Terry's scream had startled Rich to his feet, and he had no idea that he also had been transformed to an African American. He bolted to the washroom and stammered back in revolt when he saw the African American version of Terry standing in front of the mirror. Rich demanded, "Who are you? One of the house help? Where is Terry, why are you wearing her gown?"

Terry looked on him with wide, horrified eyes, "Rich? Is that you Rich?"

"How do you know my name? Where is Terry?"

She said softly, "Oh, Rich. It's happened to you too." She looked in the mirror and softly caressed her face, "You always get what you ask for, one way or the other."

Rich took Terry by the arm, "I don't know who you are, but you are in big trouble."

Terry pulled back from Rich and said, "Rich, Rich, it's me. Terry, I am Terry."

Rich's anger roared, "You are insane. Now I don't know…"

Terry pulled Rich into the washroom and placed him in front of the mirror. There was an immediate vertigo which overcame Rich; he braced his hands on the basin to keep from falling. Rich froze in spot, and slowly poked his finger into his face, "What in God's name?" He turned his head towards Terry, "Terry?" and she nodded. His attention went back to the mirror where he leaned in closely, "Is this some kind of joke?" Terry replied, "I don't hear anyone laughing."

Springing to action, Rich stormed through the bedroom and rubbed his hand through his hair, which he pulled away and with disbelief at the sensation of his different hair. "We have to get out of here. We have to go."

Terry buzzed around Rich, "Where are we going?"

"Anywhere but here for now. We have to leave. We have to find out what happened."

"Do you think this happened to everyone? Do you think everyone has turned black?"

Rich shrugged, "I don't know. But we have to find out what is going on."

Terry said, "Do you think this is some kind of hypnosis? Do you think someone at the party came to us and placed a spell of suggestion on us?"

Rich slowed down for a moment and contemplated what Terry had just said, "Maybe. I don't know. But right now, I can only say that I see both us as black, and so do you. This means so will everyone else. We didn't recognize each other, and I am guessing no one else will either. We have to get out of here before everyone wakes up. We have to get the keys to my car before anyone stops us and asks any questions."

Terry asked, "Why don't we just ask for help. Why don't we explain what has happened?"

Rich gritted the next words through his teeth, "No one is going to believe this, I can barely believe it myself. The most we can hope for is they put us in jail."

"Oh…. Rich," Terry placed her hand over her mouth as she realized Rich was correct.

A tall, slender African American in a butler's suit was walking past their room as they bolted out. They stopped in place in front of the house attendant, and he said "What are you folk doing here?" Rich said, "I don't remember you from last night." The butler said with an air of suspicion, "I surely don't remember either of you. How do you come to be in a white people's party?" Rich said, "I went to college with Kyle, we were invited." The butler raised an eyebrow, "Why? Were you the entertainment? I know Mister Kyle, and I know for a fact he don't let no colored people sleep in the big house."

Rich searched his wits for a moment, "There is always and exception," but these words lacked any confidence to be sold at a moment such as this.

"If what you say is true, then it can be verified my Mister Kyle. You two stay put while I go and report this to him."

Rich smiled, "Sure thing, no problem." The butler walked down the hallway, intermittently looking back with curious judgement at the African American couple standing in the hall of the big house. He turned a corner and the two ran to the empty ballroom. Rich hissed, "Where would they keep our keys?" Terry said, "We gave them to the bartender. Perhaps they are behind the bar." Rich ran behind the bar and said, "Keep an eye out." He searched behind the bar, "I don't see anything under here. Nothing."

From down the hallway came a bellow, "Better not be no colored people in my house!" It was clearly Kyle's voice, and the gentle thump of approaching footsteps.

Rich was frantically searching now, and Terry moved behind the bar to help. Both complained that there were no keys anywhere in sight. Again, the voice came from hallway, this time closer, louder, "You coloreds better get out of my house and you better not be stolen anything." Terry jumped with fright, and in doing so she tipped a bowl sitting on top of the bar which chinked, as though it were full of small metal objects… keys. She looked over in the bowl and quickly poured the keys out on the bar. Rich scurried over to beside her and picked out his keys just as a more threatening sound than Kyle's voice echoed through the ballroom: the clicking rattle of a shotgun being pumped.

Kyle was standing in the entrance of the ballroom, Rich and Terry took note that Kyle was still Caucasian, holding the shotgun in question in one hand to his side, with the African American butler poised behind him, who spoke, "Told you Mister Kyle don't let no coloreds sleep in the big house."

Rich said, "Kyle, you have to listen to me. It's me Rich. Something has happened, I am not really…"

Kyle interrupted, "Boy, you need to shut your mouth. I don't know anyone named Rich. I don't know or care why you are in my house," the shotgun rose and was aimed at Rich, "Get your hands up, Negro."

The very moment Kyle turned to the butler and requested that the police are called; Rich grasped Terry by the hand and made a run for it. The shotgun trembled in Kyle's hand, and so close to pulling the trigger he was, but the two made it out of the ballroom and out the exit. Kyle slowly lowered the shotgun and walked to the window, watching the two climb into Rich's convertible Thunderbird. "Shall I still call the police Mister Kyle?" asked the butler. "Yes," said Kyle as his fingers pushed back on the curtain, "Report a breaking and entering. Also tell them to be on the lookout for a white Thunderbird which has been stolen."

The Thunderbird sped up 29. Terry inquired as to what their next step should be, and Rich said, "We are going to my parent's house. I have to see if they know who I am. Did you notice that Kyle did not even remember my name?" Terry nodded, "Yes, but he didn't remember you when we entered the house." Rich nodded, "That's true. But after that story I told last night, in front of everyone. He would have to remember me after that. It's almost as if we not only changed colors, but our previous identities have been erased, and removed from the face of the Earth. We have to see my parents. I have to know if I exist anymore."

A siren blared, and in the rear view mirror of the car Rich saw the blue light flash. He looked at his speedometer and he grimaced, indeed he was speeding again. Rich pulled the car to the shoulder of the road, and the same pudgy officer stepped out, this time with his hand on the butt of his holstered pistol. The officer walked over in the same fashion as before. Rich said, "Oh, it's you. Thank goodness. We need help."

The police nodded, "You do need help. It's called bail. What you suppose a couple of colored people are doing in a nice car like this? You steal this car boy?"

Rich nervously chuckled, "No. I own this car. Don't you remember pulling this car over yesterday evening?"

The officer shook his head, "No. I'd remember a nice ride like this one. So, you own it? Mind showing me your license and registration?"

"Sure," said Rich, who leaned over to the glove compartment. He rustled around in the glove compartment and found nothing, "I don't understand; I keep them right here." The policeman asked, "Trouble?" Rich shook his head, "No, I mean I don't know. I can't find my documentation. Are you sure you gave it back to me when you pulled us over last night?"

"I have never seen you or this car before in my life. Now, why don't you just slowly step out of the car?"

Terry tensed and said, "Rich, what's going to happen? We can't go to jail. No one remembers us. No one knows us."

The officer patted the butt of his pistol and said, "Slowly, step out of the car."

Rich slowly opened the car door and stepped out. His mind went many places, but from somewhere deep inside, a natural response to a deep fear came over him, a fear which shone bright and clean that there would be no fair trial for him or Terry. The sensation took him physically, and he dove on the thick officer, wrestling him to the ground and punching him sharply on the jaw, rendering the policeman unconscious while Terry screamed in fright.

Rich jumped quickly back into the Thunderbird and started it up, knocked it down in gear, and sped away. He notified Terry they would have to put as much distance between them and the officer that they could before he came to. He stepped down fully on the accelerator, pushing the car harder and faster than it had ever been pushed.

They did achieve some good distance before steam began to hiss from under the hood of the Thunderbird, the car was overheating. Terry panicked, but Rich reassured her that they had made a good head start, and all they needed now was some water for the radiator and all would be fine. Rich looked around, for they seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. Ahead, though, something was coming into view. An outpost, a building, a diner, and the diner they had been in the day before.

The Thunderbird coasted into the parking lot with a cloud of steam shooting into the sky. Rich shut it down and both of them got out of the automobile. They rushed inside amidst the breakfast crowd, and the same attendant was behind the register as the day before. Rich, in an extreme state of fear, made his way straight to the water cooler and began to heave on the tank of water on top.

"Just what do you think you are doing?" asked the greasy cook.

Rich continued to wrestle with the water tank, and Terry said to the cook, "We need some water. Our car is broke down, we just need some water."

The cook pointed to the sign over the cooler which read, 'Whites Only,' and said, "Ain't this something. Just yesterday a colored woman and her son came busting in here like they was white people, and here you two come, just a day after. Two days in row. Go figure that. What is this world coming to?" The cook said to Rich, "You get away from there boy. Get off that cooler before I call the police."

With that threat, outside the window of the diner, a police car could be seen arriving in the parking lot. It pulled next to the steaming Thunderbird, and the cook watched as the officer stepped out and inspected the car, and then pulled his pistol. This prompted the cook to pull a pistol from behind the counter in a diner, already silent from the transpired events, and even more hush enveloped the interior Terry shrieked as the cook aimed the gun at Rich. Rich slowly turned his head and saw the barrel of the pistol pointed at him. The cook said again, "Turn it loose boy."

Rich gently turned loose of the cooler and began to plead with the cook, "You don't understand. You just don't understand. None of you do. It's not how it looks. None of this is how it looks. I'm just like you. I'm just like you." Rich pointed at his skin, "This isn't real. This isn't real. I'm one just like you."

A brief but perceptibly long moment of silence issued, and the cook said, "You're crazy. We're nothing alike."

Terry had just noticed the policeman outside, standing by his patrol car with his pistol pulled as another police car drove in. Her eyes flashed with fright, and she screamed, "Rich! Oh no! Rich!"

The cook turned the muzzle on Terry and said, "You quiet down!" In that instant, the actuated fear overcame Rich again, and he bounced on the cook's arm, twisting and turning his wrist until the gun dropped. The cook had fought back, but Rich had won this match. Quickly, Rich grabbed the gun from the floor and waved it at the cook, who said, "You a dead man now."

Rich saw the two police approaching, both with their weapons out. He slowly backed to the restroom, which too had a sign overhead stating it was for the use of whites only, and stepped inside, closing the door. Rich locked the door, and as he walked, dazed by a more insidious vertigo than before, backwards until he was against the wall, he heard his own voice from his memory as loud and clear as if it were being broadcast, "Terry, the future is built upon what you know and the people who give you the opportunity to use it." He whispered to himself, "My future is over. I have no future. I have no hope."

Rich slowly raised the pistol to his temple.

Terry had to be removed from the diner by the two policemen, screaming and crying in agony, for she fully understood with eyes widened in horror by what the sound of the gunshot meant. She knew Rich had taken his life, and that he could never compromise with this new reality.

Harsh morning sunlight came through the windows of the guest room in Kyle Kurt's home. Rich jerked awake, and sat straight up. He looked at his hands, which were white, and he jumped out of bed and ran to the washroom. He looked in the mirror and broke out in explosive laughter. "A dream," he crackled, "It was all a dream. Just a dream." Back in the bedroom he saw Terry sitting up in the bed, rubbing and observing her white arms. He saw she two was white, and he laughed. "A dream," he whispered to himself. His mind tried to release what had happened, for it was the most vivid dream he had ever encountered. "It must have been the booze," he said to himself.

He went back to the argument he and Terry had the night before, "Terry, I am sorry, I was drunk. I was wrong. I was so wrong about everything. Not just what I did last night, but what I did at the diner. The way I was. The person I was. I am so sorry."

She smiled, and she stood from the bed and said, "It's okay, Rich. I am just so happy this morning."

"Did you get a good night's sleep?"

"Oh," she laughed, "on the contrary. I dreamed we woke up and were not white anymore. We had somehow turned black," as she spoke Rich's smile began to fade, "and it all ended so horribly. We were so cast out."

Rich took her by the hand and said, "We have to get out of here while we can."

"Why?" Terry asked with the same blissful smile on her face.

"Because it's impossible that we both had the same dream," said Rich.

Terry's smile was replaced with confusion, "I don't understand."

Rich asked, "Did I shoot myself, in the diner, at the end of your dream?"

"How did you know?" she asked. "How could you know?"

"Because it wasn't a dream." Rich began to practically drag her to the door, and she stated she needed her shoes, and Rich said, "Leave them. We have to get out of here. We can't take a chance on it happening again."

Outside the door they came face to face with a butler, except this one was white. Rich said, "You're not the same one as before. I don't remember you."

The butler said with an air of suspicion, "I surely don't remember either of you. How do you come to be in a black people's party?"

"Wha?" Rich stammered. He and Terry slowly stepped backwards, when they heard a deep voice from up the hall, "Better not be no white people in my house!" Rich saw with unbelieving eyes, a tall African American man in the same morning robe Kyle had been wearing. The robed man said, "You whities better get out of my house and you better not be stolen anything."

Rich asked, "Kyle?"

The African American man in the robe said, "How do you know my name."

The white butler peered accusingly at Rich and Terry and said, "Mister Kyle don't let no white people sleep in the big house."

Above the hall, and over the big itself, the calm voice of Rod Serling pervades hidden to the four inhabitants, "Rich Fleeman and the future Terry Fleeman, that is if they have a future at all now. Passing from dream to dream? Or passing from world to world? They may never find themselves in comfortable surroundings again, but rest assured, you always get what you ask for in one way or the other, in the Twilight Zone."