I opened my eyes, touching my face. I was groggy with the heaviness of being drugged.
But something was different. I could tell. I could always tell.
I ran my hand down my face. It was smooth, not the weathered, old face I had come to know for the past fifty years. My beard and my scraggly ponytail were gone.
I looked at the inside of my left wrist. “11” was tattooed there. I raised my right arm. On the inside of my right wrist was my name, birthday, and the number “23”. So this was number 11. Only 12 left before I get to leave this fucking world.
“Then you’re done. You’re fucking done.” I whispered to myself.
I stood and looked around my cell. It was the same cell as always. My books, my most prized possessions, were still on the shelf. For some fucking reason books weren’t retained. I would have a whole lifetime to read them again. That brought a smile to my face. I recognized the covers, but there were whole new worlds for me to explore inside. I knew I liked them, and now I could figure out why again.
Quit wasting time, I told myself. Go have a look.
I walked to the mirror. I knew what I would find. A stranger staring back. And it was stranger than I expected. My last life was a dark skinned man covered in gang tattoos I could never figure out. This life was different. Even younger than I expected, curly blond hair. Stark white skin and bright blue eyes staring back at me. I touched along the skull, tracing the line. It made me chuckle, thinking about it. They opened my old head, took my brain out, threw it into this one.
“Good morning, Carl.” Officer Windstone was watching me through the bars.
“What the fuck is this?” I asked, pointing at the metal mirror.
“Get used to it. Fifty more years in that body.”
“Who is this?”
“Rapist. Child rapist.”
I shook my head. “Do they give me the worst ones on purpose?”
Windstone laughed. “That’s what you get when you lead a resistance against the government.”
I looked at my face in the mirror again. “That was so long ago.”
“And that regime is done. Long dead. And you’re still here.”
Windstone tapped the bars goodbye and walked away.
“Only 12 left.” I whispered.