The Journal - A Short Story Collection

The Exchange

Alleyways blended together to where I felt lost, as if I had already been down them several times. But I guess that's the reality of the city when you're on the run. The sound of sirens echoed all around me as I darted from dark spot to dark spot, looking for some way to evade the police as they drew near. The sound of shoes clacking on the ground only a little ways behind me told me how close they were. There were closing in, but not only that, they were circling me.

Sirens came from all directions. To add to my rising intuitions, crossing streets gave a moment of flashing lights off in the distance. It would be a matter of time before they finally caught me. Or so they thought.

I wasn't done yet. I still had one last trick up my sleeve that even the police force wouldn't dream of. Something unique to me.

I could feel them gaining on me, but taking a quick look, there was one cop in particular that pushed ahead of the rest. At first, I thought it was just any cop with superior athletics, but upon a second glance, I realized it was the detective. The same one hunting me for the past couple of years, though he did not know he'd been hunting the same person.

All this time, he's been catching criminals, but what he's really been doing was catching innocent civilians in the criminal's body. Imagine the consciousness of a person. It's tied to our physical forms. It allows us to think in ways animals cannot. Have feelings and curiosity. It allows us to be human.

But if it were to become separated from the body. Untethered.

As the detective drew near, I crossed another street, ducking into a nearby alleyway. Sprinting down the path, I knew the time had come. With my body feeling more tired by the second, there was just no way I could keep going like this. I had to act now or face being captured for good.

There were dumpsters in this alleyway. The first one I saw I dived behind. The detective ran into the alleyway, pausing momentarily once he realized he lost sight of me. Taking it slower, he drew closer to my dumpster. To my relief, none of the other cops had shown yet. As the detective approached me, I stood up and rested my hand on his shoulder.

His eyes grew wide when he saw my purple eyes, as everyone else had. The exchange was over quick and easy. A moment of complete blindness and suddenly you could see again. When it was all over and my vision sharpened, I was looking not at the detective, but at the man in the ski mask I embodied only moments ago.

Looking down at myself, I wore the clothing of the detective. Black jeans, a white dress shirt, and a brown vest. I smiled, picking up the gun that had fallen in our exchange. As the other cops showed up, I held up the gun to the man in the ski mask.

"Down on the ground now!" I yelled.

The man looked at me as if he has just seen a ghost, completely confused to the point of being frozen in place. One of the other cops ran up and brought the man down, cuffing him for me. Thanking the officer, I crouched down by the man to see the fear in his eyes.

"But how..." the man said, too traumatized to say anything coherent.

"I told you you'd never catch me," I replied.

Walking away from the scene, I could feel the man's eyes on me the whole way until he could no longer keep me in his sight. I smiled, knowing full well that the real detective finally understood. Who knows, maybe I'll visit him in prison someday, to thank him for the exchange.

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