Transplanted (Part 1)

“...And how do you feel today, Mr. Franz?” Dr. Wong asked.

“Still really weird,” Andre answered, “I’m still coming to terms with the fact that I am a woman now, but I don’t really feel it. I feel numb. I just can’t believe this body is mine when I look in the mirror.”

“Some of the numbness is due to the transplant. Your brain still needs to learn how to communicate with this body and its nervous system. That’s why we brought you to this gym for the next step, which will be physical therapy. As you workout, the new signals should hopefully strengthen the connections. We did what we could to give you a new lease on life; from here, it’s going to be mostly up to you. We will be able to help, but it will ultimately be up to you . Without proper stimuli, there is a risk that body will reject your brain. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Let Me Finish

“Are we done yet?” Joshua groaned.

“You know most people would be happy,” Rodrigo replied pausing from photographing Joshua, “Before the Great Shift, you had a pretty tough life. You were working at a minimum wage job that was killing you. Now you are in the body of a super model and getting paid lots of money for me to snap photos of you. Do you think I am happy being a woman after the Shift? No, but I’m not whining about things every five seconds. Now just sit there and let me finish.”

I Do

It had been a strange accident at work that caused Walter to swap bodies with his co-worker Jamie. Management didn’t want any word of the swapping device to leak, so they offered both Walter and Jamie ten million dollars to pretend to be each other until they could fix the device to swap back. Walter didn’t think it was going to be that hard -- that is until he found out Jamie had her wedding coming up. The next week, he couldn’t believe he was standing in a church, wearing a very uncomfortable white dress about to marry a guy. As he thought about what was going to happen that night, he seriously wondered why he was going through with all this. Then he reminded himself about the ten million dollars before faking a loving look and saying, “I do.”

Subway Swap

Ivana looked on in horror as the subway doors shut in front of her face. This wasn’t her stop, she didn’t even remember getting out of the train, and why was her body still sitting there? The body she had now when she looked down wasn’t her own; it was older, overweight, and male. She couldn’t do anything to stop the train before it zoomed out of the station.

Bill, meanwhile, certainly didn’t have any objections to his new body. As he removed the ribbons from his shapely legs, he thought about the body he now had. He wondered if she was a dancer and where she lived. He realized he had absolutely no clue. Luckily, a purse lay next to him with some of the answers. The others he’d just have to wing. He thought briefly about his own body. He had just gotten out of the train when this unexpected swap took place. But he didn’t want to think about it too much. Mostly, he was happy to leave that old life and body behind and he hoped to never even give it another thought.

Shoe Selection

Vince didn’t think swapping bodies with Emily for a few days was going to be a big deal. Sure, they were stuck until that crazy mad scientist fixed his machine, but he was sure it would only be a few days and he could cope with being in her body. However, there were a few weird things he didn’t expect. When getting out of the shower, his hair was a mess. It took him a while before he got even reasonably manageable. Then there were Emily’s shoes. She had SO many. It took him forever to find something that wasn’t heeled or didn’t pinch his feet. Among the entire wall, he only found one pair of sneakers. He was trying to fathom what she even needed all these shoes for! She could probably wear a different pair each day and still not get through these all in a year. Of course, that was something he hoped he didn’t have to worry about. This should all be fixed in a few days, right?