Filler Faves: Photobomb

In 2013 I wrote a few short stories that were age regression stories but NOT gender swap stories.  So maybe you'd find that more palatable?  Or less.  I don't know.  That's your deal.

Anyway, the titular story Photobomb is one I thought was pretty fun.  The idea came from an old Goosebumps TV episode (and book) called Say Cheese and Die...Again.  And I suppose the original Say Cheese and Die.  That was about some haunted camera that whenever it took a picture of these kids something bad would happen.  I think one got fatter and one got skinnier.

In my version every time this woman named Ann gets a picture taken (through various devices:  iPhone, digital camera, Polaroid, regular cameras) she goes back in time.

When it starts she's in her late 30s after a class reunion.  Ann is at a bar and kinda bummed no one seemed to recognize her.  Then her old friend shows up and they take a selfie at the bar.  When they look at the picture there's this creepy old lady's image caught by the mirror photobombing them.  They (mostly Ann's friend) make some jokes about it.

It turns out the old lady is a witch and so puts a curse on them that when their picture gets taken they'll get younger.

The next time Ann's picture is taken she's still in the bar but now she's in her 20s as a college student.  She has a run-in with an abusive boyfriend that reminds her of a traumatic incident.

The next time her picture is taken she's only 16 and her and her friend are trying to get into the bar with fake IDs.

I changed the name to Ann later.

These first couple of times Ann convinced herself this was all a dream or something, but when she's suddenly back in middle school she remembers what's going on.  She manages to stick around long enough to see a "psychic" for help on beating the curse.  On the way back home she gets drilled by a baseball and meets a kid named Ben.  He walks her home and they kiss, but then her picture is taken and she's suddenly a chubby 10-year-old at fat camp.

And then later she's back in first grade on picture day, where she desperately tries to avoid getting her picture taken.  She also learns some hard truths about why her parents got divorced around that time.

Finally she's a toddler and her mother takes her to a babysitter:  the creepy old lady from the bar!  But in a twist on the twist, the witch is actually a good witch.  You see, this "curse" wasn't exactly a bad thing; it helped Ann to see things from a new perspective and understand more about herself and the people around her.

The witch sends Ann back to the present, but now things are different.  Instead of being lonely and desperate she's married to Ben, the kid she met in junior high, whom she hadn't met the first time around.  So like Back to the Future now her whole life is better from going back in time.

See, it even had a happy ending.  But I guess since it didn't have gender swapping it didn't really sell all that well.  And maybe I should have but a girl on the cover but I thought the red skull was cool, like a horror movie poster.  Maybe I should have found a stock image of a little girl screaming and put that on the phone screen.

So this is a revised cover: