“Mr. Allen, it’s Dr. Pinkerton. I know it’s been longer than we expected, but we’ve found a match. Can you come to Cottage Harbor Hospital immediately with your wife, please?”
Tom groaned. He had just finished a round of chemotherapy and get nauseated and lethargic. Alice bundled him into the car and they sped to the other side of town.
When the arrived, Dr. Pinkerton was waiting for them at the front door with a wheelchair and blankets.
“I know this might not seem like the ideal match, but we’ve found a 98% compatibility rate with you, which is the highest I’ve ever seen. It’s a young man who was in a DUI crash. A friend of his was driving drunk and this poor guy was left brain dead, even though his body recovered,” he chattered as they rolled down a long hallway.
“How young are we talking?” asked Alice. “I’m not going to be married to a middle schooler, am I?”
“No, no. You’ll see.” Just then they arrived at a long window obscured by drapes. Dr. Pinkerton pressed a button on the wall and said, “Open the drapes. Mr. Martínez’ mind storage candidate is here.”
The curtains opened to reveal a bed with one of the largest human beings Tom or Alice had ever seen on it. His feet hung off the bed and were propped on a makeshift box. His shoulders pressed into the bed rails. His hands dwarfed the control panel they lay next to.
“This is Nicolás Martínez, age 17, a former football player at Southside High School. He has been in this vegetative state for six months and his family have released his body to the program because their son is never coming back.”
Tom gulped. “That’s… that’s who I’m going to be?”
Alice laughed out loud. “98% compatibility, my hind foot. That kid is nothing like Tom at all.”
Dr. Pinkerton’s eyes crinkled from behind his mask. “Physical attributes don’t make the compatibility work. It’s patterns of brain waves, and as unlikely as this seems, this is the most perfect match I’ve ever seen. In any case, and not to be blunt, Mr. Allen, you are running out of options.”
Tom turned to Alice and said, “I can’t bear the thought of you having to raise our kids on your own. I’ll still be me, just, um…”
“Big,” said Alice, “and young and kind of fat.”
“But alive,” said Tom. “I’m going to sign the paperwork. Doctor, when can we do the switch?”
“Immediately after you sign the papers.”
Tom looked at the enormous body stuffed onto the gurney in the operating theatre, then down at his weakened, shivering, bald body. “It’s going to be weird, but better weird than dead.”
An hour later, Tom found himself lying on a gurney next to this kid—no, Nicolás—wearing a helmet and wired to the hike. Dr. Pinkerton appeared above him and said, “Are you ready?”
“As ready as I ever will be. Please thank Nicolás’ parents for me.”
“Count backwards from 10 for me,” said the anesthesiologist. And Tom’s battered, middle-aged body closed its eyes for the last time.