by Adam Bender
first.
“What’s your real name?”
“Look,” said New Joey. “For now I think it would be best if you just called me Joey, all right?”
On the next Friday, Dugan asked me to arrive at the bar an hour earlier than usual. He told me he wanted to talk before New Joey turned up. It was the first weekend of December and I felt warm under the tavern’s red stringed lights.
Beers ordered, Dugan pulled a printout from his bag labeled LifeTrade. He tapped the title a few times with his index finger. “I did some research this week. I think this is what New Joey was talking about.”
It’s funny, because I thought about checking it out myself. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was all just too weird.
I pulled the printout closer and read the tagline, Trade places, hassle free, guaranteed!
“I set up a test account, just to see,” said Dugan. “They ask you some questions about yourself. What you do for a living, what type of things you like to do for fun, what you like about your friends and what you hate about them… It was this big, hour-long personality test. Kind of a drag, to tell the truth. When I was finally done, the site gave me a list of about 15 matches—15 people with similar jobs and interests who might be willing to switch lives with me.”
“I just can’t believe Joey wanted out so badly,” I said after taking a healthy sip of lager. “I mean, what an asshole.”
Dugan nodded. “Yeah, he should have told us he was doing it.”
“He shouldn’t have done it, period!”
There was something nervous in the way Dugan shuffled the LifeTrade papers right then. Suddenly I got this image in my head of sitting at the bar with New Joey and a New Dugan, all of us holding cans of Pepsi Next.
“Dugan, you’re not thinking about…? That was just a test account, right?”
He hesitated and I knew.
“Look man,” he said quietly, as if low volume might soften the blow. “I found someone with a really cool life. His job is the kind of job I’ve always wanted. It’s across the country, but he’s got this awesome apartment.”
I shoot up from my seat. “Are you serious, Dugan?! Tell me you’re not serious!”
“Look, I didn’t want to be a jerk like Joey and not tell you.”
“But will we…will we still be friends after you switch lives?”
I know, I sounded so lame. But I didn’t want Dugan to go away even more than I didn’t want Joey to go away. I was losing my only two friends.
“I don’t see how we can be,” was Dugan’s devastating response. “At least not at first. The website’s rules say you’re supposed to make a clean break.”
I felt like Dugan had dropped my brain into a deep fryer. The website’s rules? The website’s rules?!
“I think you’ll like the New Dugan, though,” my best friend said in his most reassuring tone. “Seriously, he seems like a cool guy.”
I yelled a profanity so loud, it made everyone in the bar turn.
A gust of winter wind cut into me as I exited the bar, and then New Joey intercepted me in the parking lot. “Hey, bro, good to see you,” he said. “Coming back?”
“Go to Hell.”
It took New Joey a few seconds to respond. “Hey Christian, I think we started off on the wrong foot. I wish Joey had told you himself… You seem like a cool guy and it would be great to—”
“Dugan’s inside,” I tell him. “But don’t get too used to him being there.”
I didn’t go to the bar at all on the next Friday. Why would I? Joey was gone for good. If Dugan hadn’t left already, I knew he would be going soon. I didn’t have any friends anymore, and I wanted to be alone.
So I stayed home, put on some angry emo music and wondered if it was my fault that they had wanted to leave. Eventually, I logged onto LifeTrade. All the website needed was an email address to send me on to the personality test.
The first question asked, What is your dream job?
The second, What are you doing now?
I decided to come back to it later.
Flipping through my Blu-ray collection, I came upon Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and decided to give it a whirl. Watching the film didn’t exactly give me any insights as to whether I should do LifeTrade, but it at least made me remember what I loved about film making—the ability to create this alternate reality where anything can happen but at the same time it’s all totally believable.
I remembered an idea I once had involving time travel and a pinball machine. I found a notebook and started to flesh it out.
Maybe the guy in the story is really good at pinball and wants to go back to a time when people would actually respect him for that. But the machine is like a metaphor for holding onto the past. And maybe that’s not his real passion, anyway. Maybe he really wants to make movies and
My phone buzzed mid-sentence. There was a picture of Joey on the device and I accepted the call without thinking. It was only when I said “Hey bro,” that I remembered who I was really talking to.
“Just checking in,” said New Joey. There was concern in his voice. “Thought you were coming tonight. Everything all right, Christian?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer, so I asked a question instead.
“Is Dugan there?”
“Yes…well, technically...”
I thought about hanging up, but for some reason I just held on, not saying anything.
“What’ve you been up to?” asked New Joey.
I always hated talking about my creative stuff, but I figured that I probably would never talk to New Joey again, anyway. “I was working on some ideas for a movie.”
I braced for the jokes and criticism that usually followed when I made such a confession.
“Cool, man,” said New Joey.
That left me speechless.
“I didn’t know you made films,” he continued.
“Well, technically…I don’t. I thought about going to film school.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Because Dugan said I shouldn’t. “I…I don’t know.”
“You should go,” said New Joey. “Hey, maybe next Friday you can tell us about your idea.”
The funny thing was that I wanted to. “Yeah, bro, that would be great—sorry I couldn’t make it tonight. You boys have fun, all right?”
The call ended. I got back on the computer—just briefly to close the LifeTrade questionnaire—and returned to making my movie.
Get a free novel!
Hey there, this is author Adam Bender. I hoped you enjoyed reading my short story, “Life Trade.” As a thank you, I’d like to give you a free eBook of my novel, WE, THE WATCHED.
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Novels by Adam Bender
Struggling to conform in a surveillance society?
WE, THE WATCHED
An amnesiac struggles to conform in a nation that administers a Watched List of its own citizens. He meets people who accept invasive surveillance by the government and forced uniformity by the church as necessary safeguards for protecting national security. But will the fresh perspective from his rebirth be a blessing or a curse?
DIVIDED WE FALL
The war has come home. The mission has failed. Eve just wants Jon back. Agent Eve Parker refuses to accept Jon’s change of heart when becomes a revolutionary. But when Eve learns more about the President’s plan to broaden citizen surveillance, she begins to question what she’s always believed to be right.
About the Author
Adam Bender is an award-winning journalist and author of speculative fiction that explores modern-day political fears with a balance of action and romance.
Adam has reported extensively on technology and the international debate between personal privacy and national security. He was a senior journalist for Computerworld, Techworldand CIO in Sydney, Australia. Previously, he covered US politics on Capitol Hill for the esteemed Washington trade
journal,Communications Daily.
Adam has won journalism awards for his articles from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Specialized Information Publishers Association.
Adam self-published two dystopian sci-fi novels: WE, THE WATCHED and DIVIDED WE FALL. He is adapting WE, THE WATCHED into a screenplay and writing an epic new story, THE WANDERER AND THE NEW WEST.
Despite how this all might appear, Adam is generally a rather modest and amiable fellow.
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