Last Monday saw the release of the first edition of the of Altered States anthology series and my fellow contributors and I are celebrating by sending a series of guest posts out into the world.

Similar to the Round Robin I did for the release of The City of Hell Chronicles anthology, we have gathered up a few willing volunteers and put to them questions about change.

To learn more about of Altered States and its contributors, visit the group's website and the individual contributor's links below.

Here is part two of the Round Robin of Change;

Wales. On top of Mount Snowdon in the blistering sun. A pint in the summit cafe later, torrential rain. I broke my leg. The Welsh laughed. I'm still scarred by it.

I remember snowdrifts and blizzards and skidding down hills on planks of wood. Now winter is cold rain trickling down your neck as you wait for the bus. Mediterranean climate, my arse. Britain's an island. Global warming will just allow more of the water that surrounds us to get up in the sky and piss on us. Bloody muppet skeptics with their screwed up priorities. I used to like snow.

When the forecaster said, "There'll be snow in the north east this weekend," I hadn't believed him. But now, standing at the foot of the stairs, there's a snow drift in the hallway. The front door must have blown open in the night. It's June in Scotland for heaven's sake.

My bedroom window shows the weather coming; tubes of golden sunshine, barreling clouds, horizontal stair rods of rain. Generally it comes from the west; right to left. When it shifts and drives from the south the wind billows the curtains and our windows leak.

And even as he braces for the impact he's thinking that it was dry out when he started. Not a cloud in the sky mother. Help me. She stood at the door and waved me goodbye and the sun glanced off the windows like the flash of a lover's eye at the dancehall as our song begins. He takes her hand.

I really had to get used to changes of weather when I lived in New Orleans, U.S.A. Normally it has a subtropical climate, supplied by the Gulf of Mexico, but every once in a while the wind would change to come down across the plains of Canada and the Midwest. Especially in winter this dropped the temperature significantly within a matter of hours.

The first winter got to us.  The first time it snowed and the temperature dropped to negative numbers and the cars all looked like they wanted to be somewhere else.  That got to us.

That was it.  We were never leaving Southern California.

I used to be optimistic. I used to have faith in the human race. These days, I expect nothing and have faith in nothing. Life is but a dream was never truer. It's all whirling, confusing conundrum.

I had a life once, but I lost it in a cloud of smoke and my true love's arms. She wanted me to become an engineer, I wanted to become a writer. The fact I can only count up to 21 when naked didn't help my cause at university. But that's okay, 'twas an amicable break-up. She loved me and I loved her, but we were better off loving from a distance.

The moment the plane's wheels left the ground we high-fived. "This is it," my husband said, squeezing my hand. "Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid." Just eight hours across the Atlantic separated us from our new life on the tropical island of Antigua in the Caribbean.

Freezing cold one minute, sweat pouring down my back the next. Duvet on, duvet off. Memory like a sieve – within the space of five seconds it's gone, whatever 'it' was. Extra-round tummy. Finding the grace to accept the change; step into the shift with my eyes open.

To lead her on the floor. His last memory before the lorry hits him, I imagine though I know nothing about him except what they told me at the hospital: the accident, his age. Sad to die so young, but at least he's giving someone the gift of life, said the tender hearted nurse as she painted yellow on my shaved and vulnerable chest.

I think the most profound change of life was going from final year of primary school to being the new kids in secondary school. When I nowadays walk into a room of strangers I am again reminded of that feeling of dread and insignificance that I had seeing all those older kids. Change of life for sure.

It happened in the middle of the night, it had to.  We didn't let the son-of-a-bitch in the house.  We wouldn't have allowed that demon to take our son.  We would have locked it out.

But it got in anyway, turning our loveable boy into a brooding, miserable jangle of emotional wreckage.

Our life hasn't been the same since we were visited by that Hormone Fairy.

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To read the other installments of the Robin Robin of Change, follow this schedule;

January 10: of Altered States – change of heart; direction

January 12: Victoria  Griesdoorn– change of weather; life

January 14: Cath Murphy – change of scenery; name

January 17: Stephen Godden – change of habit; shoes

January 19: William D. Webb, Jr. – change of use; for the worse

January 21: Colin F. Barnes – change of car; home

January 24: Julie Erwin– change of … (confetti post)

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Victoria is a scientist by day--reluctant writer by night, Clarion Write-a-Thon survivor, slush reader for Dark Fiction Magazine, and founder and editor of the 'of Altered States' anthology series.

Victoria has short fiction published in the upcoming City of Hell Chronicles and 100 Horrors anthologies. She's also writing her first novel; a tale of magical realism.