Exchange

            Walter Jackson walked calmly up to his old friend, Michael Dolan, as he sat calmly eating his dinner at the outside restaurant. Without a word, Jackson pulled a gun from his pocket and emptied it into Dolan’s head. While the crowd scattered, Jackson sat down in the chair opposite Dolan’s corpse and began finishing Dolan’s meal. When the police arrived a few minutes later, Jackson gave no fight and left with them very quietly.

            Jackson refused to say anything to the police during his questioning. It was known that they had been good friends many years earlier but had not spoken to each other for a very long time. Or so it had been thought. Five years later, as Jackson sat on death row, he asked for a private visit from the prison priest. When the priest left, he was shaking and pale. At the execution, he refused to officiate and a substitute had to take his place.

            Seven days later, Jackson’s lawyer escorted the only heir to the Jackson estate. Sheila Wilton had never known her uncle and never expected anything like this to come her way. It was an unexpected windfall and one that she was determined to enjoy as much as she could. Her primary question was, “how quick can we sell all this stuff?” And it was with no small anger on her part that she learned that part of the stipulation of the will was that she could not sell anything in the house for five years. Everything was paid for. All the taxes were paid and all the ultilities were paid for the next five years so Sheila decided to make the best of the situation. After all, she had a nice house to live in, rent free, for five years. Lots of toys and things to play with so life could have been much worse.

            During some cleaning, Sheila found a locked cabinet in the library and it became her obsession. What was in it? Why was it locked? For days, she worked on the lock but got nowhere. She tried every key on the chain, but none worked. Finally, fed up enough, she took a hammer and busted the cabinet open. Inside, she found only a small gem and a sealed envelope.

            The gem was a small, round ruby like gem that seemed to sparkle in her hands. After a lifetime of jewelry buying, Sheila had still seen nothing like it before. As she looked closer, the light inside seemed to bright and grow. Reluctantly, she put it down and opened the envelope.

            “Sheila, if you’re reading this, then I am dead and you’ve found the cabinet. You’ve also found the gem. I apologize for not being more of a force in your life but, quite frankly, I never cared much for you or your mother. I am writing this note to you on the morning that I have signed my will, declaring you my sole heir, and am about to go and shoot Michael Dolan to death. But I am not killing him, rather, I am killing the empty vessel that used to be Dolan. When we were younger, Dolan and I used to explore the mysterious and other side of the world. He exceeded me in studies and soon grow to have much more power than I. So much so, in fact, that he had learned the secret to eternal life. It was not in the prolonging of the physical life but the mental. He learned how to transfer his mind from one body to another. Done correctly, he would be able to live forever, simply jumping from body to body. I learned of this when he came to visit me and tricked me into swapping my body for his. He had lied to me about what he was doing and, by the time I knew, it was too late. I awoke to find myself in his body, wracked with pain. His investigations had given him the secret but at a terrible price. He was dying and his body did not have long to live. But I had the last laugh. For, you see, I had made the same discovery years previously but the mind that lived in my body was now far older and more terrible than he could ever have imagined. Screaming, he returned to his body, devoid of memories of what he had tried to do. But I could not leave him alive so I have made my preparations and leave to settle this loose end. I leave you everything, dear Sheila, but especially the gem. It is very precious to me and I hope it will be to you as well. Farewell.”

            Sheila looked at the gem again and felt something pushing at her, pulling at her mind. The light inside grew stronger and stronger until her mind began to splinter and collapse. In a few moments, the transfer was complete. The mind that had once occupied Jackson’s body now resided in Sheila’s while her mind was trapped in the gem that was being crushed beneath Sheila’s heel. As she turned around, she grinned. She was home again and able to once more enjoy the comforts of his house. Jackson knew that Sheila could not resist the gem. Few women could resist a gem of that quality and Jackson knew that his niece was certainly not one of them. All it took was patience for her to find it and spring the trap. Life was good.