My New Best Friend

I was always criticised for staring at people in wheel chairs or people with a false leg or arm. I was told that it was rude to stare. But I never understood why. The truth is, at least for me is that I wanted to know their story. I wanted to know how they felt, what happened to them and if their bodies behaved any differently now that they had a missing limb.

It wasn't until recently that I discovered all of the answers to my questions. I had begun to get very friendly with an ex-army man. He had lost his leg in a recent war and now wore a false leg. It didn't seem to bother him one bit and he seemed happy and appeared to live a normal life. He often walked around shirtless.

We had become really good friends over the last week or so and were planning to meet up after our holidays even though we lived hundreds of miles apart.

About half way through the second week, he showed me a different side to his kind nature. His aggressive streak came out when I had apparently asked him one too many times about his false leg. I left him alone for the rest of the day to allow him to calm down.

The next day, bright and early he knocked on my door, I had been asleep up until that moment and wasn't expecting what came next. I was greeted by the strongest man bear hug I had ever received. A quick peck on the cheek and an apology.

He began to explain a bit more about why he had become so aggressive about my questions. It had been 2 years since his mate saved him. He lost his leg, his mate lost his life. My only response at first was silence as I was shocked. I then chirped up.

"I wish I could help."

"You can." He responded. "You can take away my pain for a while if you like."

"How?" I asked.

"Well," he said "you can become me; army lads wear these dog collars for 2 reasons, 1 identification, and 2 to give the army lad a break from the army. I wear 2, my own and my mates. I have never trusted anyone with this before. I keep my own body as my own tag over rules Josh's. But if you were to wear one of them, you would become either me or Josh, only for a short while, just whilst you’re wearing it. Seeing Josh again would really make me happy."

"I'd love to help." I told him." I'd rather become you at first. Then next time, I'll become your mate.

Without further hesitation - he removed both of his necklaces. He placed Josh's on the side. He rubbed the surface of his tag and said "see, Jordon Turner 33166748. My name and service number."

"OK," I said.

He removed his false leg and placed it close to me. He then placed the necklace around my neck. I began to feel different. And I looked around the room. Everything looked different. I felt some parts of my body growing and changing shape. Most notable though was the pain I was experiencing in my leg. I looked down and my foot was gone. The pain was almost unbearable and I begged Jordan to make it stop.

"Don't worry it’s almost over." he replied.

He sounded different though, something wasn't going the way I had expected. I looked down again as the pain had stopped. Instead of a leg, I now had only a stump that ended just above where my knee would normally be. It was complete. I had become Jordan. I looked over to where Jordan was sat and to my horror, he was no longer Jordan. He was me.

"Whoa, what’s happened?" I screamed.

"Well I should of told you, but 2 identical bodies cannot occupy the same location in the same time frame, don't worry. Its temporary." he told me.

"Okay." I replied.

I wasn't particularly happy with it, but the situation was freaky enough without me getting all tense on him. Even without the weird body swap that had just occurred; the situation was obviously upsetting to Jordan.

"So, Who Am I? Am I me or you?" I asked.

"Well," he chuckled "your still you, you just look like me, Jordan. But if anyone were to walk in, you'd have to be Jordan."

"Weird, all very weird."

"It will all be back to normal soon" he replied

He then began to tie the false leg to the end of my stump. I was shocked how smooth it felt. It was almost metallic and was really cold. I was surprised, that even though it was blue how much it looked like a real leg, with faux muscle tone.

I stood up and surprisingly got my balance fairly quickly. I walked over to a mirror and began touching my new face. Still not quite believing it. I lifted my vest and revealed Jordan's Abs that I had got so used to looking at over the last few weeks. Yep I was definitely Jordan.

"So, what do you think?" Ready to become Josh?"

He told me that becoming Josh carried a small risk. One that he knew would not happen, but one that was so serious that he had to tell me. Occasionally, when other troops had done something like this. Given their friend a dead man’s tag to wear, that the same fate was suffered by the new wearer. But Jordan knew that Josh wasn't wearing his tag at the time of the accident, because the night before they had tried a body swap and Josh hadn't put his back on after they slept the night in each other's bodies. So he knew it was safe. And I agreed to become Josh for him.

He took his tag from around my neck and placed back around his own. He then placed Josh's tag in my hands and I placed it around my own neck. I became Josh much quicker than I became Jordan.

I was stunned how attractive this guy was. Suddenly, I was overcome by a massive force around my entire body... The force was Jordan giving me a massive rugby tackle combined with a bear hug...

"I've missed you so much." He said. "SORRY, I, I, I, didn't mean to do or say that, but I've missed Josh so deeply.

I spent an hour or so each day for the next few days just chatting to Jordan as Josh; I would have done longer, but we didn't want to arouse any suspicion. He left me with Josh's tag and told me to wear it whenever I wanted. I chose not to wear it unless I was meeting Jordan. Which we did every 2 weeks for a whole weekend. Eventually it became more normal for me to be Josh rather than myself. I moved closer to Jordan and spent almost my entire life as Josh, only becoming myself when I returned home to see my parents.