1,200 words. Let me know what you think. Mainly, whether you think it is gripping enough to warrant you reading more.
I know it ends in mid-sentence (a cool trick I learnt from a Harlan Ellison interview recently is never to stop cold -- it really did help me get a lot more writing done).
Thanks!
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Wicked Man (part 1/3)
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While it made sense that the heinous practice of forced mind swapping – or, how the media liked to call it, “mind rape” – was terrible indeed, Yogesh figured that if mutual consent was involved, then there was no harm done by a little civilian disobedience.
He pushed open the unmarked door to Club Marx and let himself in. It took an even number of people to swap, and he was hoping that Mrs. Whittington’s message meant that Noel was back in the game.
Yogesh said hello to Mrs. Whittington, who casually answered with a wry smile and a puff from her opium pipe, and walked into the swapping chamber. The place hadn’t changed since his very first swap. The chamber was a tongue-in-cheek word for a living room with an old couch and a network of wires coiled on the floor that connected the swapping helmets to the black market quantum computer complete with an old keyboard and a small flat screen monitor under the coffee table.
Jonathan and Linda were already here, as well as a new guy, a young kid not older than sixteen. The boy was sitting cross-legged by the couch, just like Noel sat during their last swap two weeks before. Yogesh loved new guys.
“Yogesh,” Jonathan said, “It’s about bloody time.”
He, for some inexplicable reason, liked being Yogesh. What Jonathan found so exciting in the life of a software engineer was beyond him. The real Jonathan was a car salesman – and who in their right mind would want to give up getting paid for drive expensive cars all day long?
“Yeah, Yogesh, where have you been?” asked Linda, a frown on her pretty face.
Their relationship with Linda had always been in one form or another predominantly centered on ****ing each other and all those around them. But even so, she apparently thought that the threesome that Yogesh had in her body in the university dorm was a little too much even for her.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” he said. He took a closer look at the new guy. The boy sat quietly with a mildly bemused look on his pimpled face. Yogesh thought about spending a day in his body and the challenges that such a proposition would bring. But it was a Friday night, and night clubs in New England were dim-lit, so he hoped for the best.
Mrs. Whittington came in to the room with the four traditional matchsticks in her wrinkled hand, held in such a way that only the top parts were visible to the swappers. She let the boy have the first draw. The teenager drew without looking, and pulled out an unbroken match. Jonathan took a few seconds apparently deciding whether he wanted the one on the very left or the very right, and ended up pulling out the middle one, also unbroken. Mrs. Whittington offered the two remaining matches to Yogesh.
Linda stared at Mrs. Whittington’s hand. The stakes were higher than usual – Linda would surely want her revenge. He slowly drew out a matchstick. He opened his eyes and looked at half a matchstick pressed between his thumb and index finger and couldn’t resist a smile. Once again, the choice of who to swap with had been rightfully his.
Their host left the chamber, and all eyes turned to Yogesh.
“So, what’s your name?” he asked the boy.
“Ron.”
“And did Mrs. Whittington tell you the rules, Ron?”
“Yeah, I know the rules.”
Linda lit up a cigarette. Everyone stayed silent as she inhaled, turning the cigarette’s tip into ash. Jonathan passed her the ashtray.
“Mind reciting them for us?” she said, and blew out a smoke ring, “No offense, it’s just that, you know, as it’s your first time and everything…”
“Sure, I understand,” he said, sounding rather confident for someone who was about to break the law, “The first rule is that I can’t talk about Club Marx. The second one’s is that I can’t do anything illegal while in a host’s body, or anything serious enough to mess up their life… Third one’s that I leave an imprint of my memories in my current body during the swap and then later leave an imprint in the hosts’ body when we swap back. Fourth is that we can only swap once every two weeks, on a Friday night – and no longer than for twenty four hours.”
“And the last rule?” asked Yogesh.
“The fifth rule is, the way Mrs. Whittington put it, ‘Even if all hell breaks loose, I’ve got to be back here same time tomorrow.’”
“That’s about right. I want to swap with you.”
Jonathan gave Yogesh a cold look, and the software engineer wondered if Linda would take her revenge in his body anyway. But then again, that was the whole point of Club Marx in the first place – the members would do things that they had no chance of doing when confined to their own bodies and day-to-day routines.
Ron smirked and the swappers reached for the helmets. Linda put out her half-smoked cigarette, and Yogesh started typing commands on the weathered keyboard, adjusting the settings for the upcoming swap.
“All right,” he finally said, “Get ready.”
He lied down on the carpet next to Jonathan, Linda took the couch, and Ron straightened out and relaxed his legs. Yogesh started to feel a tickling sensation in his forehead where the inside of the metal helmet pressed against his skin, the usual indication that the swap was about to start.
Yogesh’s consciousness concentrated in a corner of his mind, dragging the unconsciousness behind. He watched – or, rather, sensed – through the computer as his very essence formed into a tight ball of energy, ready to pour out into his helmet’s wire and into somebody else’s body.
He used the few remaining functions left to him to create a copy of his memories and infuse them into the archive space of his brain. Then, just like in all his swaps before, Yogesh felt himself rush through physical space, his mind like a pocket rocket of thoughts, principles, memories, and everything else that made him human.
All parts of his essence solidified in Ron’s mind. Yogesh searched for the boy’s memory imprints, but found only faint images and distorted echoes of the boy’s mind. It took him close to a minute to piece together a comprehensive picture of the boy’s life. He saw himself riding a skateboard, running away from a gang of bullies in an empty school corridor, his parents – always so worried – and a suburban house with a faded address plate that read: Tollington Street 63.
The boy didn’t have the necessary experience to have left a good memory imprint, but he must have done at least some amateur swapping in the past. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to manage even that, not to mention that Mrs. Whittington would’ve never invited him to the club in the first place.
Yogesh’s new body felt small and light. He opened his eyes and looked at Ron in his old body, slowly dragging himself up from the floor.
“So,” Linda said in Jonathan’s baritone, “See you guys tomorrow night. Jon, pass me my smokes, will you?”
Yogesh got up, using the coffee table for support, and
I know it ends in mid-sentence (a cool trick I learnt from a Harlan Ellison interview recently is never to stop cold -- it really did help me get a lot more writing done).
Thanks!
---
Wicked Man (part 1/3)
---
While it made sense that the heinous practice of forced mind swapping – or, how the media liked to call it, “mind rape” – was terrible indeed, Yogesh figured that if mutual consent was involved, then there was no harm done by a little civilian disobedience.
He pushed open the unmarked door to Club Marx and let himself in. It took an even number of people to swap, and he was hoping that Mrs. Whittington’s message meant that Noel was back in the game.
Yogesh said hello to Mrs. Whittington, who casually answered with a wry smile and a puff from her opium pipe, and walked into the swapping chamber. The place hadn’t changed since his very first swap. The chamber was a tongue-in-cheek word for a living room with an old couch and a network of wires coiled on the floor that connected the swapping helmets to the black market quantum computer complete with an old keyboard and a small flat screen monitor under the coffee table.
Jonathan and Linda were already here, as well as a new guy, a young kid not older than sixteen. The boy was sitting cross-legged by the couch, just like Noel sat during their last swap two weeks before. Yogesh loved new guys.
“Yogesh,” Jonathan said, “It’s about bloody time.”
He, for some inexplicable reason, liked being Yogesh. What Jonathan found so exciting in the life of a software engineer was beyond him. The real Jonathan was a car salesman – and who in their right mind would want to give up getting paid for drive expensive cars all day long?
“Yeah, Yogesh, where have you been?” asked Linda, a frown on her pretty face.
Their relationship with Linda had always been in one form or another predominantly centered on ****ing each other and all those around them. But even so, she apparently thought that the threesome that Yogesh had in her body in the university dorm was a little too much even for her.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” he said. He took a closer look at the new guy. The boy sat quietly with a mildly bemused look on his pimpled face. Yogesh thought about spending a day in his body and the challenges that such a proposition would bring. But it was a Friday night, and night clubs in New England were dim-lit, so he hoped for the best.
Mrs. Whittington came in to the room with the four traditional matchsticks in her wrinkled hand, held in such a way that only the top parts were visible to the swappers. She let the boy have the first draw. The teenager drew without looking, and pulled out an unbroken match. Jonathan took a few seconds apparently deciding whether he wanted the one on the very left or the very right, and ended up pulling out the middle one, also unbroken. Mrs. Whittington offered the two remaining matches to Yogesh.
Linda stared at Mrs. Whittington’s hand. The stakes were higher than usual – Linda would surely want her revenge. He slowly drew out a matchstick. He opened his eyes and looked at half a matchstick pressed between his thumb and index finger and couldn’t resist a smile. Once again, the choice of who to swap with had been rightfully his.
Their host left the chamber, and all eyes turned to Yogesh.
“So, what’s your name?” he asked the boy.
“Ron.”
“And did Mrs. Whittington tell you the rules, Ron?”
“Yeah, I know the rules.”
Linda lit up a cigarette. Everyone stayed silent as she inhaled, turning the cigarette’s tip into ash. Jonathan passed her the ashtray.
“Mind reciting them for us?” she said, and blew out a smoke ring, “No offense, it’s just that, you know, as it’s your first time and everything…”
“Sure, I understand,” he said, sounding rather confident for someone who was about to break the law, “The first rule is that I can’t talk about Club Marx. The second one’s is that I can’t do anything illegal while in a host’s body, or anything serious enough to mess up their life… Third one’s that I leave an imprint of my memories in my current body during the swap and then later leave an imprint in the hosts’ body when we swap back. Fourth is that we can only swap once every two weeks, on a Friday night – and no longer than for twenty four hours.”
“And the last rule?” asked Yogesh.
“The fifth rule is, the way Mrs. Whittington put it, ‘Even if all hell breaks loose, I’ve got to be back here same time tomorrow.’”
“That’s about right. I want to swap with you.”
Jonathan gave Yogesh a cold look, and the software engineer wondered if Linda would take her revenge in his body anyway. But then again, that was the whole point of Club Marx in the first place – the members would do things that they had no chance of doing when confined to their own bodies and day-to-day routines.
Ron smirked and the swappers reached for the helmets. Linda put out her half-smoked cigarette, and Yogesh started typing commands on the weathered keyboard, adjusting the settings for the upcoming swap.
“All right,” he finally said, “Get ready.”
He lied down on the carpet next to Jonathan, Linda took the couch, and Ron straightened out and relaxed his legs. Yogesh started to feel a tickling sensation in his forehead where the inside of the metal helmet pressed against his skin, the usual indication that the swap was about to start.
Yogesh’s consciousness concentrated in a corner of his mind, dragging the unconsciousness behind. He watched – or, rather, sensed – through the computer as his very essence formed into a tight ball of energy, ready to pour out into his helmet’s wire and into somebody else’s body.
He used the few remaining functions left to him to create a copy of his memories and infuse them into the archive space of his brain. Then, just like in all his swaps before, Yogesh felt himself rush through physical space, his mind like a pocket rocket of thoughts, principles, memories, and everything else that made him human.
All parts of his essence solidified in Ron’s mind. Yogesh searched for the boy’s memory imprints, but found only faint images and distorted echoes of the boy’s mind. It took him close to a minute to piece together a comprehensive picture of the boy’s life. He saw himself riding a skateboard, running away from a gang of bullies in an empty school corridor, his parents – always so worried – and a suburban house with a faded address plate that read: Tollington Street 63.
The boy didn’t have the necessary experience to have left a good memory imprint, but he must have done at least some amateur swapping in the past. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to manage even that, not to mention that Mrs. Whittington would’ve never invited him to the club in the first place.
Yogesh’s new body felt small and light. He opened his eyes and looked at Ron in his old body, slowly dragging himself up from the floor.
“So,” Linda said in Jonathan’s baritone, “See you guys tomorrow night. Jon, pass me my smokes, will you?”
Yogesh got up, using the coffee table for support, and
幻術