“Borrowing Someone’s Else’s Body…”
***
I’m back with another writer challenge prompt from The Writer’s Block by Jason Rekulak. It’s good to be back writing anything again.. I think the recent period of winter-summer helped give me a boost of creativity. I was able to make it (1) out of the house and (2) actually made it to New Quay for a few hours basking in the sun. I really don’t know what it is with winters, I just switch off. So hopefully that weather forecast of unto 13 inches of snow being dumped somewhere on the UK in the next few days isn’t accurate…
Anyway, back to the point of this post and the writing prompt this time: “Imagine that you could wake up tomorrow in someone else’s body. Whose would it be? How would your life change? What are some of the first things you’d do?”
This turned out to be an interesting challenge for me, and I went with fictional characters rather than myself personally as I wanted to use this prompt to create a story. I also ended up writing in first person narrative and in the present tense which are two styles I normally run in fear from.
Do any of you use writing challenges or tags, or anything else? Let me know all about them!
‘Why don’t we swap lives for a day?’
…Why don’t we… My eyes shoot open to someone else’s life. Normally, I’d wake up to the constant grumbling of heavy traffic on the road below and the sporadic chatter that accumulated at the bus stop; to my life, back in Bristol. I’m not sure where I am now, only that there’s a blinding amount of sunshine pouring through the thin curtains and no hint of traffic anywhere near. I sit up and knead at my temples trying to piece things together.
I had been meditating before falling asleep and decided to try astral projection for the first time in many years. My life is rather stagnant at the moment and I wanted to feel a connection to the arcane again. Anything to feel like my life had more meaning to it than a potato. Anyway, that’s when I bumped into someone else. Billie. Her name was Billie. She seemed as lost and frustrated as me, so we started talking. Turns out she wanted to escape from the mundanities of her own life as much as I, and that our lives were opposites, and that’s when she suggested we return to each other’s bodies instead of our own. I agreed, thinking it was nothing more than the madness of my own mind and my astral travel had morphed into lucid dreaming.
Yet here I am. Awake in someone else’s home. Oh god, what else did she say? Where did she work? What hours? I turn to the bedside table and sigh in relief that she leaves her phone in a similar spot to myself, and attempt to figure out the finger recognition. Someone called Rachel Scallywags sent a text asking to swap shifts, so Billie doesn’t need to go in today. I study the conversation so I can reply as authentically as I can and put her phone back down.
In a way, I’m kind of gutted I don’t get to go to her workplace. I came out of university a couple of years ago having gotten my Masters in journalism. Since then, there’s not been a single sniff of work anywhere. It’s utter madness that I live in a city and somehow can’t land a job. I’ve just been festering in my apartment being the scourge of society and avoiding people while trying to navigate the online world of self-publication and blogging.
That reminds me actually… I pick her phone back up and open up the map to see where I am. Some village called Gwithian. It’s right on the coast and I’ve picked out a cafe close by that looks like a surfer’s paradise and a good place for breakfast.
The phone beeps at me, bringing me back from my coffee and surf filled reverie and I can see it’s a response from Billie’s work colleague again. I wonder if Billie is a social butterfly? That thought sends a rush of dread throughout my body and I turn the phone off. Sorry, Billie, your phone is mysteriously dead today. I hope no one panics about her. I mean she seems close in age to me, so surely one day of silence isn’t going to cause a mass freak-out?
Okay. I’ve got someone else’s body for the day and where ever I am, the weather is way too good to be indoors. I’m also aware that Billie’s body works properly, you know, has normal energy levels and all. She probably has a better lifestyle and diet than me, which I’m no doubt about to butcher with a fully loaded bacon buttie at that cafe.
***
I’ve so far made it halfway through the day without any kind of disaster or run-in with a part of Billie’s life. I’m also one hundred percent coming back with my own life as soon as I can. I think the guys up at the cafe have started to sense something un-Billie about me though. I’ve made several trips for provisions and pretty certain I used my last life or something on the last trip for more coffee and the chilli beef nachos.
Billie must know one of the staff members that just came on, and I’m guessing the may well be a vegetarian or vegan. I should leave her a note apologising profusely before the end of the day. I stop my thoughts from contemplating what she could do with my life. Whether it’s good or bad, I don’t want my demons to follow me here and wreak havoc in paradise.
Right now, I’m sat with my back against a well-weathered granite rock that’s warm from hours under the sun and doing wonders to get chill out of my bones from being in the water for a couple of hours earlier. I had to relinquish the sea when a group of six surfers appeared, which is fine with me as I now get to watch them instead.
Someone in a blindingly white jacket is currently storming on to the beach. Judging by the scowl visible even this far away, I wouldn’t want to be the one at the end of his wrath. I turn my attention back to the surfers and wriggle my toes into the coarse sand, breathing in the fresh air that is perfumed with the intoxicating scent of gorse and tase the salt on my lips.
I’ve got to get away from Bristol. There are so many pros to living there…but I feel like I’m home here in this tiny village no one has heard of. It’s like my eyes have opened to a completely different world of slumbering ancient power, arcane secrets and wild spirit. I can feel my soul responding and connecting to this place in a way it never has before.
The sea is the most delicious shade of colours reminiscent of a peacock’s feather. Indigo and lapis melt into sapphire and turquoise as pearls of white flash through the sun with each crashing wave. There are miles of golden sands stretching away in either direction disturbed only occasionally by the jagged outcropping of granite that adds to the wild energy of this place. I can also see a striking white lighthouse further around the bay which is Godrevey point. Basking in the wonder of this place, I can understand why artists love St Ives so much, there really is something about the lighting here.
“I’ve been looking all over for you for hours. I only heard about you being down here by chance from Rachel who saw you heading this way. Why is your phone off?” Approaching me at a rate of knots is the guy I noticed moments ago, piercing green eyes flashing in the sunlight. Why is the name Rachel familiar? I don’t know any Rachels. Wait, the girl Billie swapped shifts with… More to the point, who is this guy and what does he want with me?
Now I can clearly see his expression, it’s somewhere between really hacked off, and also someone who’s been fretting for several hours. Was Billie meant to have been meeting him? Maybe I shouldn’t have turned her phone off… but instead, put it on airplane mode and checked it intermittently. He’s incredibly beautiful though. I feel like I’ve met him somewhere before, which is insane as I’ve never been to Cornwall before today.
“Oh…it died and I couldn’t find the charger.” I lied. Actually, I know exactly where the charger lead is. It conveniently fell behind the sofa cushions first thing. He stops inches in front of me and I can feel his eyes scanning right through me. It’s kind of unsettling actually, it’s like he knows something is off….something isn’t quite Billie.
“What’s gotten into you? You’re not yourself at all today. First you drop off the face of the earth without a message, and now I find you, you’ve been in the sea?” His eyes are boring right into me and I realise a fatal mistake. Billie doesn’t like water. The expression on this guy’s face is making that point especially clear to me right now.
Wait a minute, is this… oh no. Oh crap. It is. It’s Billie’s boyfriend that I’m only just learning about now. He’s crouched down and pulled me into a crushing embrace, probably thinking his Billie is having some kind of mid-life crisis. Which she is. We both are. She wanted out of this life for a bit, and I’m now trying to work out how to be someone else’s girlfriend without crossing any lines.
“I’m sorry I didn’t text you or anything. I just…wanted to get out.” What? How lame is that excuse?
I know it.
He knows it.
There’s one hell of an awkward silence stretching out and I start watching a surfer who is about to have an almighty wipe-out any second. “So…how was your day?” Yes, turn the conversation back on to him, I can figure this out.
“It’s been a weird day all around. The computers at work have been crashing non-stop and calls have been dropped or crossing wires. Anyone would think Mercury had gone retrograde or something.”
Now I’m starting. In my entire life, I have never met a single bloke interested in magic or astrology or even anything of the sort. Yet this guy just casually mentions something like a planet moving back on itself. Why on earth would Billie want to get away from her life? Even if the job is crap or something, she’s got this guy. I’d go through hell for someone like this. Wait. What am I saying, I don’t actually know this person. Right now, I don’t even know his name. I also don’t know that much about astrology and he’s waiting for a response.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” He’s looking at me suspiciously again. At me and the offending evidence of my lunch that’s still lingering nearby. I was really hoping he wouldn’t clock that. Please don’t ask me about diet related questions?
No. I am definitely not okay right now. “I’m fine, really.” Yup, just go with the fake smile Morgan, there’s no way he’s going to see straight through any of this. I feel like I should reciprocate some sort of physical attention right now, instead of simply sitting with my fingers idly drumming into the sand.
“Okay, so you’re definitely fine to come with me to see the boys in a bit?”
“Of course.” I keep doing the best natural smile I can. He’s trolling me now, I just know it. Who or what are the boys? I also know that no matter what tricks I try to use, he is not going to give me a clue on what I just let myself in for. “I can’t remember we agreed for dinner plans though.” Food or weather. Always a safe conversation topic.
“We didn’t agree to anything.” …Or not in this case. Thankfully his attention was caught up by the surfers, so he missed the horror that no doubt just flashed across my face. If every day is like with for Billie, I can see why she’d need a day off. Casually as I can, I finally pull my hands away from the sand and wrap my arms around his neck, burying my face into the warm skin.
I can’t just sit there like a potato anymore. But it also feels completely right. It’s like he’s weaving a spell around me as he turns his gaze back to me. Even though neither of us are saying it, I feel in the core of my existence that he knows I’m not Billie. My head is spinning like crazy and I can feel the madness awakening inside of me as his fingers trace down my spine. We’ve been here before. Somewhere. Sometime.
I realise something at the back of my mind. The madness isn’t waking up because of this guy and the crazy scenario I’ve found myself in. Something has happened back in my life. Don’t ask me how I know that right now, but I can feel white-hot rage gathering in the pit of my stomach. Or is it Billie’s rage? Can she sense my proximity to her boyfriend? No…that doesn’t explain the insanity that’s trying to summon my demons here. I have to get back to my reality, everything is starting to make me feel violently ill and confused. I have to somehow-
“What’s going on?”
He sounds terrified, and I can’t answer him. I just press myself further into his embrace and feel my fingers twine into his hair. I can feel his embrace tighten even more and feel the searing pain in his heart. I want to scream that I’m not Billie, that he’s holding on to the wrong person. I want to stay in this moment with him forever. I can’t though, this isn’t my life.
My mind finally reaches into the abyss of meditation and the strange swirling, floating weightlessness that comes with astral projection. I keep my eyes and my mind focused on the faint ball of indigo light that is guiding me back to where I need to be and ignore the other spirits around me. I can see the ghostly image of my body sleeping between worlds I drift through fields of celestial matter and quicken my pace towards it, the ominous sensation clawing at my heart with every step. What has she done in my world?
“Morgan…” I feel the sensation of the ocean tugging me back as someone whispers my name through crashing waves as I start to reconnect with my body. Something important and unintelligible continues to whisper through the darkness, so many voices trying to be heard. There’s some lingering sensation in my heart that doesn’t want me to return, but I can feel the tingling in my feet that tells me I’m almost awake. There’s also still the opposite sensation of foreboding waiting for me in the physical world. “Wait, don’t leave me.”
***
I’m bathed in the amber ambience of Bristol streetlights and staring back up at my ceiling again with tears falling into the pillow. How long was I asleep for? Why did it take waking up to realise who was calling out to me just before I reconnected with my physical body? I remember why he was familiar to me all afternoon too, I’ve been dreaming about him for over ten years and never knew his name.
I’m also not alone in my flat.
