Metempsychosis Apotheosis
by Raine Monday

The next day I took out a payroll advance loan and bought a plane ticket. My bags were still packed from the last trip, so I grabbed both suitcases and caught the flight.

Twenty hours later, I stepped out into a rainy afternoon in Manila and caught a cab to Quezon City. Traffic was fairly heavy with tiny scooters, motorbikes, and small cars zipping through the streets. The cab driver barely spoke English, and apparently used the horn as a secondary driving aid.

He dropped me in front of the address. A rather tall building made of steel and windows, looking very modern stretched upward dozens of floors.

I stood, shielding my eyes, staring up at the skyscraper, and glancing down at the address. Etched into stone facade of the building was 936. I was apparently at the right place. I wondered how I would know Karyn, since she could be anyone.

I stepped up to the building and opened the door. Grey marble floors stretched in front of me, and I started walking up to an immense reception area.

Before I could approach a desk, a figure darted out from an alcove, and caught me by the arm. Without speaking she guided me to a waiting elevator, and we stepped inside. She pressed the 24th floor, and we began to ascend.

"Karyn?" I said, looking at her.

She nodded her head, eyes cast up toward the ceiling.

She was short, less the five foot, and had to be mid-fifties or sixties, wearing a stylish grey business suit. She had dark hair that had been coiffed into a helmet-like flip and I could smell hairspray, perfume and cigarettes. She was pudgy, and her neck had quite a wattle, with deep wrinkles around her dark brown eyes.

The door dinged, and we stepped off the elevator. She took me into a suite, and past another reception desk, saying something quickly to the secretary as we passed. She nodded and made a note on her notepad.

She opened the door to an office, and we stepped inside.

Immediately, she turned to me, wrapping her arms around my neck. "Missed you!"

"I missed you too."

She clung to me, holding on for a long while, her face pressed into my neck. Eventually she released me, wiping tears carefully from her eyes.

"I take it you are Karyn."

"Yes. Karyn. Apology English not good. Brain bad."

"That's okay, darling. Have they said how long you will be..."

"Imelda Florez," she said.

"Imelda?" I said. "How long will you have to be Imelda?"

She shrugged. "Long time."

I held her, smoothing her hair. It had quite a bit of hairspray.

"Is there any way we can get you back to your body?"

She shrugged and pulled away from me, lighting a cigarette. "You could talk to Ex. Maybe he let you buy me."

"People can't be bought or sold."

"They stole my body. They tell me work work work, or I stuck forever. So I work work work, then they put me somewhere else, not so bad. The more 'Melda work, the better body she get."

"Who is this 'Ex?'"

She sighed. "Head of company. He work in main office. He take Karyn body, put someone into it and me into Susan, now 'Melda."

Her voice was high pitched and scratchy. I didn't like it. She spoke fast with a heavy, what I assumed was Philippine accent.

"And you don't know how long you'll be here?"

She shook her head. "Secretary, assistant to Vice President. 'Melda make coffee, type notes, help boss send email. Stuck here long time, more than four month probably."

"That's unacceptable."

"Robbie should forget Karyn, that 'Melda was Karyn. Go home to your Karyn. I be 'Melda for awhile, then someone else, someone else. Ten year, twenty year, who know how long before back to Karyn body, then I not really Karyn anymore, I SusanMelda, blahblahblah. Robbie get tired of following 'Melda, find other women...so you go. Live life, enjoy, be happy."

"But I can't be happy, knowing you're stuck here, like this."

She shrugged. "Not so bad. 'Melda only 60. Susan early 70s. Lose ten years each hop if I behave."

I sighed. I couldn't be in Manila for the next four months. Hell, I didn't have enough money to last the next four days and my absence from the Insurance company had already been noted and I was barely hanging on as it was.

"How do I find this Ex?"

"Exmuritio, his name. Head of TS. Work in Brisbane."

"Australia?"

She nodded, stubbing out her cigarette.

"I wish you wouldn't smoke."

"You not 'Melda husband, 'Melda have a husband, Jake. He smoke too."

"Wait, you're married?"

She nodded.

"So you expect me to just, what, leave you here? Fuck some other man as his wife?"

"I not tell you to come here. You come here on own."

"Yeah, because we're married, don't forget!"

She looked up at me with tears brimming in her eyes. "I not forget. You 'Melda's goofball."

I nodded, hugging her tightly. "I'll figure it out. I'll go talk to this person, and get your body back. Somehow."

"How?" she said, pulling away.

"I don't know. I'll talk to him."

"What you say to get body back? You need plan, Robbie, not just go there and ask. He say, 'Why should I do that?"

I nodded.

"That stupid plan, if what you do. They send you packing, then stick 'Melda into ninety year old body!"

"Okay, I get it."

"Need 'nother plan, Robbie. You fuck up, 'Melda pay price. Get it?"

"Yes, I get it."

"So don't fuck up, or don't try it. Being 'Melda not so bad, at least I can walk, talk, work. Some girl get bad bad body. In hospital. Dying. Some get old man body. You want 'Melda be old man?"

"No, definitely not."

"Then have better plan then 'Please please give me back wife body!'"

She said this last bit in a mocking tone I really didn't like. It grated against my nerves.

"I get it!" I said, with more force than intended.

"See?" she snorted. "You already lose. Fuck off home, Robbie."

"No, I'll figure it out. I'm sorry."

She sneered at me, pointing with her chubby brown finger with the cigarette between index and middle. "You get plan. Tell 'Melda plan before you meet Ex. You get?"

"I get."

"'Melda have to work now. Robbie come back tomorrow?"

I nodded my head and gritted my teeth. I didn't especially like this new Karyn, but what choice did I have?

"Of course."

She patted me on the cheek. "Good boy. I see you tomorrow, then."

She escorted me out, giving me a chaste kiss on the cheek. Then she stalked away, her low heels clicking on the marble floor.

I stepped out into the rain. It was warm in the Philippines, and the rain sluiced down my shirt soaking it. I hailed a cab, and went to the hotel I'd booked in advance.

The traffic was crazy. Drivers and motorbikes zipped through the wet streets, each hellbent on their own destruction.

The single level motel wasn't anything special and I found my way to my room. It had a bed with a sagging mattress, an old metal desk that had seen better days, and a barely functional restroom with a shower that dripped constantly.

I checked the bed for bedbugs, then unpacked. I did it by rote, my jaw clenched, furious at the exchange with Karyn.

Who's to say that was really Karyn anyway? Wasn't it just Imelda Florez's brain thinking it was Karyn Adamson? And my wife's body just thought she was someone else, but was adjusting back to being herself? Was there a soul transfer, or was it just the body teased into thinking it was someone else, and slowly adjusting back?

I liked that idea...except...except...

I sighed. No matter how 'Karyn-like' the current Karyn was, I could still tell it wasn't her. It was in her sense of humor, the way she smiled, the way her eyes darted back and forth across a room when entering. Whoever was in there now constantly gauged situations, measured people by some internal standard, and had almost zero sense of humor, at least the way my Karyn did.

And Imelda...

As twisted as the personality appeared, Imelda still called me her goofball. She looked up at me with Imelda's eyes, but I could see Karyn shining through. I couldn't describe it, somehow I just knew in my heart, she was Karyn. Not Imelda thinking she was Karyn. It would be easier to think of it like that, but then I truly would have lost my wife.

I slammed my hand down on the metal desk, instantly regretting it.

I needed a plan, she was right.

If I bungled it somehow, Karyn would pay. I shuddered to think of her stuck in an octogenarian body, suffering from cancer, or some other malady.

Hell, I was a salesman. If I could sell ice insurance to Eskimos, I could sell this Exmuritious on returning Karyn's body.

As I considered this, I paced back and forth. It was late in the day and night fell outside.

I thought about sales. I'd been through so many sales academy lessons, but it always boiled down to the same things....

Make it about them, not about me.

Research research research

Build Rapport

Define the buyer

Contribute first, sell second

Ask questions and listen

Be careful of psychological quirks

Approach them on their level

Sell on emotion

And never forget that I'm selling to a person.

At least I had a name, a target. Exmuritious Forrester. I could scour the internet and find out as much as I needed. My goal was simple: to sell Exmuritious that it was in his best interest to return Karyn to her body.

I yanked my laptop out of the bag, and started putting together a portfolio.

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