Normal

I had no idea they existed. You hear about these mutants in urban myths and camp-fire fantasy stories and, if you're like me, just ignore them. Sure, there's a lot of people think they're werewolves, vampires, aliens, and various other fantastic freaks, but you never expect to meet one that isn't acting or deluded.

Earlier tonight I found out otherwise. I discovered that someone I had known for many years was really a hybrid organism with twice as much genetic material as you or I possess.

Of course there were signs. I was too accepting of differences, unwilling to observe the obvious markers, too politically correct back in the years before political correctness became a media cudgel for beating office workers. It was tolerant people like me who allowed her to insinuate herself into our normal human society.

She was charming and effervescent, witty and talented. How was I to know she was an amalgam of two individuals? I knew her eyes were completely different colours but the significance of the mismatch eluded me. If she had sat down and told me "Virge, I am actually a chimera. I'm a fusion of two humans who lost themselves when they became me," I would have just laughed at her colourful imagination.

She is still alive even as I write this journal entry. There is nothing that I can legally do about it. There is nothing at all that I want to do about it. It's time for me to stand up and be counted. One of my friends is a chimera.