Cross My Mind

THE THIRD CROSSING

…

****(Shreveport Louisiana, USA)****

Garba slowly opens his eyes to the gentle embrace of a white man with a slick looking goatee and weird tattoos on his neck, he has no idea who the man is or why on earth he is in bed cuddling with him.

A few moments ago, Garba was in a public transport bus on his way to Abuja, the central capital territory of Nigeria. He has decided the day before that to he will move out of Abuja with his sister Salma, where he will enroll her in a University for her to obtain a certificate and a bachelors degree that will enable her work and live a good life with support from him. But he has suddenly found himself in an unfamiliar place with a stranger again.

“where the heck am I ?” he murmured out to himself in an incomprehensive amount of confusion that his mind is taking its time to adjust to. The room he is in looks overly spacious and by all means necessary a hotel room, an expensive one at that.

“Babe, are you okay? You suddenly stood up and started looking at me as if I am a stranger, I can see the lack of familiarity in your eyes and the way you are looking at the room as if you re not the one that booked and brought us here. I am more than happy to go back to my van and seep if you are not okay with the idea, are you sure you don’t need a doctor?” Jeremy asked with a concerned air around him as he speaks.

It was at this moment that Garba realized what is happening to him, the same experience he has been trying to unravel in his mind, since its occurrence is finally happening over again. He looks a his arms to realize they are slender and white instead of the dark skin he knows he has, he quickly rushes to the bathroom in a daze and went straight to the mirror without closing the door.

Concerned by Her Odd behavior, Jeremy chased right after, to the bathroom entrance. When he looked inside he saw his girlfriend who was sitting in bed cuddling and watching their favorite TV show together stare at herself in the mirror as if she is seeing herself for the first time or looking at a stranger.

“Babe, this is not normal anymore for me. Is this a joke or did you develop multiple personality disorder or something similar while you were away? You wouldn’t give me any details of what happened during the trial you went for and I understand that you signed a Non disclosure undertaking but what is up with your odd behavior?” he asked.

Garba has just realized he is in Mila’s body once again, just like the last time it happened.

“I know this will sound very odd to you but I need you to tell me who you are, where are we and what we are doing here. This is very important.” Garba said to the man standing at the entrance of the toilet looking at him in utter confusion and surprise.

The man walks inside the bathroom to where Garba is standing and grabbed his hands gently, closing in for a hug; but Garba broke free by yanking off his hands from the man’s gentle grab and moving backwards.

“what the hell are you trying to do me? I asked who you are, where is this place and what we are doing? I need the answers to these questions if you know them and please do not try to touch me again”. Garba said to the man.

Raising his hands and waving them in a sign showing Garba to calm down, then said.

“It is me Jeremy your boyfriend, this is a five star Hotel in Shreveport Louisiana which is four hours from Youngsville, you asked me to take us on a tour round Louisiana, this is one out of many towns that we have been to, we usually stay in my van but this time around you dragged me into this hotel and now you are asking me who I am” Jeremy said, with an impatient expression.

“your odd behavior, the weird gaps in your recall and your incessant refusal to tell me what kind of experiment the company run on you is not making any sense, just what the hell is going on here?” he added, getting angrier as he speaks.

Garba stood next to Jeremy, watching him barely controlling his anger. He excused himself and went out of the toilet leaving Jeremy inside and went straight for the door, however Garba saw a purse that looks like it belonged to woman and quickly picked it up; checking inside the purse, he was sure that he has switched bodies with Mila because he saw her identity card and the black VIP debit card she once told him she would get once she returns home.

For a brief moment, he waited to see if the switch will only last for as long as it did the previous time it happened but to no end, Garba didn’t black out again or wake up back in his body in the bus heading to Abuja. As he waited, two hours passed and no switchback happened at all, he went outside of the hotel and had a bit of fresh air to cool off his rather hot head gnawing at itself to make sense of the bizarre occurrence that is nothing short of supernatural.

After five hours of waiting and getting used to his new body, He packed the female clothes in the drawer and all that belonged to Mila into her travel bag before confronting Jeremy.

“you said you have a car and you were the one that drove us all the way here right? Lets go back home, to Youngsville, to the mansion. I want to settle a few things first.” Garba said to Jeremy who contemplated the idea at first, but also knows that there is something wrong with Mila, she seems completely like a different person. Jeremy has heard about schizophrenia before and although he has never actually seen or been with someone who has it, he knows they act out as other people once it sets in. he packed his stuff and led Mila to the RV and help her get in.

He got in the car and begin to drive them towards suburban Youngsville Louisiana with a thought hidden deep in his mind. ‘if I want to lay my hands on her money I have to do as she wants, her newly developed multiple personality disorder will also help me a great deal in achieving my objective’

Meanwhile, Garba has picked up Mila’s phone and has begun dialing his number to see if he could somehow connect through and find out what the hell is going on.

SIX HOURS EARLIER

****(Kaduna-Abuja road Nigeria)****

Mila was woken by the slight bumps and vibrations happening all around her, in her expectation she should still be in bed side by side with Jeremy in Shreveport Louisiana yet, here she is seated in a moving overcrowded bus going from a place she has no idea to another place she also has no idea of. Just like Garba, it took Mila a while and a fee clues to figure out that she is not in her own body.

At first, she realised that her clothes are different than the pajamas she was wearing earlier and her body feels an unfamiliar heaviness and her general size perception seems to have been doubled. Her skin is rough and black while she seems to have a specially rough face. This is when Mila remembered that she has in fact has had a very realistic dream of switching bodies with Garba just a few weeks ago.

A feeling of anxiety begins to fill her mind as she quickly dug her hands into her pockets to see if she could find anything that can identify in whose body she is at the moment. She pulls out a few bundles of cash, a credit card and an a green passport out of his pockets and put them on her lap.

She quickly opened the passport and just as she has suspected, she is in Garba’s body again.

“the last time this happened it didn’t last long, we switched back quickly” she thought, so she looked around her and fair enough, all the people in the bus have their eyes literally locked on the three bundles of cash she has on her lap.

“You need help with that? If I look closely it should be around three hundred thousand Naira, that is enough to cover many months for someone like me. You need help with it?” said an even bigger and taller man seated across the two rows of seats to the back of the bus. Apart from his enormous body size, the man’s teeth look like they have not seen a tooth brush in forever and he has eight large scars of tribal marks, four on each side of his face.

“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth? Looks to me like you’re the one that needs need a help with a spare toothbrush and toothpaste for that disgusting thing you talk with” Mila instinctively responded to him. This is one of the problems that make her life hard and make most people to either fight or avoid her. She has a sharp tongue and it stings hard with insults.

The man stood up and pointed a finger towards her in irritation but after seeing the driver slows down and turns his head around to see what the commotion was about, the large man with the tribal marks on his cheeks sat back down and the driver said.

“You rich guy, I’d put that money back in my pockets if I were you and didn’t you said you’re dropping off at the town we just passed?”

This is when it hit Mila that Garba is heading somewhere and she has no idea where, she quickly put the money, credit card and passport back into the pockets. The bus came to a stop a few minutes later and She dropped from off five more people dropped from the bus and stood by the roadside. Just at this moment, Mila feels a sudden vibration in her pockets and pulls out a smartphone. On the screen a number she is sure looked awfully familiar was calling.

With a slight hesitation, she picked the call and placed the phone on her ear and said.

“Hello, who is this?”.

The voice she heard on the other end of the call sent shivers down her spine because it finally lets her settle down her thoughts to the terrifying perspective of what is happening to her.

“Hello, Mila is this you?” Mila listens to her own voice ask her.

“Garba, is that you Garba? What is going on? I cannot understand what is happening, can you tell me what is going on please? Is the Neuraface is no longer implanted in our heads so why is this happening” she asked.

On the other end of the line on his way to Mila’s home in Youngsville, Garba was terrified to hear his own voice ask own voice him if this was him, nevertheless he continued.

“listen to me carefully Mila, I have lots of cash on me so be careful not to flash that in public and from the time since we switched bodies, which by the way I have no idea how or why it is happening so please listen to me carefully. Get a hotel and settle in for now, hopefully we switch back and this never happens again, I have tried contacting Dr. Nora from Neuratechnologies to tell him what is going on but no response from the email address he gave us. In the meantime just stay in a hotel and await my instructions. Meanwhile I am going to your father’s mansion to……”. the phone was suddenly snatched from Mila by a man on a motorcycle who speed off into the traffic and disappear.

Mila was really confused by Garba’s last statement, while she totally understands why he wants her to stay in a hotel for the time being, she heard him saying he is going back to the mansion, for all she could think of, Garba should be with Jeremy and that should make things a lot easier for him

‘but why is he going to the place she has just packed out of?’ She thought as she watches the phone snatcher ride off with Garba’s phone, and her only way of talking to the man currently going around in her body.

On the side of the road, she noticed three men standing and looking in the opposite direction, something about them looks familiar, the large bulky figure, the red hat and black shoes, she has seen these same persons before. It was at this moment that Mila realized that she was being stalked.

“Garba tried to warn me to avoid this, I guess his warnings came a little too late since these same men have already seen the three bundles of cash that are on me right from the car, I have to lose them before I get in any hotel” Mila murmured to herself.

The Sun is setting and darkness has begun to envelope the streets slowly, Mila stops a moving Taxi and got in.

“take me to the center of town, I am willing to pay you for the other seats so don’t take any other passengers” She said and the driver nodded, turning the car around and begins to drive away from the three persons who are still standing by the roadside pretending to wait for a cab. At first, Mila was surprised that they didn’t chase or at least turn to look at her car as it drives off, but she will soon realised that they in fact have been waiting for her to take a cab.