Chapter 18 Flynn
Everything’s topsy-turvy and all my breath has left my body but I think I’m alive.
Lightning. I’ve been struck by lightning. The rain is still heavy and I’m completely drenched. I’m sitting in the long grass of the verge, body aching. But it doesn’t make sense. Then I remember I’d been standing next to the car shouting at Amy to get in.
Fuck, is Amy OK?
I’m immediately rattled. ‘Amy,’ I call out. But the sound that comes out of my mouth makes me stop immediately. It’s not my voice. And, as I struggle to stand, I instantly feel something is very different. My aching limbs are shivering as I stare down my body checking for breaks. My brain can’t quite compute what it is seeing.
It doesn’t make any sense.
I register my bare arms, weirdly smooth, my torso squeezed into flowery fabric, and, as I start to form a thought, I hear the most horrific scream. A low, terrible yelp.
As I look across I see … myself.
I’ve left my body.
I’m staring at myself. I’m staring at Ghost Me.
Oh my god, I have died.
I have been hit by lightning and I have died and now, over the road, I am standing up and shaking my head.
Then Ghost Me starts panicked screaming. The screams are embarrassing. Ghost Me has really lost it, both hands up to his face, doing great yelps and squeals. Ghost Me is completely petrified.
Now Ghost Me starts shouting, ‘Flynn, what the fuck, oh my god, oh my god, what the fuck …’
And it’s definitely my voice coming out of Ghost Me’s mouth, but I can hear something else in the words. Someone else.
This is impossible. Actually impossible.
‘Amy?’
And the moment I say it I know it’s true.
Ghost Me, Amy, stares up at me, fear making everything stop for a second as we both just look at the other one.
‘Flynn?’
And then the hands are back up to her face, my face, and she lets out a frightened howl which makes my whole body prickle.
What is happening?
‘Are you alright?’ I run across to her – to Ghost Me, to her? – dressed in my golf attire: my navy shorts, polo shirt. This is the most surreal moment of my life – bar none.
I’m still terrified that I’m dead or dreaming, but everything feels so solid and real around me. I feel the body I’m in move, I see the hand with the painted nails reach out, I feel the rain drumming on my hair, so much hair, slithering down my skin, making the tight fabric of this flowery dress stick to me even more.
And I realise whose body I am in. I’m in Amy’s body. And she is in mine.
‘What is happening?’ She is properly freaking out. It’s still completely bizarre because I am watching myself have a total panic attack in long diamond golf socks, but it’s definitely not me. So it has to be Amy.
‘Amy, AMY,’ I shout, but her, now blue, eyes are completely round in her head. I look weird with all the whites showing and I can’t make her hear me. I can see she is barely listening, is clutching her head, patting at her body, pausing as she reaches down.
‘Holy shit,’ she says, her hand over her new groin. ‘Holy shit.’
She can barely register me, and then I notice the cows are still there and now there is a car in the lane behind us, approaching our car which is still running in the middle of this country lane as we both lose our shit on the side.
The driver presses on his horn but there is no way Amy is responding to anything right now, and I’m also freaking out, but I’m glad I’m not dead at least and this is just very, very trippy and I need to think. The guy behind the wheel is still pressing on his horn so I go to get in the car, walking round to the passenger seat.
‘Amy, we have to move the car.’
She is basically jabbering. At this point I’m really not sure at all what to do. Do I slap her? Do I bundle her into it? She, I, seems a lot bigger and there is no way I now have the strength to do that, and there is no way she is able to drive this car. The beeping intensifies and I can barely see through the rain.
‘We have to get out of the way, Amy, we need to figure this out. OK? OK?’ I steer her gently by the arm – it’s hairy, my arm, that is – and I encourage her to sit in the passenger’s side as I gently shut her in and move around to the driver’s door. I’m wobbly, like a new-born foal; my centre of gravity is all off and for a second I think I’m going to pass out. This is just too bizarre. I see the hand that reaches for the handle, the coral pink nails, the slim wrists, and I open it up. Ducking inside, my whole body soaked, my teeth chatter and goosebumps appear on my arms, I check that Amy is doing OK. She is not. She is now just staring straight ahead, as if in a catatonic state.
Her face is completely bewildered and I feel bad for noticing that I need a haircut. This is not the time to worry about your appearance, Flynn. I reach across and place a hand on her thigh, my thigh, and see her flinch as she gawps at it. Then she is just staring at me, a horrified expression on her face as she drinks in every detail of my face, which is her face.
‘It’s going to be OK, we’re going to work this out,’ I say. My new voice is high, shaky and it makes the statement a lot less authoritative.
Taking a breath, I reach and pull on my seatbelt, attaching it with fumbling hands – how does Amy do anything with these nails? Once secured, the rain is still sluicing the windscreen, the air still filled with the honking horn. The guy must be leaning on it by now.
I breathe and look at the car. I reach to take the handbrake off, and jerk forward. And immediately stall the car.
Amy moans from next to me. I start up the engine again, breathe slower – don’t make this worse, Flynn. The cows that have now cleared the road have lined the field on the other side, some staring and chewing as I try again, revving the engine way too loudly and jerking a few metres forward to pull in where they all passed. I stick the hazard lights on and the driver behind us roars past with a final blare of his horn.
We both sit in the car in this strange space in total silence, the storm outside, windows fogging, both of us completely drenched and terrified.
Amy has completely shut down and I have so many thoughts going round in my head I can’t express anything either. Another flash of lightning in the distance makes me jump and return to the car, this moment.
Something bubbles up inside me and I can’t stop a sort of hiccupy laugh emerging.