God Gives Humanity One Final Choice

A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeeped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, this AmericanLife.org. From WBEZ Chicago, it's this American life. I'm Laura Starchesky, sitting in for Iraglass . I'd been waiting for months for a certain moment to arrive. Garrett had mentioned it, Chrissy had mentioned it, people who and here we all were. Sitting in their house in the suburbs of DC. We were in their living room. Their son was hopping around with an icy popsicle in his hand. Over and I feel it. And Garrett's laptop was right there. Wasn't open yet. But I was on the edge of my seat. And finally she asked me. Are you ready for those? I'm ready. Okay. Oh you are. Chrissy jumped in to hype it up. It's beautiful. It's excellent. Yeah. It's a thing of beauty. And Garrett opened the laptop and pulled up a file on her computer called Valkyrie . After the Norse women. warriors They were very into the Thor movies around this time. Like for real though. And suddenly it appeared. A spreadsheet. Hold for applause. I was looking at many tabs, many rows, many columns, thousands of data points. This is where Garrett is mapping out their whole future. We're getting deep into my the inner workings of my mind. Okay. You know, I'm a data person by training. And by nature. And by nature. This is very much like part of my DNA. It's also part of their DNA as a couple. Spreadsheets are how they make all their decisions as a family. Like after Garrett finished a PhD in molecular biology, should she go into academia? Get a government job? Spreadsheet , she crunched the numbers, decided to rejoin the Navy as an active duty scientist. She and Chrissy had a whole plan. She'd serve for 20 years, retire, get a pension, healthc,are a stable life, where to live, the kids' schools, each and every one, spreadsheeted, with Chrissy's help. Normally we're pretty good at doing really concrete game planning. I get on the mental carousel and predict the future, and then she makes a spreadsheet to like wrangle it in. So that's how things normally go. But about a year ago, this family found themselves facing a big, complicated, very uncertain news situation. Garrett's trans and a lieutenant commander in the Navy. And last winter, President Trump signed an executive order banning trans people from the military. The order claimed that trans people are dishonest, unfit, and harm troop readiness. Garrett and other trans service members immediately brought lawsuits against the ban . So everyone was in limbo . Are we all about to get kicked out? Are we gonna be allowed to stay and keep serving? What's gonna happen and when ? There was just so little data. All these hypothetical things that could happen, could not happen, all the stress of trying to play chess around them and plan and spreadsheet around all these hypotheticals. Yeah, I mean you can't make decisions if you don't have information. Yeah. No matter. They would make a new spreadsheet and more spreadsheets. They would be on alert. They would be light on their feet. Because something big was coming for them , and they were gonna plan and bring all their skill and diligence and available data to be sure that they had control over how this was gonna go down. Today's show, how is this gonna go down? This family finds out, and it's not at all how they or I expected it to go. And another story of two people determined to make the exact right plans for the moment when everything's gonna ch ange. Stay with us . It's this American life, Act One, Freak in the Spreadsheets. So we're gonna continue to hang out in Garrett and Chrissy's living room with their kids running in and out as they strategize together. The first time I was there was last March. It was less than two months after Trump had issued his executive order. And the little family scene I saw with them stood out to me because one quirk, let's call it a quirk, that I've noticed as a trans person reading all the coverage of Trump's military ban this past year, is that the service members often appear like these islands. No family around them, no relationships, no community. Just a lone, isolated person. I've talked to a bunch of trans service members over the past year, and that isn't any of them. They all have their people . Spouses, kids, families, whose fates are tied to theirs, depending on them. Like Gareth, she's the main breadwinner here. They've been a military family from the start. Garrett enlisted at 17 and became a Navy diver. She and Chrissy met a few years later. They're both from military families. They have two kids, a daughter, eleven, and a son, nine.. Treasure Right now their son has his face in a video game. Zombies, skeletons, lava. I almost ran myself into a big old lava. Don't run into the lava. Just don't. Life lessons. This is this is life. This is big life stuff. Garrett and Chrissy are good at keeping it moving. Chrissy's intense, blunt, but kinda dreamy too. She's an illustrator. Loves to paint floaty undersea creatures. A lot of invertebrates. It back again. Their house is full of nerdy hobby zones. In the kitchen, historical cooking, with a focus on accuracy rather than deliciousness. Think cabbage stew every single week. For the last year or so I've been doing like medieval Europe basically and uh have worked my way up from like the Viking Age to Tudor England. Nourdle or the kids are in and out of the room as we're talking. I'm not gonna name them here. We're just gonna bleef out their names. What do you both know about what's going on with your mama's job? Um A lot . Their daughter, the older one, answers first. Okay , so the thing that I know she filed a lawsuit and then then it went through one of the courts and All this staring at the computer, it's because Garrett's always reading court bilings about the ban and memos from the military and signal messages with this whole network of trans service members who are all trying to figure out what to do. Now their son chimes in. And which is bad for me because Never plays with me and mom plays Strado Valley a lot. Mom play on the computer. The only thing I know about her job is that she mig ht get fired soon. It's true. This was the situation . And if Garrett did get pushed out, their whole life could go over a cliff. Fast. They could be forced to sell their house because they wouldn't be able to make their mortgage payment. They would lose their health insurance, which they would That they estimate would cost more than five hundred thousand dollars a year to treat without it. So it's hard to overstate the existential threat they were living under. But Gareth, like almost every service member in her position, was still quietly continuing to do her job. She'd commute to a military research office nearby, spend the day making decisions about where the Navy should invest millions of dollars in research money. None of that work had stopped. So it was like, life as you know it may be about to end. But also, act like none of this is happen ing . It was dizzying, all this uncertainty. The only way to deal with all of it at once was to develop the most extreme , thorough, multivalent family planning process I have ever seen. Garrett and Chrissy decided that they would make every possible version of a good future for their family come alive. Exhibit A, a spreadsheet, of course. A sort of in case of emergency break glass spreadsheet, gaming out their options if everything went completely to hell. Say Garrett not only got kicked out of the Navy, but also the overall backlash against trans people in America got even more extreme. More states passing anti-trans laws, new executive orders targeting trans people. If all that happened and Garrett and Chrissy decided the whole family needed to leave the U.S. She's developed a very um deep and complex spreadsheet of the best places to live based on her own uh rubric of quality of life that applies to only our family. What's in the rubric? Okay, God. They needed to find a place where they could make a living, be safe, and have access to specialized medical care for their son. It's a short list, but a hard needle to thread. And not only that, I'm very particular about data sources and like where you get data from. Most of the stuff here it's never clear So frustrating, all the subpar data just floating around out there. So Garrett unearthed sprawling files of original raw data from all kinds of because we're not moving to Malta. We're cold weather people. Yeah . Chrissy and the kids have Italian citizenship, so Europe is on the table. But so are approximately 5,000 other places and sub-places. I couldn't even focus my eyes looking at it. But Garrett filled me in. So far, the place that's come out on top. Germany. So far. Gareth was always adding new data whenever she found some, running the numbers again. When do you look at it? Whenever I get s super stressed out and I just need to look at some math to calm myself down . Yeah. It's my way of touching grass. It's worked in the past, but lately not so much. What does that look like? Well lately it's looked like a lot of crying. And um Chrissy doesn't like crying, but she I'm emotionally uh bottled up. Yeah. Yeah. Um so she would find me in bathrooms at one o'clock in the morning. So I got up to pee and just decided to start crying. And I'd secretly roll my eyes but also give her a hug . God. Get it toget her. You know, we'll talk about things or I'll talk at her about things until too early in the morning and she either falls asleep or gets frustrated because I'm keeping her awake. And so then I'll be like, okay, next time I'm just gonna keep it to myself. Which is sad. I don't want you to do that, but we also can't be up till two in the morning, like every night. Um yeah. And I just want, you know, I just want my partner to feel my feelings with me. I do feel your feelings with you. I'm actually really good at it. You are really good at it. But you exhaust me. Here's how fast things were coming at them. The Trump administration banned trans service members from the military. That was last January. They were out. The service members challenged it. They could stay in. Weeks later, a federal judge wrote that the ban was most likely unconstitutional. Stay in. The same month, another federal judge, I agree, stay in. Then the Trump administration went to the Supreme Court, claiming it was an urgent matter of national security. All the trans people had to go. Can't we just do this ban now while all these lawsuits happen? Will you allow it? A Supreme Court ruling on that question could come out at any time, which for Garrett and Chrissy was like whoa, we're about to get a real answer on this . And that's when, in their perpetual effort to never be caught off guard, Garrett and Chrissy decided Chrissy would travel to Germany. In May, she got on a plane to see if she could actually picture their family living there. She'd been sussing out job possibilities, checking out neighborhoods and cities. Frankfurt, Berlin Tonight at the bar I went to called Mr. Susan, fabulous bar. Everybody should go. Great name. Yeah. Five Americans bellied up to this bar. Like I was the fifth that walked in . The two couple on my right work for the State Department. One of them had just retired. The other one was close to retirement. And they were beside themselves with the stuff that was going on . Everybody's like, do it. Bring your kids here. Get it out of there . Which is heartening to hear. Makes me feel like we're not doing like we're not being stupid. We're not being thoughtless. Is there is there a part of you that feels like um you have to justify this idea of moving out of the United States right now? Absolutely. Absolutely . To ourselves, we've had to justify it. It kind of feels drastic, but at the same time, I don't want to be complacent. I don't want to pretend like nothing's happening. Yeah . Okay . Where are you? I'm walking to get the kids, I only have a couple minutes. Oh my god. I just saw what happened. Yeah . I called Garrett because while Chrissy was in Germany, the Supreme Court ruling came out. It was bad news. The court had sided with the Trump administration. The military could go forward and kick everybody out. So for Garrett and everybody else, this ban that had been looming in a theoretical realm for months was all of a sudden real and imminent . Are you kind of in shock? Or what's your mental state? I can't I can't tell. I know you also have to be a parent in like three minutes probably. Yeah . Um I mean it's a little shocking. Yeah, I guess I think as it's setting in, I guess as we're talking, it was a little surprising that they didn't even car ve out room for the plaintiffs because that means that now we're gonna be processed out of the military just like everyone else before the case even gets back to the Supreme Court to be ruled on its merits. Will you say anything to your kids or are you trying to spare them from the like blow by blow stuff? I don't know. I think um yeah I might talk to them in the next day or so . Um they get triggered by all this big time. So I don't want to freak them out about that kind of stuff. I don't have to . I didn't read the opinion, but I did talk to Garrett about it at length. I reached Chrissy the next day in her hotel room in Germany. It was late at night, almost midnight her time. What does she feel guilty for? I think that what she's feeling guilty about is feeling like her transition is creating this these problems for us . So I just tried to talk her down a little and I don't wanna catastrophi ze . I'm trying to look forward instead of getting hung up on what a bunch of bully fucking pricks think about us. Speaking of marching forward, now that the ban was real, here was the military's new policy. Trans service members had less than a month to make a choice: leave voluntarily, or wait for someone to find you and make you leave. Basically, the Department of Defense was saying we can do this the easy way or the hard way. You choose . Garrett and Chrissy try to find another way. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continu es. It's this American Life. I'm Laura Starchesky, sitting in for IraGlass. This is the story of Garid Morgan and her wife Chrissy, trying to navigate the military's ban on trans people and keep some control over what's gonna happen to their family. So one thing I asked Gar rid, have you ever had any issues with your commanders, your colleagues since you came out as trans? Any problems with anybody serving in the Navy with you? No, she told me. Not once. Which is wild. I asked a bunch of other service members, from different branches of the military, different ranks, what was their experience? And overwhelmingly, people said it was good. I actually got a lot of support. I got a round of applause when I came out to my unit, one army captain told me. This surprised me, because I was at least expecting more of a mixed bag. I'd read a few horror stories those were documented in the court cases but so many people had been serving through multiple administrations without issues. There's about a decade of experience to draw on, look at, study, on how it's affected the military, having trans people serve openly. And it's been kind of a nothing burger, I have to say. I mean, there's been no catastrophic failure of unit cohesion, no indication that trans service members somehow harm troop readiness, as the Trump administration has argued, without evidence. That's been true for years. Which is why it was particularly hard to believe that what the Trump administration was claiming about trans people, that was going to carry the day, and not the reality everybody was living in. But now the ban was here, and trans service members had less than 30 days to decide. Would they go voluntarily or involuntarily, the easy way or the hard way ? Presenting just these two unfavorable options is really just such a maniacally effective way to get people to do something they really do not want to do. This is evil genius stuff, mob boss stuff. So I just want to spend a minute on this choice. Voluntary versus involuntary separation . Voluntary separation, the first option, would mean you'd raise your hand, self-identify, and your branch would start the process of discharging you. You'd be eligible for an honorable discharge and you'd get separation pay. Involuntary separation, there was way less information about what that would look like. How exactly would the military find everybody and identify them. Was there any real way to challenge it if they did find you? And if you were pushed out involuntarily and got discharged, would you get an honorable discharge or something else . Even a dishonorable discharge? Was that possible? Because that follows you out into the civilian world forever. It shows up on background checks. You can never get any VA benefits. It's a big deal . But those details weren't part of the policy memo. Nobody seemed to know. And there was one more penalty to choosing that path. You'd get just half the separation pay that you would have gotten if you People had different ways of thinking about this non-choice when I asked about it. One thing that came up was the weirdness of volunteering to not do something, to quit. It went against all their training. Hank Young is a staff sergeant in the Army at Fort Drum in far upstate New York. He operates artillery pieces. He served for nine years, done a deployment to Afghanistan . And Hank told me that of the two options, voluntary felt like the only way to have any control over this process. So we'd put in his paperwork, checking the box that said, I'm here, I'm trans, and you can kick me out now. Um, how did that feel to be communicating that? It was it was scary. Um I weirdly was like I was actually like more concerned in my head. I was a little bit more concerned that I was gonna get judged for um electing to get out um than I was especially for being trans. I I really cannot emphasize like how strongly the army frowns upon anybody trying to get out of anything ever for any reason. So that was actually probably the part that um made me the most nervous I heard this concern a lot: that leaving voluntarily would mean letting other people down. Everyone felt responsible for the people in their units, the people they supervised, even their commanders. Brianna is a sergeant first class, Army Aviation. She's done everything from helicopter mechanic to drill sergeant to deployments to Afghanistan. She's only out as trans to her family and one close friend, and her immediate commanders, and was still showing up to work as a male officer. So to protect her, I'm only going to use her first name. Brianna was hoping to take the involuntary separation. She didn't want to capitulate, but her main worry seemed to be that her commanders could be blamed or punished for not turning her in. She didn't know what to expect. I have no idea. witch hunt so to speak and that's really the last thing that I want to experience myself and I don't want like my commander an excellent commander, my first sergeant, an excellent first sergeant, or any of my peers, I don't want to put them in this position of loyalty to the service or loyalty to a human being . So uh to me that would be a very compromised and difficult decision to make. And I don't want to do that to him . In the end, Rihanna decided to take the voluntary to. Most people I talked to did. Gar ed is one of the few people I talked to who did not choose voluntary separation. She didn't submit any paperwork at all. She decided to dare the military to come and find her, betting that she could find a way through before they could kick her out. Which brings us to Act Two . Act two, when the bureaucratic shark bites . One quick thing I need to say before we keep going. Garrett and all the service people I talked to did not speak to me in any official Department of Defense capacity. They shared their own thoughts and feelings, their personal views, and the Department of Defense wouldn't answer any of my questions about the military ban. They said they don't comment on ongoing litigation. Okay . So, the clock had started. There was less than a month left. Volunteer or we will find you. Garrett entered this new intense phase with the same focus she'd brought before. She would master every element of this bureaucracy, watching out for traps, gathering data, staying two steps ahead if she could . One small example. Once the countdown started, Garrett learned that the military was on the verge of adding a new question to this mandatory health assessment that every service member has to fill out online once a year. The new question would ask if you'd ever experienced gender dysphoria . Basically, are you trans ? If you clicked yes, a noti fication would appear, saying you'd been rendered non-deployable, not fit to serve, and telling you to await next steps. So Garrett jumped online before they could change the form and quickly filled out the old version before the new question was added. She figured, correctly, that would buy her time . This was the kind of careful maneuver she was executing on four different fronts simultaneously , keeping all the possible realities alive . Scenario 1. A court victory. She and the other plaintiffs win the court case. Could be years away, and sure, maybe they 'd all have gotten kicked out by then, but it was still possible . Scenario 2. Medical retirement. A while back, Gared saw a doctor about an old injury that was giving her trouble, and he referred her to be assessed by what's called a medical evaluation board. If the military deemed her too disabled to serve, she could be medically retired. And now that seemed like it could actually be a good option, since the threat of getting pushed out was looming. So Garrett threw herself into this notoriously arduous and unpredictable process: going to doctor's appointments, getting assessed, putting in a mountain of paperwork to document every injury from her service. And then she waited . Scenario three. Someone could turn Garrett in, and she'd be forced into the involuntary separation pro cess. Normally there are options to appeal and make your case if the military is trying to kick you out. Garrett could request to go before a panel of officers called a separation board, but it was unclear if that process would actually help her or just be humiliating. And then after all that, she could just get separated anyway . Scenario four. Germany, if necessary . She and Chrissy kept up with the house repairs, in case they had to sell, had the kids start learning German. I could not imagine, in all my trying, any base that was not covered here, any possible path out of this maze that was unexplored, and Garrett learned. A few weeks from the deadline, Garrett found out about an alarming detail buried in a memo from the Department of Defense. It said that if officers, Garrett is an officer, as Lieutenant Commander. If officers did not self identify, when they were eventually discharged, they'd get a special code assigned to them. It would go on their D D two hundred fourteen. That's a piece of paper that summarizes your military service. It's an official document . Garrett likened it to a birth certificate. You show it for jobs or to prove you've served. A JKQ code means serious misconduct. BDU means alcohol abuse. The code for trans officers who failed to come forward, JDK. And so JDK is gonna designate essentially designate us as national security wrists. What? Yeah. And so it was sort of buried in there and we didn't know what to make of it. And the lawyers got into it and it was like, oh, this isn't good. And then it was like, oh shit, this is like actually really bad . And it's just just feels so unnecessary . Like if you don't self-identify, if you don't make it easy on us, and you make us like if you drag us out and make us come and find you, we're gonna make it as painful as possible for you and as risky as possible for you. The JDK code would make it hard or impossible to get any kind of job where you'd need a national security clearance, which is the kind of job a lot of people hope to get after they were kicked out. kind of sinking in it really it was really hurtful and felt very scary . But honestly, like the next like a day or two later I just started feeling really indignant. And I was like, you know what? Like that sounds like a cool new tattoo. JPK . Did that make you want to do anything differently knowing about this code? You know, it I guess it just sort of stealed my resolve to not self-identify, and I'm gonna try to make my exit from the military as much on my terms as possi ble. I'd never heard Garrett sound like this, just openly defiant. But I was worried this was all gonna end in the worst case scenario for her. singled out, punished for not self identifying, and walk away with nothing. It was getting hard to see it going some other way . The deadline came and went. Garrett was still going to work, waiting. But nothing happened. One by one, almost all the trans service members she knew were put on leave, pending separation. One guy Garrett knew, who had also chosen involuntary, got a notice after the deadline passed. He's an instructor at West Point, was up for a promotion, but his name got flagged and he was put on leave. I couldn't understand why Garrett's name hadn't been flagged too. But it hadn't. She'd drive to work, check in, sit at her desk, look around. I'm really starting to feel like kind of like out on this island while everybody else is like back on the mainland. Yeah. And I'm like, am I the only one out here? Garrett worried that somebody at her duty station would report her for continuing to show up. At work, she started avoiding the bathroom and the locker rooms, changing in her office or in a closed bathroom stall. She didn't want to raise any alarms. A few weeks later, Garrett got an order to start working from home. It was like one more door closing. Still have a job, can't show up at work. But she'd just work from home as long as she could. And then, in the beginning of August, Gar ed texted me. She had some news. She said I should call her. It was gigantic news, it turned out. And it was a good thing. Her medical retirement had come through. When I called , it sounded like she was afraid to get too excited or she'd jinx it. It's slowly been sinking in and I've been like it's uh I've been getting like more um positive feels about it every day as it's sort of like seeking in like the reality of what this means here's what it means. Garrett would get a pension for the rest of her life, health insurance for life, for her and Chrissy, and for both kids, until they were adults. She'd be a regular retired veteran, no special JDK code branding her. She'd get an honorable discharge. And so I've got somewhere between, say, like 50 days to 90 days to where I'll be a civilian. Oh my gosh I know holy shit like that's really soon. Turns out somehow the best case scenario in all this was that Garrett had been deemed a permanently and fully disabled Chrissy just Chrissy's sitting next to me now. She said that she's worried I'm gonna use it to get out of doing dishes . Which I am now Chrissy, what do you feel about all this? I feel really lucky. To be honest with you. It took a minute for it to sink in with me as it usually does. Um I noticed that that da y I felt happ y . It's like there's like a moment in the movie Bad Guys where the wolf shakes his tail because he did something nice and his tail wags. I like turned around and my tail was wagging. Like is this what is this? So how do you square like this kind of process of persecution for who you are leading to this outcome? I was thinking about a way to answer a question like that while Chrissy was talking and I don't have a good answer. It's just like I mean I think this is all really raw right now. So the most clear way to look at it, I think, at this moment. Garrett started talking about this outcome in a really passive way. As if she and Chrissy hadn't been meticulously planning and mapping out all the different options. As if she hadn't pushed to submit all the paperwork for the medical retirement and stayed on top of every detail. It was fortuitous that the medical review board process got started before all of the policies started rolling out after the executive order. Mm-hmm. And that was your strategy . Yeah, I mean that was a that was a hope to try to get like that option on the table. Hi . I think that Garrett's trying to sound very circumspect and not like we made this happen a hundred thousand percent and everybody just needs to deal with it. But we have been gaming this . What? Like not gaming, but we've built a future. We knew this shit would happen and we worked to build a future based on we work to make lemonade out of these fucking lemons . And then you get to have a pension and be rewarded for the sacrifice you made to join the military to take care of us . I mean like the gaming. That sounds like That's not sneaky. That's not bad news bears. You made a plan and our plan worked that's okay god what give yourself some credit . What are you feeling, Garrett? I'm feeling like I'm still drawing a military paycheck, so I cannot agree or disagree with anything my wife just said on the record We are just protecting our family. Yeah. Strategically and methodically marching through the halls of a very complex bureaucrat ic system until we found the right door to open . And now we're gonna walk through it. The happy solution that Garrett and Chrissy found, it was pretty rare. Most of the people I talked to got discharged over the winter, and even the ones who pivoted really fast, started school, or found a new job, they told me they were struggling and disoriented. Wrecks mental health-wise . Garrett and Chrissy's safe landing was like one bright spot, born out of skill and a smile from some god of fortune that most people weren't gonna get . There are so many efforts right now by our federal government to pry entire groups of people away from their jobs, their communities, their lives as they've been living them. This particular effort to purge trans people from the military stands out to me. Not only because all of them are serving their country, making sacrifices so many people have no interest in making. But also because who is allowed in the military tends to be a kind of signal for the rest of America. Who is allowed to wear our uniform? Who belongs here? Who are we as a country? And for the last year, the government has been putting on a pretty flashy show of forcing out this one group of people only because of who they are . There have, of course, been decades of case law making that extremely hard to do, because it's discriminatory and unconstitutional. But here we are . Gared finally retired a few weeks ago. She and Chrissy thought about having her ceremony at a gay bar, but decided just to do something small with family. They're planning a trip to Germany later this summer for them and the kids, you know, keeping their options open. That story was produced by Miki Meek and edited by Nancy Updike and Hanna Jaffe Wall . Act 3: Beast Friends Forever To end our show today, another story of two people facing a huge disruption to life as they know it. But instead of making a million different plans, they have just one single very consequential choice to make. It's from a new book of short stories by Rachel Kong. In this one, God has given up on hum ans. It starts like this. And on the two billionth , five hundred and fifty-six millionth, seven hundred and fifty thousandth day, God reconsidered what he had made and decided that the world would be much better off if humans were other animals entirely, if they were no such thing as human beings at all . And then God gives every single person one choice. Here's the story. Jade was at her best friend Ruby's house when both of their phones pinged with the news, like it was an amber alert or a hurricane warning. At the end of the month, God declared, all people would be transformed. Ruby, Jade, and the rest of humanity would have 30 days to select what they wanted to spend the rest of their lives as. They had the entire animal kingdom to choose from. After the deadline, humans would not exist . Jade was straining pasta over Ruby's sink. The hot steam rose into her face, a carbohydrate facial. Ruby stirred the pot of sauce over the stove. What animals have friends? Jade asked Ruby. Ruby typed the question into her phone. Cetaceans are capable of true friendship, Ruby read. Higher primates, elephants, camelids, certain members of the horse family. Camelids or camels? Jade asked. And llamas and alpacas. They sat down to eat their dinner. Ruby poured their wine into her favorite little museum store glasses, which were shaped like egg cups. What animals get drunk? Ruby asked. That one, I know, Jade laughed. Elephants and parrots. Deer, moose, vats . So elephants have friends and get drunk, Ruby mused. Jade twirled spaghetti around her fork and conveyed it to her mouth. What do you put in this? It's so good. Fish sauce, you like it? I'm gonna miss your cooking. You won't though, Ruby said laughing sadly. You mean that's the kind of beautiful thing? For the first two weeks after the announcement, political bickering paused. Instead, zoologists were in high demand, appearing on television shows looking a bit confused by their newfound fame. Nature programs saw a surge in viewership and revenue. What's your choice? People asked one another. Everyone everywhere was trying to make sense of things. Fared out the superior choice Ruby thought it was ludicrous. The point was to be freed of trivial human concerns, and yet humans were already trying to extrapolate based on human social conventions, like romance and marriage. Penguins were well publicized as animals that made it for life. Many, many people wanted to be penguins, but were we going to have a world full of penguins? When it was getting so warm? Twenty-eight days before the deadline, Jade and Ruby met at their favorite What's your choice? Jade asked Halvor. It was small talk now. Electric eel, Halvor said. Very cool, Jade replied . In the darkened theater, Ruby produced the friend's preferred condiments from her purse. Fur cock, sea salt, a double bagged baby food jar of melted real butter . They had been friends since they were six years old. That was thirty years of being friends. At six, they'd made perfume together by steeping rose petals in water. At twelve, they practiced freak dan cing. At eighteen, Ruby held Jade's hair back as she puked from too many jello shots. They knew which movie the other wanted to see without asking . The friends emerged from the darkened theater, their eyes squinting to adjust to the light. Ruby loved the movie, but she could tell from the neutral expression on Jade's face that Jade hadn't liked the film, so she tempered her enthusiasm. It happened more frequently than you would think, that someone you loved loved different things than you . At their favorite faux restaurant, Jade ordered for the both of them. Animals that get the most sleep, Ruby said, are sloths, koalas, bats, armadillos, cats. You know, bats sleep a lot and get drunk, so those are pluses, said Jade. But they gross me out. You're only finding them gross because of your humanness. You wouldn't find yourself gross as a bat. You wouldn't like consider yourself in any reflective surfaces . Their faux arrived. Pink lily pads of rare meat, thin rings of white onion. They were both artists, Jade a painter and Ruby a novelist. But Ruby had always been the more practical of the two. It was what it was. Ruby disliked her own practicality. While everyone was busy being upset that they would be transformed into non-Homo sapiens. Ruby had come up with a spreadsheet of animals, listing the pros and cons of each. Don't make fun of me, Jade admitted. But I'm thinking of seeing an astrologer. Jade, Ruby said, shocked. I knew I shouldn't mention it. No, I'm sorry, of course you should. I'll be curious to hear what they think . Even though there was less than a month left of capitalism itself, businesses were still springing up. Consultants who claimed to be able to look into your soul via your eyes and tell you exactly what animal you were meant to be. What animals experience sexual pleasure, Jade asked Ruby? Dolphins, maybe? Don't dolphins seem so, I don't know, basic? The golden retrievers of cetaceans. Definitely. Jade dipped a raw bean sprout in Sriracha . We should be together though, you and me. Don't you think Jade and Ruby, stay who we are forever . One week remained. Ruby wanted to bask in the most human things. What were they? To her , they were domestic tasks that most others found unspectacular cooking noodles, solving crossword puzzles, pumpsing her rough feet, responding to emails with sorry for my delay in getting back to you. She even savored for the first time sitting in traffic on her way to Jade's apartment . What's the most human thing we could do right now? Jade asked. Escape an escape room? Bake a multi-layered cake? Jade nodded. Let's bake a cake and do an escape room. They were frosting the cake when Jade, using the offset spatula to smooth the frosting around the cake's sides, spoke up. I think I want to be a whale, Jade said . She seemed nervous to be saying this out loud, and Ruby turned surprised to her friend. It was the first time either of them had expressed a real desire. Until that moment, they had only brought up possibilities in a joking way . Oh, wow, Ruby said. She tried not to seem too surprised or at all alarmed. What kind? Bowhead whales live to two hundred . I don't know if I want to live that long, Ruby said slowly. Really? Jade asked. Don't we think it would be fun being in the same pod for two hundred years? I would love to be in your pod, Ruby assured. What if we chose a shorter lived whale? Blue whales only lived to eighty or ninety . Jade's voice had a tinge of desperation in it. Or beluga whales, they live to fifty. Plus they're cute. We won't know that we're cute. Don't be like that, Ruby, Jade said. Tears were gathering in her eyes. Be honest with me. Could you be a whale ? I don't know, Jade, Ruby said . I have to think about it. I'm sorry. They sliced and ate the cake in silence. When it came time for their escape room appointment, Jade told Ruby she wasn't in the mood. Actually I think I'd rather be alone right now, Jade said . Okay, Ruby said. Of course, no problem. She took her car keys from Jade's kitchen counter. Then she hugged her friend, who returned her embrace stiffly. All her life Ru,by had felt like a weirdo. What other people had: groups of friends, romantic partners, weddings where they were treated like celebrities, spacious houses, adorable and well-behaved children, Ruby had never wanted. She wasn't shirking these things as a point of identity, but simply because she had always viewed them as extraneous, empty. Only two things made her feel like she wasn't completely inhuman. One was working, immersing herself in her writing The other was being around Jade. Only Jade had witnessed Ruby in every iteration of her life and not fled. Why couldn't Ruby agree to be a whale? It could be so simple. Thirty two hours remained. Jade and Ruby carpooled to their friend Cassandra's house. In their larger friend circle, everyone had been throwing extravagant parties , trying to spend all the money they could before money no longer mattered. Last week they attended a party where a traduckin sat on an enormous doily . The host sliced neatly into it with an electric carving knife, exposing the wonders within, a breathtaking meat geoded. Cassandra welcomed them. She wore a silk dress that draped beautifully across her round, uniquely human breasts. Jade and Ruby were pleased to see their friends enjoying themselves, but as usual, the two of them wound up talking to each other. Ruby's parents planned to be turtle doves, and her younger brother would be a partridge. They were irritated with her for not wanting to be a bird along with them. Ruby's mother was so bereft that she wouldn't speak to her . What are you thinking? Jade asked finally. The friends had been avoiding the question all night, wanting to enjoy the party. I think, Ruby said slowly, watching her friend's face . I think I want to be a turtle. Explain it, but Ribby felt deep in her bones that she wanted to be a turtle. Jade loaded a potato chip with caviar, placed the entirety of it on her tongue, and chewed for a long moment . But turtles live even longer than whales, Jade said, as neutrally as she could manage. I guess it wasn't about the lifespan at all, Ruby admitted. I don't know if I can explain it. A freshwater turtle? I don't think I want to be a sea turtle, unfortunately. So we won't even be in the same body of water . I know, Jade, I'm sorry. You can't let me hold you back from being a whale. Jade said nothing . Please, please don't be mad at me, Ruby said. I I I couldn't stand it if you were mad at me in our last she looked at her watch. Twenty-nine hours . Jade said nothing still. I'm just sad, Jade said finally . I'll miss you. You won't actually stop it, Ruby, Jade said angrily. Don't tell me I won't be able to miss . Tears fell down her cheeks and pronounced dramatic ripplets. I will miss you . And I'll miss you, Jade, Ruby said. She told herself she wouldn't, but she started crying too. Jade slept over at Ruby's. In the morning they indulged in a hungover feast of painkillers and waffles and bacon, which Ruby made extra crispy the way Jade liked. Afterward, they climbed under Ruby's roof and threw dirty dishes off the side of it, because they didn't need to wash them anymore. The dishes shattered satisfyingly on the asphalt. That evening Ruby and Jade visited their families. At the front door, Ruby hugged her father and brother . Her mother was still too upset to speak with her, so Ruby left a handwritten note that she hoped sufficiently expressed how much she loved her. Back at Ruby's house, they popped popcorn and watched Chung King Express. Over the years, they'd found the film charming and then annoying and now charming again. They brushed and flossed their teeth, not because they had to, but because sleeping with clean teeth felt nice. Lights out, lying side by side, they began to talk the way they had when they were girls having sleepovers. Earlier that day they had texted their final decisions to God, whale for Jade and Turtle for Ruby, and received brown thumbs up emoj is. At four in the morning their time, all of humanity would evaporate. Each person would be transformed and placed in a suitable habitat. Remember that time we raised snails? Jade asked. Ruby could hear her smiling. in the dark And my mom got so mad because it was dinner time and the snails were too slow. I remember, said Ruby, and we brought them inside in our pockets to race in the bathtub. Delilah and Joseph . I can't believe you remember that . They lay in the silence for a long moment . Do you want to be conscious when this happens? Ruby asked. Or should we try to get some sleep? I don't know. What about you ? I don't know either. There was another long silence. Jade, I'm sorry that Ruby paused. There were so many things she needed to apologize for that she didn't even know where to begin. The time she neglected her friend because she believed her work was paramount. The time she knew Jade was going through difficulties but hadn't known what to say. During those periods she'd cook bulk meals for Jade and mop Jade's floor. She knew Jade would have liked verbal reassurance too, but Ruby didn't know how to offer it. She never would know . It's okay, Ruby. Jade's voice was clear and steady. I know . I know you . I don't think I can sleep, Jade said. Me neither. Should we do something else Ruby stood up and turned the lights on. She peeked out the window and saw that other lights were on too. What about, Ruby thought? What about YouTube karaoke? I have a good one. Hang on. Ruby angled her laptop away from Jade so that the song selection would be a surprise. The familiar notes of Pockabell's Canon and D came on. Jade broke into laughter, delighted. They didn't need the lyrics. La la la la la la Ruby and Jade sang together at the top of their lungs. They put their phones down and with their arms around each other's waists were singing as loudly as they had ever sung, when in a moment, a hundredth of a second, Ruby and Jade vaporized with the rest of humanity. Adam scattering, traveling, reassembling, Jade in the Pacific Ocean, and Ruby in an Australian p ond. But as to be expected with such an enormous undertaking, there was a glitch. For a fraction of a second, Jade in the body of a blue whale, and Ruby in, the body of a freshwater turtle, sustained human thoughts. Jade thought, Ruby. And Ruby thought, Jade . Then God put his divine palm to his divine face and corrected the error. From then on, Jade swam and Ruby basked in the sun's warm rays. And God looked upon everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. The story was read for us by actor Melissa Tang and produced by Diane Wu. You can read the full version of this story, D-Day, in Rachel Kong's new book of short stories, My Dear You . There's a hundred bluebirds Twice as many tea was de ath . Everyone never looked back . But there's only one only who could go Our program was produced today by Miki Meek and edited by Hana Jaff Weald. Editorial help from Sonor Kurt. The people who put together today's show include Fia Bennin, Zoe Chase, Adrian Lilly, Stowe Nelson, Molly Marcello, Catherine Raymondo, Ruthie Petito, Nadia Raymond, Marisa Robertson Texter, Ryan Rummery, Lily Sullivan, Frances Swanson, Christopher Swatala, and Julie Whitaker. Our managing editor is Sarah Abdurahman, our senior editor is David Kestenbaum, our executive editor is Emmanuel Berry. Special thanks to Lieutenant Nicholas Talbot, Commander Emily Schilling, Major Erica Vandal, Major Julie Clavier, Captain Gordon Herrero, Senior Master Sergeant Jamie Hash, Specialist Wendolyn O. Priya R ashid, Emily Starbuck Gerson, Shannon Minter, Jennifer Levi, Amanda Johnston, Malkia Hutchinson, Lauren Gray, Sabrina Hyman, Kay Petron, Yowe Shaw, Kyle Pulley, Lindsay Church, and Minority Veterans of America, and the organization Sparta Pride. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. Please consider supporting the show as a This American Life Partner. You'll get regular exclusive bonus episodes, listen ad-free, and more. Join at thisamericanlife.org slash life partners. Thanks as always to my boss Ira Glass. Movie night with him is always the same thing. I brainstorm a ton of ideas, but he only wants to watch his favorite movie for the thousandth time. Any movie I suggest is met with the same response. That's not bad news bears . I'm Laura Starchesky. We'll be back next week with more stories of this American life.