It was getting more difficult to change the older Joe got. The first change as a teenager was straight forward
and thinking back on it now, he’d hardly noticed it was happening till it
happened. It had started to become more difficult in his forties. He’d hardly
slept the night of the change and when he’d woken it had taken a whole day to
recover. His fifties change had taken
three days to recover. Of course, once the renewed energy had kicked, he soon
forget the lying on the floor the whole room spinning and every muscle
stretching anew over his bones.
Now in his sixties the memory came back, and he wondered
if it was worthwhile. I mean what else
had he to do in life? What did he need
the renewed energy for?
He had almost decided not to change when the familiar
restlessness kicked in. Maybe there was
still life in him yet?
After the restlessness came the familiar shivers and the
feeling of his skin shaking loose from his bones. The ache along his shoulders and down his
arms and sides, the stooping and the slowing of the walk closely followed. His joints next, beginning as always with his
fingers, and then of course his toes. His knee and elbow joints though always
the worst and this time he wanted to scream with the pain.
His face was always the last to begin to ache, his
teeth, his jawline and finally the headaches.
When the headaches came it was time to sleep.
It took him a long time but eventually as the dawn
began to rise, he drifted off to wake suddenly to the sound of the church bells
announcing nine o clock. For a moment he
thought he had got off lightly but then the room began to spin faster and
faster. He told himself not to move and
go with the room. After an age, the room began to slow, and he took his first
look at his new skin. It was bubbling in
places struggling to settle.
He forced himself to sit up turned towards his old
skin lying on the bed. All the times he’d changed this was the part he never
got used to. The old skin had begun to
deflate and would soon be flat as a cardboard cut-out. Only then did Joe make the mind shift that he
had been born anew once again.
His new skin itched and ached, but the bubbling seemed
less now. With every renewal it took longer for his new skin to settle on his
bones. Never the same fit as his younger
skin had been.
Struggling to stand he examined himself in the
mirror. Not bad. The skin still aged of
course but tighter and no longer grey and tired looking. It would see him through whatever time he had
left. Not many he knew changed beyond
their sixties. That was okay. A last
shot at life that’s all he wanted.
Joe rolled his previous skin up and fitted it into the
disposal company envelope. Everything
was so organised these days. One phone
call and his old self picked up and taken away.
It took a week for the skin to properly settle. The occasional bubble here and there
especially if he grew tired. Joe could
cope with that though. It was good to
have energy again. Things to do, what he didn’t know. That didn’t matter, it was the possibility
that mattered.
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