Body Jumping

by Brenda Lowder

  So I have to buy myself time until I can figure out what’s happened to me. Who are these people? Is this my wife? Are these my children?

  They aren’t my anything. This isn’t my life.

  All at once a sense of hysteria comes over me, a raging case of claustrophobia beyond anything I’ve ever felt. I yank on my arm—his arm! Not mine!—with all my strength, trying to pull myself out of his skin.

  “Thomas, Thomas! What are you doing?” Thomas’s wife leans toward me, worry etched deeply around her soft eyes.

  “Sorry.” I stop pulling on the old man’s arms.

  She takes a deep breath. “That’s all right, dear.” She sits on the bed by my knees and reaches out and strokes my—his—our?—arm.

  I feel a lifting-up, a tumult somewhere in the very base of me. A wavering like the flighty, unsticking feeling I get during the pause at the top of a roller coaster, right before the very long drop. My mind propels me forward even before the car begins its scream-inducing plunge. This feels like that. Like I’m hesitating on the verge of vibrating out of my skin—and into hers.

  But then, just like the vines and quicksand hindered my motion when I was bodiless, I feel a resistance, and then a physical wall. I push up against this wall, ricochet, and land back in the body of the old man. Without even completely leaving it, I think.

  Did my essence almost jump into Thomas’s wife when she touched me?

  I cough.

  “Thomas! Are you okay? Should I call someone?” The wife caresses my face. I shake my head.

  I’m not feeling the pull of my own body anymore. I wonder where it is and what it’s up to. A sudden vision of zombie-me doing high kicks without a soul makes me want to laugh hysterically. I’m losing it—my mind as well as my body, apparently.

  The young man at the end of the bed clears his throat. He’s wearing a stylish suit jacket, white button-down shirt, and pressed khaki pants. He looks like a stockbroker on his day off. I must have done well as a father.

  “Dad. I just want you to know…” more throat clearing, “how much I love you.” The young woman, who is blonde and attractive in a sleeveless teal sheath dress, snuggles close to him. He puts his arm around her. I cast her as the son’s girlfriend or wife.

  The other son, as I assume he is, has not come as far into the room as the others. Black sheep of the family? His hair needs to be combed and styled, and his jeans and AWOLNATION concert T-shirt are rumpled. He lingers by the door, turning once to gaze longingly out into the hallway before approaching my bedside. Once there, he kneels.

  “Pop, I’m so sorry,” he mumbles, his head bent toward the floor.

  What to say? What is he apologizing for? Does he think he’s responsible for his father’s current state of health? Or are these older sins? And how severe? Has he defrauded a bunch of retirees? Or just failed to live up to his potential?

  I have no clue what internal dramas plague this family. But I still know there is only one answer that needs to be made. “I forgive you, son,” I say and rest my newly time-wizened claw of a hand on the thick mop of hair of the younger son.

  I don’t feel any push or pull of spirit. Whatever mystical force has sucked me into this old man’s body and seemed to consider drawing me into his wife’s feels no such inclination toward this offspring.

  The young man bursts into tears. He catches my hand in both of his, kisses it, and lets his tears water my dry, wrinkled flesh.

  “I won’t mess up again.” He swipes at his eyes. “No more drugs and strip clubs. No more stealing.” His voice cracks and a small smile touches his lips. “No more parking tickets, I promise.”

  “Oh, Devin,” his mother says, her hand covering her mouth and her eyes filling with tears. She radiates joy.

  I feel the other family members press forward. Here is an outcome they are all applauding silently, approving with their quiet smiles and teary eyes.

  “Dad!” The older son’s face shines with pride. He steps around his mother and comes at me with both arms extended. Is he also looking for approval? Or is he thanking me for forgiving his brother? Was I cold-hearted before?

  The moment he embraces me and his hand grasps my naked arm, I feel a whoosh of uncontrollable force that thrusts me from the old man’s body into the elder son’s. Unlike my journey into the old man, I’m aware of leaving one body and entering into the other. I’m unpeeled, like a mango skin, from the old man and applied with a definite squishiness into his son.

  Shocked and dizzy from the one-eighty turnaround in perspective, I drop my new arms from the old man and spring back, hitting the thin hospital wall behind me.

  “Greg!” The mother reaches out a hand to steady the new me. Again, I don’t move into her body. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” I answer honestly. My voice is his and not mine, deep and male. I hope that my new face is exhibiting confusion and not the growing sense of horror I’m feeling. What’s happening? And why? Where’s the real me? Am I just a dead body now?

  I straighten and rise to my full height. I’m now in a position to find out.

  I’m now in a working, untethered body. I can discover the current whereabouts of one Miss Julianne Montgomery, the used-to-be me.

  A scream rips me from my excited musings. My mother, formerly my wife, is gesticulating wildly at the old man on the bed.

  “Where is it? Where is it?” Her fingers claw at the bed sheets.

  My girlfriend—wife?—and my brother join in a chorus of “What?”

  I stand there stupidly, feeling lost and clumsy in my new tall body.

  “The nurse’s call button!” Her panicky motions finally bring the desired button to her hand, and she presses it desperately.

  I see now what I should have known immediately.

  There is no one inside the shell of the old man anymore.

  The old man had been me, or rather I had been him, and I left. The real old man floated up past the ceiling what must have been hours ago. I’d only been holding his spot for a while.

  The doctor and nurses stream into the room, pushing past the real family members and me, the fake one.

  I slip away while the mother demands answers and the medical professionals demand the family’s absence.

  Chapter Three

  Where did the real Greg go?

  I walk in Greg’s body down the long corridor, my hard-soled men’s dress shoes echoing on the linoleum tile floor. How is this happening? And why?

  I’d grown up with the belief that people died and went to heaven. Or the other place. And I’m not saying that I believe that one hundred percent, but the other option—the idea of nothing happening after death, just a ceasing to exist—is too depressing to contemplate, so I tacitly assumed there would be a heaven. Or something.

  Not this. Really not this. What is this? Some kind of afterlife of body jumping?

  But I don’t even know if I’m really dead. In fact, I may not be. I wasn’t dead when I floated next to the accident scene when the EMT announced I still had a pulse. And then they rushed me to the hospital and for all I know were using extraordinary measures to keep me alive.

  I slow down as I approach the nurses’ station. My limbs are long and heavy, but I feel strong. I wish I knew my last name. In case someone asks. Then I remember I’m a man, and I probably carry a wallet somewhere on my person. I fish around in my pockets and find a wallet in my left-hand front pants pocket. Am I left-handed? I’ve always been right-handed. Still am, since I look down and confirm I’ve been rummaging through Greg’s suit with my right hand. Huh. Funny how my hand preference traveled bodies with me. I guess it’s all part of my real being. The real me.

  I pull his—my—driver’s license from the embossed leather billfold.

  Greg Applebaum.

  I’ve never known anyone with the last name of Applebaum before. It’s vaguely endearing. Like the name of a family who would own a farm in upstate New York. I’m twenty-eight years old and one
hundred ninety-five pounds. Funny, I don’t feel that heavy. I feel trim and powerful. But then again, I’m not used to being a man. One ninety-five is probably slim for a six-foot-tall man like Greg. Like me. Women probably find me attractive. Although, I wouldn’t.

  Greg isn’t my type. His face is too bland, too soft. He doesn’t have that brooding inscrutability that I find so appealing in Aiden.

  Aiden.

  Will I ever see Aiden again?

  It doesn’t matter, I remind myself. Even back when I was Julianne he didn’t know I was alive. It wouldn’t matter to him now if I weren’t.

  I put Greg’s ID back in his wallet and amble up to the nurses’ station. The woman typing into her computer has a pen stuck into the bun on her head. It’s standing straight in the air like an antenna. She looks up right away at my approach and smiles, a twinkling appreciation shining in her appraising glance.

  “Hello, there! How can I help you?”

  I was right. Women—or at least this one—find Greg-me attractive. Would they want to have sex with me? I’m sure the blonde girlfriend (fiancée? wife?) would. I shudder. How would sex be from the other perspective? Less appealing, I’d guess. I really like men. Making love to a man. Making love as a man would be a completely different animal. You’d have to please a woman. No, thank you. Judging by most of the women I know, myself and my twin sister included, we’re much harder to please.

  I lean my arms on the counter, angling toward the perky antenna. “Could I please get the room number for Julianne Montgomery?”

  The wattage on her smile dims, probably because if I’m asking about a woman, I’m therefore not available.

  “Of course,” she says with less enthusiasm.

  “If she’s still alive,” I add. She gives me a strange look. But I think it might matter to her search if the patient is alive or dead. I’m just trying to be helpful.

  “She’s alive,” the nurse says slowly. “She’s in room 529.”

  “Thank you.” I peel away from the desk and walk quickly to the elevator, noticing that the pictures in the hallways are hung too low. My head is higher than the top of the frames. Back when I was myself, I’d been five foot five. My new six-foot-tall frame certainly gives me a heightened perspective on the world.

  “Hold the elevator,” I call in my deep masculine voice, the sound waves seeming to reverberate in my throat even after I finish speaking. A bass instead of a soprano.

  A hand holds the door, and I hurry into the waiting car. As the doors start to close, my girlfriend runs into frame.

  “Greg!” she yells. “Where are you going?”

  “Just a sec!” I scramble toward the number panel and pretend I’m going to push the button to open the elevator doors. I push the button to close them instead and am satisfied when they shut in her baffled face.

  “Whoops,” I say to the three other people sharing the ride. I shake my head in pretend regret, but they seem just as happy not to wait for someone else to get on.

  When we arrive at the fifth floor, I hold my hand in front of the open elevator door and let the other people precede me out of the car. I’m trying to act more gentlemanly, seeing as how I’m a gentleman now.

  I’m also not in a hurry to get to my destination.

  I want to know what happened to the old me…of course I do. But I fear knowing, as well. This whole situation is so crazy, so unbelievable. Maybe it isn’t even happening at all. Maybe I’m dreaming.

  I pinch Greg’s arm. It hurts, and I don’t wake up.

  Maybe I’m not dreaming. But maybe I’m in some accident-induced delusion. I might very well be brain damaged.

  In fact the more I think about it, the more I think that this couldn’t possibly be happening. I didn’t have time earlier to analyze my situation what with the constant floating and whooshing and trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

  But this can’t be real. I think I’d have heard something about it before. There are multiple accounts from people who’ve had near-death experiences. And most of them are very similar—traveling toward a bright, warm light. Seeing family, friends, loved ones. A sense of peace and relief. No one ever mentions anything about being sucked into other people’s bodies—both the newly dead and the currently being occupied.

  Again, where is the real Greg?

  I didn’t kill him, did I?

  A shudder runs through my body. I hope I didn’t hurt him. My life—or whatever this is—is not worth losing Greg Applebaum. I hope God and/or the universe knows that.

  I stop walking for a moment and listen hard to myself. I don’t hear Greg. I don’t feel him in his body. I don’t feel any invisible force fighting against me, trying to oust me like an evil spirit. I feel like myself. Or like I’m Greg. I feel alone in his body.

  I hope that means he’s okay, that the real him, the inside him, is safe. He already lost his father today. He doesn’t need to lose his body and his life as well.

  An older lady in a flowered housedress who’s attached to an IV bag stops walking and glares at me with narrowed eyes. Am I a strange, threatening man lurking in a hospital hallway? I smile to reassure her and pick up the pace.

  I make it to the end of the hall then turn left, counting the rooms down until I see 529. I pause before I reach it. The door is ajar, and the tones of a voice speaking low float out into the hallway.

  “Dad said he’d be here if he could. He and Holly are still in Maryland chasing down that precolonial desk.” Laurel’s voice sounds strained. My heart gives a start. Is she really so concerned about me? She must be, to be here. Especially without the kids. I listen closely and don’t hear a peep that sounds like my overly rambunctious five-year-old niece and three-year-old nephew.

  Maybe she’s just annoyed that Holly, who is technically our stepmother, and our father are off antiquing, which means spending his retirement money on stuff Holly wants.

  Laurel sighs. “I don’t think it’s doing any good.”

  What is she talking about? The antiques? I press closer until I can see through the slit between the door and its frame. My fraternal twin sister is there, a slouching curve in a chair next to the bedside, her smooth blonde head tilted toward its occupant. Presumably the used-to-be me. My brother-in-law, Brent, comes into view and puts his hand on my sister’s back and rubs circles.

  “They said it helps to talk to her.” Even his voice is reassuring.

  “I know. I’m trying. It’s just…look at her. She’s so lifeless.” Laurel buries her face in her hands and sobs. I pull back from the door like I’ve been slapped. The depth of her love surprises me.

  Lately, well, for maybe ten years now, my sister Laurel and I have been anything but close. Not that we were ever the stuck-to-each-other-like-glue brand of sisters that a lot of twins are. Maybe if we’d been born identical instead of just fraternal we’d have been closer. As it is we are two unique individuals who happen to have been born at the same time but have nothing in common besides our parentage and birthday. When we were young we played together and then fought as often as we got along. And in the last seven years—since she married Brent and had her own family—she’s been so busy, so distracted, so completely not there that I almost forget I have a sister.

  In deep moments of reflection, I find I miss the close sisterly relationship we’ve never had. I’ve always wanted to be close to Laurel, but she sparkled brighter than I did. Friends and boyfriends were attracted to her light, and she left me behind in her shadow.

  I lean back in to see what I can. Brent bends next to my sister’s chair and takes her hand. “They said it might be a while—weeks—before she wakes up.”

  So I might actually wake up, then.

  I’m not sure how I feel about that. It seems obvious that I’d have to get back into my body before I could wake up. And I’m not even in there, trying. I’m hiding in the hallway, spying on my sister from behind a strange man’s eyes.

  But do I want to wake up? Hovering here on the edge of
existence, I’d assumed I was on a one-way ticket to the afterlife, but these body swaps mean my journey is demonstrably not non-stop.

  Why?

  Should I try to get back into my own body? How does one go about doing that, exactly? Has this ever happened to anyone before? Could I Google it?

  Putting aside the why and the how for now, I think about what I want. Would I rather be myself, back in my old life, than Greg Applebaum? Being a man feels wrong, contrary to my nature, a constant chafing like I’m wearing my shoes on the wrong feet. But as Greg, I’m free, aren’t I? Free from the physical pain I’d surely feel following the accident. Free from Laurel’s compassion and my father’s indifference. Free from the burden of being me.

  Besides, how do I go about taking back my body? It seems like the unhooking, the squishy unpeeling of a body and a soul, starts with touching another person. Except, that’s not how it happened with the old guy. I wasn’t in a body when I got sucked into him. But that is how I ended up with Greg. It’d be worth a shot, when I’m ready to return. To just go in and touch my hand and see if I make the leap back.

  But I can’t very well do that in front of Laurel and Brent, can I? Greg Applebaum would just be some stranger going into my—Julianne’s—room and touching Laurel’s comatose sister. They would call security. Or something. No, better to come back when they’re gone and test my theory when my body is alone.

  “There you are! What are you doing here?”

  I jump at the sound of Greg Applebaum’s cool blonde wife—girlfriend?—behind me. I pull back from my body’s hospital room, wondering if Laurel saw me. I have a sudden visceral feeling that if she sees me, she’ll know. Somehow that twin connection we’ve never actually had will assert itself, and she’ll know the second she looks into Greg Applebaum’s eyes who I am—Julianne, the less pretty version of herself—buried inside this man.

  Blondie waves a hand in front of my eyes, and I realize I’ve been ignoring her. What do I even say to this woman? I don’t know how to be Greg Applebaum.