A girl comes in to meet him. They exchange pleasantries. He says she looks tired. She mentions a bad conversation she had with her boyfriend. I am about to start reading the pages in front of me, so fruitless is this exchange. But then he asks if there’s been any word from someone named A. I am paying attention now, even though the answer is no. They talk about tracking A down. They do not call A he or she. They do not understand that I am taking in every word.
I understand many things at once:
This girl met Nathan on the night he was possessed.
A was the person who possessed him.
A is now gone.
But she still cares about A. Deeply.
I picture A as the frightened, ignorant girl I met in Nathan’s house. It is stupid to leave a trail, and that is exactly what A has done. I don’t know whether it would be better to educate her or kill her. Her existence, like the existence of any other body traveler, threatens my own existence. To know the truth about one of us is to know at least a partial truth about all of us. If people begin to look, they will find us. They will fight. Thus, we must remain unknowable.
A clearly does not know this. And because of this, A has been a fool. She may have run away from me, and from these people. But if she can make a mistake once, she can make it again and again.
Nathan and the girl, whose name he does not say, keep talking about other things. Boring things. I leave, because it’s better to leave than to become familiar. I do not want them to remember me. My work here is not yet done, just as it is not yet defined.
Teach or kill?
Fix or destroy?
I am bothered by the whole A thing. I am hoping this means she did not trust other people with her name. I am hoping it was just a disguise for when she felt it convenient to “confide.”
I gave myself a name, chosen because the first letter does not do what you think it will do. I knew early on that I was male. Even when I was punished with a female body, I knew to act and think like a man. I would not get far otherwise.
This is what I would teach another body traveler: Look around you. See the person who is considered the strongest, then become that person. No matter what body you’re inside, be that person. And when you learn how to stay, when you get more choice—be that person even more. Society is biased and ugly. Use that bias and ugliness to your advantage. Most everyone else does, if they have any power at all.
Even the sad sack of skin and bones that I’m in now has more power than most. I can use that. Having money gives you an advantage, especially if you use it. And being white. And being a man.
Nobody is expecting this man to steal, because he doesn’t need to steal. So I take whatever I want.
I go to a restaurant, have an expensive dinner, then walk out before the check comes. I go to a drugstore and pocket some Advil. Then, just for fun, I find an item that will set off the alarm—an electric razor, on the pricier side for CVS—and I put it in a teenager’s backpack as he searches through deodorants. His fault for leaving his backpack around like that.
I know this is all child’s play, but isn’t child’s play how most of us fill the days? Isn’t it how our leaders have chosen to lead? I fit right in.
I am already getting tired of this body. I appreciate the lack of resistance it offers, but I miss being desirable. I had a long enough time in Poole’s body; I would like to go back to being the object of some carnal attention.
Before I leave this man’s body, I must drain his bank account. This is remarkably easy to do. All I have to do is visit his bank, speak in an even, calm manner about needing funds for a new business venture, then transfer the majority of the money to the accounts I set up for myself years ago. His children will be left with practically nothing, but if they deserved more than nothing, I imagine they would have called or written at some point. If they’re relying on getting their daddy’s money when he’s gone—well, it’s mine now.
I will have to wait a few days for the transfer to go through. It will be worth my while to do so.
In the meantime, there’s more damage to be done.
There’s always more damage to be done.
A
Day 6088
I check her Facebook all the time, waiting for something to happen. Some other message. I check every hour. Every ten minutes. Five minutes. I worry that there’s something I’m not seeing because we’re not friends.
When I wake up, I check the phone first. I see she was out with her boyfriend. I take a shower and think about her picture, about whether she looked happy or was just pretending to look happy. I feel ashamed that I want her to be pretending, then tell myself I don’t really want that. I check for another update after I get dressed, mindlessly pulling things from the drawers. Not thinking about the day at all. Just thinking about her.
Then it hits me: I have been awake for almost an hour and I haven’t even thought about who I am today, haven’t even learned this person’s name. With a few touches on the phone, I am looking at Moses Cheng’s Facebook profile. He only has forty friends. His sister tags him in family photos, but he doesn’t post anything himself. I’m not sure if this means he doesn’t have many friends or if it just means he doesn’t like Facebook. Then I search around a little in his mind and realize the answer’s both.
Moses’s sister is waiting for him in the kitchen. “Here,” she says, throwing him a granola bar. “No time to waste. We’ve got to go.”
“I need my bag,” I tell her. She groans and tells me to go get it.
I’m hoping that Moses doesn’t need anything in his backpack today that he didn’t have there yesterday. I hope he put his homework in, because I don’t have time to look for it. His sister is already calling up for him to hurry. I don’t think she’s being impatient—I think I’m late. Because I got lost thinking of Rhiannon.
In the car, Moses’s sister reminds him she can’t drive him home—she has band practice.
“Are you going to be okay?” she asks him.
I’m sure I’ll be able to find my way. I tell her I’ll be fine. And then I resist checking Rhiannon’s page on Moses’s phone, because his sister is keeping an eye out. Because of the time difference, Rhiannon’s been up for hours now. I don’t understand why she hasn’t posted anything.
I tell myself to stop.
I don’t listen to myself.
Moses is on the shorter side and the slighter side—usually this is helpful when it comes time to be invisible. But for whatever reason, people keep seeing him and shoving him. It’s like a reverse game of pinball, where the pinball stays on a straight course and it’s the bumpers that move toward him.