Metempsychosis Apotheosis
by Raine Monday

Three-thousand dollars and and Six thousand miles, and I'm standing in the rain on a road outside a two story walk-up in downtown Érd. I didn't really know who I was looking for, but this was the address "Karyn" had given me. I had rented a little car, and it had taken awhile to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road...I'd almost crashed several times.

I walked up to the front door, but before I could knock it opened. An older woman wearing a housekeeper's outfit said something to me in Hungarian or something.

"Umm, I'm looking for...uh. Karyn Adamson?"

She frowned at me, then pulled me in the door. She said something in a guttural sounding language, and let me up the stairs. She put me in a room, then walked out and yelled for someone.

She got into an argument then with someone outside the door. A few moments later another woman entered, older, in her fifties easily, maybe sixties.

She saw me, and her eyes widened. She ran to me, throwing her arms around me and hugging me tightly.

"I never thought to see you again!" she said, crying softly.

"Karyn?" I pulled back a bit. I mean, I knew she'd be in a different body, but I didn't realize how different it might be.

"Yes, it me." She pulled back, looking down at the floor. "I ugly, now, and old."

She had a heavy accent too. German, or Russian.

"Come, I have smoke break now. We talk."

She led me out to the veranda where she pulled out a pack of cigarettes, placed one between her lips, and lit it.

"So you smoke now?"

She nodded, shrugging. "The body. The more I in it, the less Karyn I be."

"That's not good."

"They move me soon. I be here to end of swap. Two week."

"You have to swap every two weeks?"

"Not know."

I felt myself start to tremble. "Karyn, how did this happen?"

She inhaled from her cigarette, and shook her head. "I got to Maldive, remember?"

"Yes."

"First night. Big Party. Booze, smoke, drugs. They give to all of us. When we woke up, we in different body. Kept us in house. Fed us, then brought us here. Clean houses."

"Wow, I can't imagine Karyn...well, you ever having to do manual labor like that."

She snorted. "It suck big one."

"I can imagine."

She smoked, her eyes narrowing. It was hard to believe Karyn was in there, my adorable gorgeous wife! Reduced to this older, saggy, gray-haired German house cleaner.

She nodded. "Clean house. Clean Clean Clean. Every day. No day off. No break."

She finished her cigarette and stubbed it out.

"Well, I can take you now. We can go home."

She shook her head, hissing. "No! I have no papers. No passport. I nobody."

"We can get you all that."

"You must leave. They catch you they do this to you too."

"So what do I do?"

"Get hotel. Come tomorrow. Lunch."

"Okay. You'll be here?"

"I sink so," she said. "If I not here, or not here," she pointed to her head. "Find Lord Mallory."

"Is that a person?"

"Lord Mallory Inc." Business, not person.

"Okay."

Someone yelled for her inside the room. She looked at me, panicked. "You go!"

"I will."

She hugged me, fiercely. "Don't forget me!"

"I won't baby. Don't forget me either."

"Hard to think. Love you!" She kissed me hard, and I tasted cigarettes and alcohol on her breath. I wondered where they were keeping them. I decided I'd get a hotel, but come back and see if I could learn anything else.

I'd also look into Lord Mallory Inc.

***

Two hours later I was back. I had checked into a small hotel downtown, and had put most of my money and clothes in the room.

I sat in my car in the pouring rain, and tried to google on Lord Mallory. I didn't have much luck other than a website that gave hardly any info other than a 800 number, and a contact form.

No one came in or out of the walk-up until almost dark when a group of house cleaners left. They talked and smoked, carrying vacuum cleaners, laundry bags, and other cleaning items in plastic bins.

They piled into two white vans that had seen better days, then drove off. I followed as best as I could.

As I drove, I could feel myself trembling. My world had changed. I had been happily married, treasured my wife, our life, and it had all been taken away.

They pulled up to a warehouse, and again piled out of the van. I watched as Karyn pulled out a vacuum cleaner from the back and took it inside the warehouse. Then she got into a beat up Honda civic, and drove away.

I followed.

She made it to a small apartment building. Only four units. She parked in front of one of the units, then got out. She walked up to the door, opened it, and went inside.

I figured now was my chance.

I walked up to the door, and knocked on it. She opened it, and her eyes went wide.

"I followed you."

She nodded, pulling me into the apartment, and hugging me tightly again. "I hope you do that. Dangerous to be here."

"Why?"

She released me. "They check on me soon."

She led me to a couch. "You hunger?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I could eat."

"I fix stew. You sit."

She went into the tiny kitchen and banged some pots and pans around. In about 15 minutes she'd heated up a beef stew that tasted pretty amazing.

"Wow, you certainly couldn't cook like that when you were Karyn."

"Susan now. She cook."

"Your name is Susan?"

She nodded. "Susan Vanchynek."

"So how do we get you out of this so you can go home with me?"

She looked at me very very sad eyes. "I not know."

"Maybe I should be there when they come?"

"They kill you. Or worse."

"Worse?"

She glanced down at herself. "Worse."

After we ate, she sat and smoked. I watched her, as she sat watching tv. She had lines on her lips from decades of the habit, and her hands and fingers were gnarled and red.

"Your hands look painful," I said.

She nodded. "Arthritis."

"I'm sorry."

She shrugged her rounded shoulders. "Not here much longer."

"Do they give you options? Can you chose who you go into?"

She shook her head. "They come. Take me to place. I sit in sand. When wake up, I someone else."

I nodded. "And you can't leave?"

She snorted. "I can leave anytime. But who want live like this?" she indicated her heavy body. "Old, fat, pain. Can't stop smoking. Can't walk good. No ID, no paperwork. Who I be?"

"When they come for you, how will I find you again?"

"I text you. Check email. Chat messages. I send instructions."

"You can't live like this forever."

She glared at me. "What I do, Bobby? Longer I here, more I Susan. Even now, words hard. No speak good. Two days, three, no more English. Then what?"

"Well, I could teach you. We'll get you papers, bring you home."

"Like this?" She swept her hands over her rotund body. "Ugly, fat. Old!"

I nodded. "Better than nothing. What if the next one is worse?"

"Eventually, we get better."

"What if I brought your body here? We put the helmet on, switch you back?"

She shook her head. "Impossible. Big group. Many guns. They shoot you. Bang bang bang. Goodbye, Robbie."

"Maybe we could go to the embassy, tell them..."

"Tell what? They think I crazy old woman. They think you crazy man to believe me."

I sighed. "So what do we do?"

She shrugged. "We wait. I text you. You come. Eventually, they make mistake. I hope."

"What if they don't?"

She looked at me. "Then you go back to Karyn. Love her. Fuck her. Have family."

"No!" I said, jumping up and going to her. I put my arms around her, holding her close and tight. "You are the person I love, not...whoever that is."

"She be me. Is me. Well, like me. My face. My hair. My clothes—"

Someone banged on the door, forcefully. Her eyes went wide. "You must hide!"

I ran and put myself into the pantry closet. She opened the door, speaking in Hungarian. Two voices, men's voices. I could hear her go to the bedroom, then a few minutes later she came out again.

There were more words exchanged, then they left.

"Are they gone?"

"For now," she said, her eyes leaked tears.

"You okay?"

She nodded and I held her.

"I'll never let you go," I said softly.

She looked up at me, sadness filled her eyes. I kissed her and she smiled.

"There's that smile I love so much."

"Goofball, you."

"Your goofball."

"You can't stay here, Robbie. They check on us during night. Must leave."

"I know, but I'm staying in a hotel close by, okay?"

She nodded and took out another cigarette.

"Those will kill you."

"What I care? Not my body."

I chuckled at that. "We'll get you out of this, somehow."

She nodded, tapping ash into a saucer.

We sat and snuggled a bit more in front of the tv. Then she got tired, and I said goodbye.

As I lay down in the hotel bed, I stared up at the ceiling. There had to be a way. Had to. I wasn't going to let my wife become this decrepit person. She had so much life in her, more life in her little finger than most people had in their whole body.

I sighed, turning over, and went to sleep.

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