They day was grey. Literally. The sky was grey with no hope of sun coming out of the heavy dark-grey clouds. People in the streets looked drained of emotions, hurrying somewhere with blank expressionless faces. The streets were cheerless, gloomy five-store houses gaping at the people passing them by. But even this couldn’t destroy the expectation of something good happening to me today. Well, nothing could detain me from applying for Work and Travel program! I finally reached the ЦМО office. It seemed to be in denial of the nasty weather, laughing at the gloom with its bright yellow brick walls. I rang the bell and the door opened automatically. The office was rather small with only two tables and no more than ten chairs. The USA map was hanging on the wall. Awesome – I’ll be able to find that middle-of-nowhere place where I’m going to spend my summer. I was greeted by two men, both of them in their early thirties. One tall, lean, with jet-black hair which made his pale face look even paler. He looked at me and I froze. His eyes seemed to pierce my soul. It felt like he was able to look at the darkest corners of it with those black eyes. Then he smiled and my heart missed a beat.
“Take a seat, please,” said the other guy making me break the eye contact. This guy was shorter, a little chubby with messy brown hair. His bright blue eyes were smiling. There was something trustworthy about him. “How can we help you?”
“I want to apply for Work and Travel, of course,” was my reply as I took the offered seat and smiled at the short guy. I was glad there was something detaining me from looking into those black eyes again, otherwise I’ll forget why I even came here.
“Are you sure? There’s no way back once you’re in,” the short one said smiling.
“Never been more sure of anything in my life! So what papers I need to fill in?”
The procedure took less than thirty minutes. As I found out, the tall, dark guy’s name was J. and the short one’s name was A. After signing the contract I got up to leave.
“It was nice meeting you and see you soon,” J said outstretching his arm. A handshake? Definitely he’s an odd person. I felt something like electricity flowing through our hands as they touched. I jerked back and looked him in the eye and of course I felt like forgetting who I was.
“See you soon,” I retorted and went to the door. Walking out of the office, I saw both of them exchange a smile. Like they expected something to happen. Maybe I was just seeing things?
I closed ЦМО’s door behind me and checked the time. It was only 11.23 am. A whole day ahead of me. I looked up to see the sun shining in the cloudless red sky. I closed my eyes. Did I just say red? Like ‘RED’ red? No way. I opened my eyes to look at the same clear red sky. My heart started beating faster. Were the sleepless studying nights paying off and I was slowly going mad? My gaze then drifted to the houses around, they were glittering with different colors: golden, bright green, blue, yellow... They seemed to be in the same place as before I entered ЦМО office though. For years I’ve been complaining on the bad eyesight, but did nothing. That’s what I got. I closed my eyes hoping those were just hallucinations. I opened them to find a flying platform landing in front of me and a man in a grey suit asking me: “Excuse me, how can I get to the ‘Make your platform fly better’ organization?"
I don’t think I was very helpful, staring at him wide-eyed and open-mouthed, because he flew away muttering something angrily about stupid teenagers.
I turned around and banged on the door, which was glittering orange instead of brown. It opened and I entered quickly glad to find everything the same as it was when I left few minutes ago.
“Back so quickly?” A. asked. “You forgot something?”
What could I possibly say? I’ve just gone insane, call the ambulance? Probably. With a corner of my eye I saw a red sky through the curtains and turned to look at it.
“The sky...” the words died on my lips. How could I saw it was red?
“What about it?” A. asked seriously, looking out of the window.
No, really! How could he not see it was RED? I am going mad, needed to book a room in the asylum. I can only imagine how lost I looked, because J. burst out laughing: “Don’t worry, the sky IS red here.”
“I’m not crazy?” I exclaimed. Well, maybe the three of us gone mad together?“You’d better sit down,” J. said coming up to me and slightly pushing me down on the chair. “You’ve just traveled ahead in time for twenty years. It’s 2029 now.”
“Hey, we wanted to have fun about it, and you just told her,” A. said disappointed, looking like a three year old kid, who just lost a toy he wanted to play with.
“Look at her,” J. said smiling. “If we don’t tell her now, she’ll faint. Don’t want to deal with a body here.”
I didn’t say a word, while they were talking. I was playing J.’s word in my mind again and again. Time travel? Twenty years? Hmm, I guess someone will join me in the asylum.
“Say something,” J. said turning to me.
“Are you insane?”
“That’s what I expected,” J. said with a sigh and added looking at A. “Remind me again why are we doing this.”
“You see, today is 21 of November 2029 and ЦМО turns 40 years,” A. started explaining as he came closer and sat on the chair next to mine. “So ЦМО’s board of directors decided to do something extraordinary.”
“Turn every student who comes today into a lunatic?” I blurted and the men chuckled.
“Not really. We just take the first student who comes today twenty years ago and show him or her what ЦМО is like in 2029. It happened to be you.”
“Do you think I believe you?”
“Well, what can you say about the flying man you saw earlier?” A. asked. “That’s an evidence of you being in the future and you can’t deny that.”
“Oh, and look around,” J. said waving his hand and the white walls melted down – glittering, misty, color-changing walls surrounded us instead.
“Holy crap,” I said and covered my mouth, making the men chuckle again. “But how could this all happen in just 20 years?”
“The power of the mind,” J. said quietly.
“What?”
“There was a guy who could use his mind to do strange thing.” A. started explaining glancing at J., who was playing with a pen. ”He was considered sick, until 10 years ago when he found a way to teach other people to do what you saw.”
A loud crack made me shrug. A pen J. was playing with broke in two pieces.
“And flying?”
“The power of the mind,” was the only answer I got.
“But these are still hallucinations?” I asked motioning at the walls, not quite understanding what they were talking about.
“No, we MAKE them that way with our mind, but it’s only one of the things we can do.”
“How can you make something fly? What else can you do? How long can I stay here? Can I also do these things?” Questions started pouring out of me and I jumped on my feet from excitement.
“One needs a lot of training in order to make something fly,” J. said, smile playing on his lips. “Sorry, but you are here only for a little time. And you are the one, who can answer your last question.” I was looking at his smile. My knees weakened as I understood he was smiling all the time while talking, without moving his lips. The realization that I was truly, really in the future was slowly sinking in my mind.
“How...? Why...?” I couldn’t finish sentences, opening and closing my mouth instead. That was beyond all understanding.
“That’s another thing we can do – use our mind for communication,” J. said smiling. Both him and A. looked satisfied with the effect of what just happened had on me.
I looked at them. A thought came in my mind. If people use thoughts and images for communication they don’t need learning languages anymore. What’s the use of Work and Travel then? And what happened to ЦМО?
“We are still here, as you can see,” J. said, or should I say thought?
“People still want to go see USA. You know, being able to chit-chat with minds doesn’t make the life here better,” A. said with a sad smile. “This way USA is open to all students.”
That was too much information at the same time for me.
“But we are still the best agency,” A. said proudly. “We are about to offer something that will leave our rival agencies behind.”
“And what’s that?” I asked. “Trips to Mars?”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” A. said. “But we haven’t discovered the little green humanoids. Not yet.”
“What’s the catch about your new program, then?”
“I’ll show you,” J. said smiling mysteriously.
Before I could say something back I found myself staring into those bottomless black eyes. It seemed to grow darker around, but I could tear my gaze of J.’s eyes to see what was happening. It felt like my soul was sucked out of me and suddenly it was dark. I was falling somewhere.
My mind was coming back slowly. Was all that happened just a dream? No, it couldn’t be. I was lying on the floor. What the hell happened? What kind of new program makes one collapse? I got on my feet and was about to let the anger get me, when I found myself looking at... No way! That short brown curly hair, those grey eyes... that was me I was looking at. And again I was speechless, gaping like a fish. I looked down and cried out in surprise. Those legs, jeans, shoes I was looking at were not mine. That was not my body! My own body was standing next to me, smiling.
“What...?” I started talking, but stopped because that low voice wasn’t mine.
“Mindswap,” said A. “Just like in the novel. J.’s currently in your body. Only think of this commercial: ‘Spend a day, a weekend or a month in USA with no travel expenses.’ Of course certain cautions will be taken to ensure the safety of both parties. Background check will required for participation. But the idea is hilarious. You actually can see the life in America from the inside. Not only USA, any country in the world.”
“Anybody could do that, couldn’t they? Why people would need you?” I asked puzzled.
“That’s the thing,” A. said smiling. “That’s J.’s idea and only his mind can do mindswap directly, without involving any equipment in the process. Other people need special gadgets in order to swap. And J. helped to build it, we are testing it now.”
“So how being a guy feels?” I heard my voice ask.
“I’d love o have my body back,” I growled in reply.
“But what do you think? You are the first one who’s not from ЦМО to try it out.”
“Well, I think, when the shock of seeing my body walking without me passes I’ll find it rather amusing,” I said thoughtfully. “It could be pretty cool.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” J. said with my voice, getting a hold of my hand. “And now come here.”
I looked in my grey eyes and felt being sucked out of his body. Once again it grew dark and I collapsed on the floor. Coming back to my mind I found myself in my own body. It felt good being myself again.
“We don’t want to be rude,” J. said, helping me to get up from the floor. “And we’d love to give you a tour around the city, but time presses on.”
“I understand,” I said quietly. I didn’t want to leave just yet, but I didn’t belong here. Not for another 20 years.
“It was nice meeting you,” I said shaking hands with both men. “Thanks for a little peek in the future.”
“I guess it turned out better than I expected,” J. said, shaking my hand for the tenth time and not letting it go. Not that I minded. “You understand that nobody should know what happened.”
“Yep,” I nodded and headed for the door, but there was one more thing I wanted to know: “What’s with the red sky?”
“It’s those crazy weather men,” J. said with a laugh.
“Silly,” I said, looked one more time in those black eyes and walked out of the office, closing the door behind me. I looked at the sky, hoping it would be red. But no, it was gloomy grey. I looked at the watch. 11.23 am. I smiled, after something did happen to me. Just as I expected. I was walking slowly, wrapped up in the thoughts of the mindswap and the opportunities it gave, when a thought rang in my head: “A test today, I’m not ready!” What? I don’t have tests today, I tried to push the thought out, but it kept coming back. I looked around. A little kid was standing not far off. He was somewhere around 12 years old, skinny with jet-black hair. He was frowning and nervously chewing his lower lip, holding a book in his hands. He suddenly looked up and I was once again lost in those black eyes.