Living in some bumfuck town somewhere in the dust bowl, Josh is one of the hundred unfortunate souls that wanted to get out of this godforsaken town. There is nothing but dust and misery in this place. The nearest fun is a few miles out in the east - a larger town where he studies. It is the summer vacation so that is out of the picture.
When Josh got this power, the thought of living in this town was at the forefront of his mind. It was the first voice he heard, and first, wish he followed. He uttered those guttural words and the world seemed to have taken its final breath. Everything suddenly hushed. No sound, even from the wind. The birds have their wings spread apart, in frozen perpetuity in the sky. It was as if Josh stole the world of its life. But one touch from his fingers returned some semblance of it. As he touched his father’s tractor, the dust that clung to it fleeted in the air. When he turned the keys, the tractor filled the field with the sounds of its decade-old engine. Josh took to the road and journeyed to the east.
In the limited bandwidth of his home, Josh took interest in the lives of people in the city. With their glimmering structures of stone and glass. They live more vibrant lives than he. And that life, that dream, is within arms reach with his newfound power.
The tractor breathed the last gasp of its engine before it ran out of fuel. Josh is still a few miles away from the next town. Looking around, there’s nothing but fields of grass and cows. One was staring at him, idly with a heap of grass clinging on its outstretched tongue. Lucky for him, in the distance was a car. It looked old but it will do.
The spell has a second face to it. A face that lets him possess other people’s bodies. But that won’t work unless Josh wished it so. As Josh yanked the driver seat open, a 40-year-old man on the wheel met him upfront. He pulled the guy outside, careful not to give a thought of possessing him, then threw him on the dusty side road. Once done, Josh touched him by his face. His mind is a canvas whose painting is the thought of someone taking control.
The world breathed once more. A gasping breath filled with the sounds of a car screeching and the sounds of a man mid-scream. The spell warned him of this. The body will fight back. A mind against another mind. Josh may be younger but he has the upper hand for he was ready to fight at the start. The man had little to no time to prepare. A split second later, Josh was the victor. Memories of another rushed into his mind. Although, he kept the influx of memories to the bare necessities needed to drive a car. Although, some unneeded memories seeped in. Like the memory of the man detailing his goal of going to the next town to drown his sorrows after the loss of a job. It’s pitiful that Josh is going to steal his car but he did not let this guilt prevent him from doing it anyway. He uttered the spell once more and got his soul pulled again in a voiceless world where nothing moves.
Josh grabbed the keys and sped away in the car, leaving the owner confused as to why he lost the memories of losing his car. That scenario should always come after the drink.
A few hours later, Josh calculates that it should be a quarter past 11 in the night but the sun is barely at its peak. It remains unmoving until he finds a body to take control.
Josh is thankful that he has the right amount of gas before he finally reaches the town. There, he took advantage of this world without time. He nonchalantly entered clothing stores and picked the ones that suit him best - a blue polo with a stripe running on his chest. Down under is a brown pair of shorts with matching light-colored shoes apt for the long trip. Then he grabbed a bag and took a walk to the bank. Tried as he could, he could not open the vault. According to a teller he possessed, the vault is time-locked. That is, there is only a small window of time when it is open and he is too impatient to wait. He did not leave the bank empty-handed though. He emptied the registers of their money but left the money of customers intact. It would take half an hour to realize that they have been hit by a robbery. For Josh, he’s already a few hundred miles east. The long travel is a tiring one and he thought that living through the eyes of another is a nice change of pace. Currently, he’s hours before boarding a plane towards New Jersey inside the body of a 35-year-old man. Jerry Corrs is the name - a single man dining alone in a steakhouse just a few blocks away from the airport.
This would be Josh’s first time possessing another body for a stretch of time. The duration made him lucid of the changes he would not otherwise notice on a short stay. He could feel the heaviness of his arms, the change in the height of his vision, even the pattern of vibrations in his throat whenever he speaks. It’s the little things that speak the most, and he can’t say whether he is a fan or not. Nevertheless, he is here to stay for a long while.
A few hours in a bunch more to go, Josh took the time to sightsee. Josh has been here before, once on a childhood birthday trip, he could scarcely remember. A few hours after this, it would be the farthest he’s ever stepped. It filled his mind with exhilaration and a smidge of fear. There is a voice in his mind asking him to return, back to the farm where it is safe. But a larger part and a logical one repeated one part of the spell. Uttering the spell for the first time would erase his existence in the world. There is nothing to return. No one would remember him from back home. It’s bittersweet realizing that he is erased from the minds of people he’s lived with these past twelve years but the decision is already made and there is no turning back.
Waking up from the voice of a man overhead, Josh peeked outside his window to see his destination coming nearer from the horizon. He left Jerry in the airport bathroom and returned to a world that knows nothing of him. Josh has seen crowds but nothing of this sheer enormity. People of different appearances, of different cultures, ages, histories, and lives - come together in one big melting pot. This is the world Josh had dreamt of living. A whisper and a touch are all he needs for that dream to become real. Who did he possess or what did he do next?