“How will your voice sound? How will my voice sound?”

Once more he looked at his watch, then back at me. “There’ll be differences,” he said. “The size of the voice box is different. This man, for example, gave a slight depth to my voice which I don’t ordinarily possess. But you’ll keep your rhythm, your accent, your patterns of speech, of course. Only the timbre will be different. Yes, that’s the word.”

I took a long careful look at him.

“Is it important that I believe this can be done?”

“No,” he said with a broad smile. “This isn’t a séance. You needn’t stoke the fire for the medium with your faith. You’ll see in an instant. Now what else is there to say?” He tensed, coming forward in the chair.

The dog gave a sudden deep growl.

I quieted him with my outstretched hand.

“Go on!” said James sharply, voice dropping to a whisper. “Go out of your body now!”

I sat back, gesturing again for the dog to be still. Then I willed myself to rise, and felt a sudden total vibration through my entire frame. Then came the marvelous realization that I was indeed rising, a spirit form, weightless and free, my manly shape still visible to me with its arms and legs, stretching out just below the white ceiling, so that I did indeed look down and see the astounding spectacle of my own body seated still in the chair. Oh, what a glorious feeling, as if I could go anywhere in an instant! As if I had no need of the body, and my link to it had been a deception from the moment of birth.

The physical body of James slumped forward ever so slightly, and his fingers began to move outward on the white tabletop. I mustn’t become distracted. The switch was the thing!

“Down, down into that body!” I said aloud, but there was no voice audible, and then without words I forced myself to plummet and merge with that new flesh, that physical form.

A loud rushing filled my ears, and then a sense of constriction, as if my entire self were being forced through a narrow, slippery tube. Excruciating! I wanted freedom. But I could feel myself filling the empty arms and legs, the flesh heavy and tingling as it closed over me, as a mask of similar sensations closed over my face.

I struggled to open my eyes before I even realized what I was doing, that I was flexing the lids of this mortal body, that indeed, I was blinking, staring through mortal eyes into the dimly lighted room, staring at my old body exactly opposite, at my old blue eyes peering back at me through the violet-colored glasses, staring at my old tanned skin.

I felt I would suffocate—I had to escape this!—but it hit me, I was in! I was in the body! The switch had been done. Irresistibly I took a deep hoarse heavy breath, moving this monstrous encasement of flesh as I did so, and then I slapped my hand to my chest, appalled at its thickness, and heard the heavy wet sloshing of the blood through my heart.