A Freakier Friday

Liza Minnelli and former husband Peter Allen supernaturally swap bodies and jump in time.

Liza Minnelli awoke with a start to the klaxon of sirens outside. From where she lay, she scanned the room and determined she was in some sort of concrete enclosure, perhaps partially underground, with a slit of a window near the ceiling providing only as much illumination it would take for her to orient herself. How she had gotten in that enclosure and exactly where she was at she didn't know.
         She swung her legs from the padded platform on which she was apparently lying, and she noted how much heavier her legs had seemed. She heaved herself upward, propping her torso on arms that also felt foreign, and stood up, momentarily perplexed at how much further she seemed to be from the floor. She looked down and saw that she had men's dress shoes on, and as her eyes traveled further up, she saw trousers. She held out her arms and was surprised to see strong, sinewy limbs that were clearly not hers. She frantically patted her chest and was confused at not finding her usual curves.
         What in the world?
         Her thoughts started racing as she quickly made her way to a makeshift mirror atop a rudimentary sink. The reflection that stared back at her made her heart stop, and her brain went into overdrive, trying to make sense of everything that was happening.
         The face she saw in the mirror, just as wide-eyed and dumbfounded, was not hers. Despite her overwhelming confusion, she had no doubt she was staring back at--

Peter Allen blinked himself awake to the sound of a rooster crowing in the distance and a sharp ache in his abdominal area. He brought a hand to squeeze it as if the act would alleviate the pain. It didn't. He looked up at the ceiling and immediately noted its unfamiliar nature. He winced as he got up but noticed a lightness in his stature.
         That things were drastically different didn't fully register until his bare feet hit the wooden floor and he looked down. These were not his feet. In fact, they didn't even look like men's feet at all; they looked childlike.
         What the hell?
         He stood with an ease he was not accustomed to and wobbled as he found himself needing to get oriented to this sudden, alien existence.
         "Liza May, come down for breakfast, sweetie!" called a female voice from another not-so-distant space.
         Liza May? Peter thought as he found a small bureau in the corner of the room that had a built-in mirror. He ambled up to it and shock overtook his being. There, as clear as day, was not his own face staring back at him. It was unmistakably, although much younger, the face of his wife, Liza--

"Minnelli." Liza said when asked to identify herself with a voice that wasn't her own.
         "First name?" the guard followed up, in strained English.
         "L--" she starts. Then: "Larry."
         "Larry Minnelli," the guard repeated, noting it on the clipboard. "Larry Minelli, explain how you managed to get inside this cell."
         "I, I'm not sure," Liza said. "I don't know how I got here. Sir."
         The guard looked at his comrade in continued confusion. The other guard just shrugged. Then, to Liza: "We will take you to Herr Schlitz now."
         Liza nodded and followed the two guards down a dark corridor. Where the hell am I?

Peter descended the stairs, and a rotund, older woman wrapped him in a warm embrace.
         "You sleep well, honey?"
         "I, I think so," Peter said and was shocked at the female voice that emanated from his vocal cords. "I'm feeling a little confused today...Nana...?"
         "Nana?" the older woman said, grinning. "You been watching too much of those British shows, sweetie. Let's stick to Grandma."
         "Grandma," Peter repeated, his tinny voice still sounded strange to him. "Where am I?"
         Liza May's grandmother looked at him quizzically. "Did you hit your head, honey? What's gotten into you? We're at the farm. You arrived last night. Are you missing the city already?"
         Peter smiled. "Sorry, Grandma. What--What are we doing today?"
         The older woman stooped to give Peter's cheeks a squeeze. "Any old thing you want, honeybunch."

Larry Minnelli had been shuffled around from one prison to another in the past two years. Outside this shared cell, the war waged on and he was not clear which side was winning. He'd heard the Germans were but there was chatter among his fellow inmates that "the Allies" had the edge.
         "Hey, Minelli," said the other American in the group. "You got a squeeze back home?"
         Larry thought for a moment. "Yeah. Quite the catch."
         His compatriot smiled with a crooked grin. "Lucky bastard. I wish I'd hooked up before shipping out."
         Larry chuckled, despite himself. He arose from his crouch and walked to the tiny window. Outside, his world was a mixture of gray, black, red, and orange, of distant screaming and cries, and of dread.
         An old tune played in his head--"Losing My Mind"--an apt song in that moment, sung beautifully by a decidedly female voice.
         His old voice.
         From a different time and place.

Ten years later, Liza May Minnelli shuffled backstage, the cheering audience behind her. Her manager handed her a towel and she dabbed at herself gingerly.
         "Did you hear the collective gasp when you started playing the piano?" he asked. "They were shocked!"
         "I'm happy I finally got to do it," she said. "So tired of just singing and dancing. I'm a performer, dammit!"
         "That you are, my love," her manager said, his eyes soft.
         Liza May leaned in to kiss the love of her life, a sensation the Peter Allen she used to be could only have dreamed of.
         "You ready for your next act?" her manager and lover asked after breaking from the kiss.
         "Boy, am I ever!" Liza May proclaimed.
         Before getting back onstage, Liza May Minnelli shook her head in wonderment.
         I love this life!