I consider what I write here a log of the things that happened in my life. One never knows where life will take them, nor does one know how their life will be influenced by extraneous factors for which they have no control over. I write this not as a validation of my life, but more as a guide so that others who are where I am now, will not make the same mistakes that I did. I regret many things that I have done in my life, but they have led here, to where I am now, and I am not sure that my life would have turned out better if they had not gone the way they did. For the sake of this rambling diatribe, you can call me JC or Jayce, whichever you prefer. Jayce came a bit later from someone slurring JC together one too many times and it ended up sticking.

To maybe explain a little better how I ended up in this particular crisis, perhaps I should explain where I came from. They say we are all a product of our past experiences and I'm no exception to this rule. I was born and raised in what was once known as the "Deep South" in what was once known as the United States. There are many old jokes, and more than a few pieces of slander, about those who are born and raised there. The thing is, is that sometimes they are not too far off the mark. My parents are what one might call religious zealots. Even after the Gene Wars, and all of the healing the great rebuilding accomplished, there were still pockets of people who militantly followed an extremely narrow-minded view of how life, love, and religion should be followed. Even in this day and age, they still spout the rhetoric that being gay is evil, genetically created creatures should still be serving their masters, and not more than a few groups still believe White makes right. Can you believe that? Unfortunately, indoctrination happens at an early age and from time before I could actually remember, I was carefully and vehemently fed a steady diet of what can only be constituted as hate wrapped in a religious wrapper. The one thing that even a society as twisted as this cannot keep from happening, is that outside information and ideas will always reach their constituent members eventually. I buried myself in these pieces of new information, thinking myself vastly superior to the backward "hicks" that made up the vast population of my tiny community. The bad thing though, is that these lessons had already taken root in my subconscious and had a detrimental effect to my psychological makeup from being raised there. Scars exist, even if they cannot be seen.

They say that everyone experiences a midlife crisis sometime in their life. Now normally, this happens to people much older than I was at the time. There I was 30 years old, a pedantic menial job, a roof over my head, food in the pantry, and no social life to speak of. I had joined the Star Corps at a fairly early age once my remedial schooling had been completed. I was always fairly good with computers and computer systems, hardware and software, and the kind of security processes put into place that keep those who are not supposed to be there out. The bad thing was, I was always extremely bored. There never seemed to be enough to do to actually occupy my mind enough to keep me from getting into trouble. Supervisors often thought I was slacking off when in actuality I had already completed a full day's work in the first few hours of the work shift. I would go to work, do my job to the best of my abilities, and then go back to my quarters. There I would either read a book or play with bits and pieces of code. I vaguely remember other coworkers trying to entice me into spending off-duty hours with them and yet I was always more comfortable being alone in my quarters with a good book. Now the bad thing is that after a while, people who wanted to be my friend eventually took my reticent nature as a natural defense mechanism or just simply that I was antisocial and eventually they stop asking. Then one day I looked around and realized that I was lonely and had no idea what to do about it. The joys of the introverted lifestyle.

I know that I just mentioned that I tended to shun the company of others and this was the ultimate reason for leaving the Star Corps, but there was one being aboard my ship that tended to take my reticent nature as a personal challenge. Hir name was Chakat Dreamspirit. Dream was a life science's officer in the Corps and like most chakats, had the usual exuberant personality that went with hir race. Normally our job paths would have never crossed if not for the fact that one of hir lab experiments had managed to escape its containment and worked its way through the data cables of hir data terminal. I happened to be on duty at the time this all occurred and I was dispatched to see if I could remedy the issue and get hir terminal back up and running. So after grabbing a few items from storage, I headed to the bio-labs to assess the situation.

I walked into the bio-lab to find it completely deserted. Looking around and not seeing anyone present, I called out, "Hello? Is anyone here? Did someone request technical assistance with a broken data terminal?"

I waited patiently for a reply to come and then listening, I heard a muffled 'THUNK' that came from an open ceiling access hatch. Curious, I walked towards it looking up and darkness was all I really saw.

"Hello?" I echoed into the dark opening.

Looking up, I could almost, BARELY, make out movement in the dark recesses of the open access panel. Then I heard a startled exclamation and a muffled, "LOOK OUT!"

That's when the little bit of movement I had made out in the darkness came flying out of the access panel and landed with a resounding 'SPLAT' directly on my face with enough force to make me hit the floor. My head bounced off the floor tiles, and then I was out like a light...

I'm not sure how long I was out, but I had a strange dream. I was watching my younger self during childhood as my parents were lecturing me about sin and how the morph species were made by man and how they should still be serving man. It was quite an uncomfortable feeling watching my younger self there and hearing those words again after so many years. Then I heard my name being called as if from a very long way away, "Crewman McClellan? Are you OK? Great... I killed tech support."

I blinked open my eyes groggily, "No... I'm not dead... I don't think?"

My eyes finally started to clear slightly and the blurry images resolved themselves into a feline muzzle with long black hair and the oddest fur coloration I'd ever seen. This caused me to blink again.

"I think I may have a concussion though... Your fur is purple..."

A wide smile split hir muzzle and shi shook hir head. "Nope, that's the color it's supposed to be! Let me help you sit up," shi said easing me into a sitting position.

My face felt... Odd... I reached up and touched it and my fingers came away with a slimy, mucus-like substance sticking to them which started to instantly numb them, "UGH! What IS this stuff?"I asked in disgust.

"That 'stuff' is the excretion of the rashtitik diggers from Osarion IV. It's quite amazing actually, it's a natural anesthetic! It numbs pain, deadens nerve endings and increases the blood flow to wounds and tissue so they don't get infected and clean themselves out while they heal as well as making them heal much faster due to the increased blood flow to the area! It's remarkable! The uses in the medical field could be endless..." From there shi continued to extol the properties of the substance at great length until shi noticed the glazed look settling into my eyes. Shi stopped and made a face before saying, "I'm sorry; you would probably like to get that stuff off your face..." She scampered off for a moment and came back with a towel and a specimen collection kit. "If you don't mind, I'll scrape most of it off into the collection jar and you can wipe the rest away?" shi asked looking quite hopeful.

I couldn't help myself because I could be just as guilty of going on about my work as well when I was truly passionate about something. So, I gave hir a nod and sat patiently as shi scraped the goo into a specimen jar. I noticed that I couldn't feel a thing the entire time shi was doing it.

"Is my face supposed to be numb? I can't feel anything," I asked.

Shi smiled brightly at me and nodded, "Yup! That's the pain numbing agent at work. Don't worry though; you should be back to normal by tomorrow, although, it should make eating your dinner much more interesting."

I sighed a bit and sat patiently while she finished hir collection and then shi handed me a towel. "OK, you can wipe the rest of it off now," shi said before trotting off to one side to put hir storage jar into a shelving unit.

I happily wiped the remaining goop off my face. While I was scrubbing the stuff off my nose, I suddenly had a violent sneezing fit sneak up on me and the resulting tide of goop from my nose coupled with everything else that had been up there ended up on the towel. I looked at it and made a face and the nasty mess. I finally took a deep clean breath and froze.

"What is that smell?" I asked looking around curiously sniffing at the air.

Shi looked at me confused, "What smell?"

I closed my eyes and concentrated for a minute sniffing the air, turning my head from side to side trying to hone in on the scent that had caught my attention. It smelled... Exciting? Wait, how does something smell exciting? That was really the only word I could think of to describe it honestly. Once I had my face pointed in the direction of the strongest scent I opened my eyes and was staring at a very confused chakat.

"Well that is weird. I think I smell... You..." I blinked a couple of times in confusion. "It smells... I can't actually classify the smell... It's..." I fumbled for the correct word and failed miserably, "Exciting?" I'm sure I was a nice shade of red in the face. I've never really enjoyed feeling like an idiot in front of people and my inability to be able to correctly classify the scent embarrassed me somewhat.

An odd look came over the chakat's face and shi narrowed hir eyes at me for a moment. "Follow me over to the bio-scanner, please. Let's make sure you're really alright."

I got up a tad unsteadily to my feet and tottered over to the bio-scanner taking a seat in the chair indicated.

"By the way, my name is Chakat Dreamspirit, or Lieutenant Dreamspirit, but since it's just us, you can call me Dream. I probably should have introduced myself sooner, but well... you know..." shi said motioning to the mess in the room.

I smiled a bit lopsidedly due to my deadened facial muscles. "That's OK, I'm Crewman McClellan, JC McClellan. You can call me JC if you like."

Dream tinkered at the controls for a moment and started the scan. "Now hold still while the scanner does it's work please," shi said brightly.

I sat patiently waiting for the machine to do its job. My nose kept twitching at all of the odd scents in the room, and especially the scent of the chakat. I honestly couldn't classify anything I was smelling. It was like I was smelling everything for the first time again and my brain couldn't make sense of all of the information. Finally, the scan completed and the chakat read the results, hir tail tip twitching as shi read. I could tell something was interesting because hir tail never stopped moving and shi was completely engrossed in the data.

"Lt. Dreamspirit? Dream? Heeelllloooooooo??" I said waving my hands in front of hir muzzle.

Shi blinked up from the results, hir eyes still far away for a minute or two then shi focused on me and held up a finger. "Give me just a moment, please!" and again shi was off like a shot back into hir office.

A few moments later, shi came back out with a box and set it on the table beside hir. "I would like to do a quick test if you are amicable to it?" Shi looked very attentive and hopeful. Shi held up a strip of cloth. "And I'd like to blindfold you for it if that is OK? I want to test your sense of smell."

Being curious myself, I nodded an affirmative and hir smile brightened significantly as shi leaned over and wound the cloth around my head securing it snugly and darkening my vision completely.

"OK. I'm going to have you smell a couple of items and I want you to identify them please. Here is the first one, take a good whiff!"

With mingled curiosity and a slight amount of trepidation, I inhaled and winced slightly as it felt like my nose exploded with smells and I instantly sneezed violently again. "Oh my GOD, what WAS that?" I asked rubbing my nose vigorously trying to clear the smell as my eyes watered behind the blindfold.

Dream made a "Hmmmmming" sound and said, "Try this one."

Not really wanting to, but committed to figuring out what the heck was going on I took another sniff. This time my nose didn't explode, but instead the scent was teasing. I sniffed again, deeper this time. The scent didn't trigger anything in my memory, BUT, it seemed to be a mixture of many different smells. They seemed to combine into a unique smell all their own.

"I smell eucalyptus, roses, cinnamon, and... Something musky, not unpleasant but nothing I've smelled before honestly," I said.

I heard typing on the console and the sound of hir rummaging in the box again. "OK, take a sniff of this please," shi said.

I obliged hir and the scent was very strong making me sneeze again but not as violently as fist time. "That smells like some kind of cologne?" I hedged.

"Very good, now wait a minute, count to ten and sniff again," shi said as hir voice trailed off.

Slowly I counted to ten in my head, but this time when I inhaled I didn't smell the cologne close by, but instead it seemed like it was off to the left side of me and I turned my head to follow it. "Did you move? I still smell it but now it's over there," I said as I pointed in the direction I thought I was smelling the cologne from, little did I know I was pointing straight at the sample shi was holding in hir hand.

"Remarkable!" shi exclaimed from some distance away and then I could hear hir padding back up to me. Also, I noticed that same "exciting" smell I had smelled earlier that had begun this whole affair.

"Wait a minute Lt. The smell I smelled earlier is coming closer. Is that you??" I asked with more than a touch of shock in my voice.

A minute later I felt hir taking off the blindfold and then shi set it aside and looked at me curiously, hir tail twitching like a hyperactive metronome. "The first thing I had you smell was this," shi said as shi produced a bowl of cut strawberries and I blinked.

"That was NOT strawberries! That smelled nothing like strawberries," I exclaimed with my voice sounding more than a touch worried.

Shi picked up the strawberries and held them out to me and I took another sniff and sure enough my nose exploded with scents again, this time though I didn't sneeze. Now that I concentrated on it, I could smell strawberries... I could also smell the bowl and the fact that before the strawberries it once held cereal. I could smell the water that had been used to wash them. I could smell the green leaves on the tops of the berries themselves. Each item having its own distinct scent and together it now explained what I was smelling. This wasn't happening. I would have to walk around with cotton stuffed up my nose or this would drive me slightly insane. I started to shake a bit. "What is wrong with me?" I pleaded.

Dreamspirit placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, which made my nose twitch again. "It seems that the excretions from the digger cleared out some old mucus in your sinuses and increased the blood flow to the turbinates' in your nose increasing your ability to scent things. Significantly I might add. The first smell you were picking up was me. I'm coming into the height of my female phase and that is what you were scenting. Everything else is how things smell to those of us with a keener sense of smell. The second item I had you smell was a scarf of a friend of mine that left here over three weeks ago. You were able to pick out not only the scent of the plants shi works with in the botany lab, but also hir individual scent even after all this time. From what I can tell, your nose is on par with most canine morphs, if not a good bit better actually. You just don't have the training or the data-bank of the different scents in your noggin to make sense of all of the new information," shi explained.

Noticing the look on my face, shi smiled kindly to me and said, "Don't worry, this should only be temporary. Once the excretions break up in your bloodstream, your sense of smell should go back to normal... I hope..."

I sat there with what I'm sure was a depressed expression on my face while my brain sorted through all of this new information. "Well, I guess it could be worse. At least the digger wasn't poisonous! I guess it's better to have a better sense of smell that be dead." I made another face before saying, "That didn't sound very 'bright side of life', did it?"

Lt. Dreamspirit laughed for a few seconds while I turned red again. I was never very good at talking to others; I guess it took the issue of something odd happening for my brain to focus on something other than trying to be social with someone I didn't know. Now that I was no longer occupied with something else, my natural introverted nature was coming back into play and I wasn't sure what to say or do any more. Hir ears pricked forward for a moment in my direction and shi stopped laughing.

"I'm not laughing at you, you know that right? I thought you were making a joke and it was amusing," shi said looking at me curiously. "Oohhhh I see... You're one of those socially awkward people, aren't you?' shi stated bluntly.

I instantly stiffened in my chair. Anger curled in my belly for the first time fueled by embarrassment. Shi took a step back hir ears laid flat and said, "Whoa... Whoa... easy there, Crewman. I wasn't trying to embarrass you; I was making a clinical observation." Shi made a face of hir own. "Don't feel bad, as you can see, you're not the only one who can stick their paw in their mouth. Being a scientist, I also tend to get a bit absorbed in my own world and my work. My mates have to constantly remind me to get out of my own head for a while and enjoy life."

Shi looked at me closely again as I kind of slumped in my chair. "Aaaaand you don't have a mate to remind you... Girlfriend?" shi asked curiously at which I shook my head no. "Boyfriend?" This time I shook my head no with a touch of anger which made hir ears flick. "Coworkers? Friends?" This time I just didn't do anything except stand up and look around for my tool bag.

I found my tools and straightened my uniform to look more presentable. "You reported a damaged data terminal Lieutenant? Can you show me which one and I'll see about getting it fixed right away so that I can let you get back to your work," I said rather abruptly attempting to cover my discomfort with routine.

A look of chagrin crossed hir muzzle briefly as shi noted the formal address and the way that I had quickly clammed up and shi nodded pointing to the data terminal in question. "The digger managed to gnaw on a few components last night when it escaped," shi explained in a calm voice.