front and back. Reflexively I shut my eyes and mouth. After a few seconds it stopped, my body completely dry. Maybe this bathroom wasn’t so bad after all.

Anxious to finally get some clothes on, I opened the door a fraction, checking to see if the coast was clear. I tip-toed into the unfamiliar bedroom and pulled back a sliding door. The good news was an array of clothing hung from a rack, so I’d be able to put a long overdue end to my nakedness. The bad news was I wouldn’t be caught dead in most of the outfits. Who would wear such things? Well, me obviously. But surely my fifty-year-old taste couldn’t be that bad? I was a fashion model for Christ’s sake! I knew what’s hot and what’s not, and this stuff wasn’t even lukewarm.