60 Sec Fiction: SECONDHAND BODY

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This year I decided to take the plunge, and bought a second-hand body on eBay. My current one is a tired six-footer, crippled with rheumatism and liver problems after a life of physical labour on the family farm, and too much vodka.

I found myself a healthy forty-year old body with plenty of mileage left, belonging to a man called Peter. He’s an executive in one of the major banks, and loves sailing at weekends. ‘A bit of dry skin, sea water, sun, and the odd glass of wine,’ he told me on the phone. ‘You got yourself a bargain.’

My entire life savings went into this, but it’ll be worth every penny.

I meet Peter at the Clinic on a beautiful sunny morning. We barely have time for introductions, and a tall brunette in a tight fitting suit leads us into our respective departments. My cognitive functions and memories will be collected for transfer into my new body, while Peter’s are migrated to a brand new organo-synthetic body, Aurora third generation, the kind that comes with a two hundred year warranty. We all dream of one of those, but only the privileged few can afford this wonder of technology that’ll set you back nearly ten million dollars.

I lie on the operating table, my fingers tightly wrapped around the armrests, wishing my wife were here. She doesn’t trust the Clinic, and refused to come. Marie is the worrying type, you see, imagines problems everywhere. When she sees the results, she’ll come around, I’m sure.

My thoughts are interrupted by the gentle voice of a nurse. ‘Count down from ten,’ she says while covering my nose and mouth with a mask attached to a transparent tube. As cold and dry air fills my lungs, my hands begin to let go, and the last number I remember before losing consciousness is four – my lucky number.

When I wake up, the first thing I notice is the slow and regular beeping of a heart monitor. Comforting. Then my eyelids slowly open, letting in light from a ceiling panel. The brightness makes my eyes smart initially, but my discomfort quickly eases. I raise one arm and inspect it, touching and probing through my gown from the shoulder all the way to the tips of my fingers. Bankers’ hands are decidedly smooth. Getting up takes no effort at all, no joint pain in my knees or hips. It feels fabulous. A nurse enters the room, and I recognise her from the operating theatre. She flashes a penlight into one eye, then the other; swipes the screen on her tablet, and looks up at me with a smile. ‘You’re all good to go, Mrs Rose.’

♦

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