Jumpagain

You’d think swapping bodies would be like the films: you wake up, none the wiser, until a mirror betrays you with the shock of your reflection. It isn’t. The moment you slip into another body, you feel it—every alien bone and stretched sinew announcing the change at once.

Experts say it's unwise to stay swapped for more than a couple hours before returning to your own body. Good advice. If you have a body to go back to. I woke with a gasp, air filling an unfamiliar set of lungs. My last host lay sprawled beside me, blank eyes staring at nothing.

“Sorry, buddy, and good luck.” Maybe another jumper would occupy the body soon. I needed to get a move on. The heat could tell when I jumped, and they were getting faster at catching up with me. I grabbed coat and whatever cash I could find and got away quickly.

I then was about to jump bodies again when I suddenly bumped into a dog on my way out of the house. "Uh-Oh," I said as I inadvertently jumped bodies into the dog. Now that I was a dog, I watched helplessly as my old body started moving on all fours...until another jumper came.

And then another & another & another! Someone sent a flash mob text directing jumpers to the house. The day became an orgy of body-swapping. I was a pudgy goth, then a senior in a wheelchair, then a budgie, then a skeezy handyman, & on & on. I don't know who I am anymore. Do you?