Cross My Mind

Episode 1

{Suburban Kaduna, Nigeria}

The distant noises of children playing and chuckling in the background, the rising and falling roars of different vehicle engines passing on a nearby road, the sweat welling up from all parts of her body drenching her clothes wet coupled with an unfamiliar feeling of discomfort and heavines awakes Mila from her sleep, she had gone to bed five hours ago in the RV of her boyfriend Jeremy who drives around the country playing his guitar. Mila expected to wake up the next morning to Jeremy’s morning practice of a new song or the gentle sunlight through the open window of the Van parked near a river or by the roadsides of Louisiana. However what Mila is looking at right now is a sight unlike any she expect, a complicated arrangement of a wooden inner structure of a house roof she has never seen in her life, the ceiling of the house has not been installed and a wave of scorching heat keeps hitting her directly from the zinc top, leaving her almost gasping for air. Mila sat up with her mind completely boggled by two things she immediately realized.

‘this cant be right, I get that my dreams are sometimes ridiculous but this is too much, I also seem to be almost aware that I am not dreaming”

Mila has realized at first glance that her skin tone has changed and she in fact has the skin of a black person, but the truly baffling realization which her mind is still struggling to keep up with is that she is in fact also a man who is twice the size she was when she went to bed five hours ago. After taking her time to articulate what she at this moment believe to be an intricate dream, she looked round the room for any sort of clue and finds herself staring at a table to the right side of the bed which has a few books on it, a hair cream, a credit card and an identity card. The walls of the room although not painted have been decorated with all kinds of large pictures and a big wall clock that indicates the time to be 11:24am.

‘what a carefully detailed dream’ she murmured to herself as a logical conclusion of what she is experiencing at the moment but the voice that she heard from her own murmur both shocked and scared her because of how strikingly familiar it sounded.

Mila stood up and went to the table where an old tattered copy of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice sits atop a few other books whose’ covers are beyond recognition. Just by the side is the identity card. She picks it up only to put it back where it was initially because she cant decipher what is on it, the identity card has faded to the extent where it wouldn’t be wrong to call it a blank piece of plastic. Next to it however is a credit card that must have on it engraved, the user’s name.

Mila reached out to take it with the intention of using it to get any form of clue but before she could grab the credit card, she felt a sudden sharp pain in her head which instinctively made her place both arms on her head and fell down on the floor. In a few seconds; everything was blank and Mila’s consciousness slowly begins to fade. All became dark.

{Somewhere in Louisiana USA}

Garba Slowly opens his eyes to a gently blowing breeze to find himself in a strange vehicle parked by the side of the an unfamiliar road which is almost completely enveloped by tall trees. The air is fresh and the weather has stabilized at an incredible point where the temperature is just perfect for sleep. On the side of the bed inside the van, a beautiful alarm clock with a hand carved wooden case lies and indicates the time to be 05:24am. Garba becomes slightly more awake now and although he cant believe he slept all day, he immediately starts to wonder why he hasn’t heard any adhan call to prayer yet despite the time. He yanks the bedsheet off of himself and spring to his feet but to Garba’s surprise, he feels way light on his feet that it seems his body almost feels about half it’s weight, or that the earth’s gravitational pull has been reduced by half but as soon as he turned to his right where a large mirror has been mounted, he recoiled in utter shock and fell back rigidly on the bed. All is clear now to him because he knows exactly who it is he saw in the mirror reflection which explains the oddly fair skin tone of his hand which he has ignored earlier, the swinging blonde hair and the miraculous decrease in weight he felt.

‘this doesn’t explain how I ended up in her body though’ He muttered to himself as he stand back up and just at this moment, Garba hears approaching footsteps from the woods, he quickly peeks through the window and saw the tall figure of a man holding a guitar approaching the Van and before he could do anything, the man has already reached the entrance of the car.

“babe, are you awake, come on outside lets go take a dip in the river, I found us a nice spot” the man shouted over.

Instantly, Garba could feel his eyes slowly closing and his consciousness rapidly fading, in an instant he fell back on the bed and everything went blank.