Among you, find a fifty-year-old daughter from Brest, France. She lived with her talented pianist mother, was her mother’s best friend. She eventually killed her mother because that cheerful woman, in such pain from spinal cancer, begged begged begged her to. The obliging daughter, using Mom’s own favorite pillow, succeeded, died in prison for her kindness. There, back there, step out, you two-reunited. Look, yes, there you both are again. Embrace. Hello. Forever.

I see among you a breeder of Labradors despite her severe allergy to dog hair, a shoe manufacturer, a young man who gave away his fortune saving the historic homes of North Carolina, several Kiwanians, and the destitute Monte Carlo aristocrats who are married (very unusual, both halves of a couple turning up together here … and not just because of the time factor). Over there, a mortician accused of having Heimlich sexual sessions with his female dead. He kept feeling that certain bodies contained angels. We’ve put him back there in a cluster of the talent he intuited. Among you, a young painter who gave away his only tube of his period’s most costly blue, hand-delivered it via subways taken from Harlem at three a.m. Welcome. All of you have managed to transcend to this exalted rank, the most exclusive “key club” in the cosmos.

But do know, please, Homesickness is inevitable. It’s lonely, waking alone at so far a new camp—lonely even waking to dewy celestial consciousness. Lonesome also is the wing-itching, aforementioned. But, not to fret on finding yourselves weaned from overtly resembling your former fleshly self. Some remnants blessedly persist. We’ll touch upon those shortly. I believe you’ll be not unpleased …

Bye the bye, nothing is required here. Certain of our denizens opted for a good nap upon arriving in 1491 and have chosen never to end that supernal siesta. So be it. Little is demanded, and maybe it’s just me, but that far row on the end? Looks a teensy bit ragged, almost unattractive, thank you, there, I’m feeling better and you’re kind.

You appear if not exactly alike, then as similar as any given pair of shoes coming off the conveyor belt at the Thom McAn wing-tip factory outside Sag Harbor, New York, formerly managed, and most humanely, I must say, by the 19th from the left in Sub-Row 3. Yes, excellent. The maternity leave you implemented, madam, did not go unnoticed and still helps many. Welcome.

Your new face has been rendered only about as much like your old one (which it contains) as a brand-new pair of shoes in your proper size can be called personal and deeply yours. Your face has become wonderful-looking if generic. True, here at first, it appears a tad blank. There are but two ways that you can—with precision—be visually identified post-Transformation.