🐙Tomas🐙

Tomas didn't need to walk for long. A few doors down, a lit-up sign advertised: "Reveal the mystery of the cosmos! Find your true love! Commune with the spirits! Madame Wanda's house of mystery and mystique!"

"Oh! This is it!” He moved closer to inspect another sign.

Aura reading - $12 Palm reading -$15 Tarot card reading - $18 Horoscope - $9.99 BARGAIN! Crystal Aura cleanse - $25 Crystal ball viewing - $19 Aromatherapy - $22 Seance - $47

"Very nice! This is the real deal! I can’t believe I’ve finally made it,” Tomas began to tear up. He’d had a rough couple of weeks. He nearly got eaten twice, had to live off of leaves and fish, and even got his first sunburn. But in the end, he persevered and made it. Riding the high of powerful emotions, he went inside.

Wind chimes jingled with the door, and an overwhelming smell of heavy incense hit his nose immediately at the threshold. The dim interior of Madame Wanda’s gave Tomas shivers at its mystic vibes. Ambient didgeridoo music played from a CD player on a display selling meditation CDs. Dream catchers dangled from the roof. Candles, incense burners and crystals lined the shelves. A poster on display of a wolf howling at the moon caught his eye. A caption underneath read, “The moon is my mother, my spirit is free”. That was almost word for word a Matriarch quote.

“Greetings, traveller. Welcome to Madame Wanda’s house of mystery and mystique,” A feminine voice rang out across the room, “I am Madame Wanda,” a woman emerged from a back door, so large she had to duck under the door frame. She greeted Tomas with a flourished wave of her arms, “How may I be of assistance to... AHH! DON’T TAKE ANOTHER STEP, SIR! Your aura is in disarray and threatens to break the feng shui meridians. Stay still!”

Tomas halted, dead in his tracks, “M-M-My aura?!” he stammered, feeling his heartbeat raise.

“Fear not, I shall realign your chakras before they seriously damage your energy cycle,” Wanda reassured him.

She snatched up a statuette of a dragon holding a magic crystal from one of the shelves, removed its price tag, then brought it over and waved it over Tomas’ body. She was given pause once upon seeing his clothes and again when she spotted his missing hand. However, she was a true professional and completed the procedure without any interruption.

“Phew; fixed,” She declared “I believe your lower dantian was in turmoil. You’ve had some difficulties in your life recently.”

Tomas gulped, his eyes going wide. She was right! He DID have some difficulties in his life recently!

“Auras are tricky, you may have to come back for a repeat session in the future. Now, please come in, place your jacket there,” Wanda gestured to a nearby coat rack (on sale for only $800), “Then come join me at the table,”

“Thanks,” Tomas said, relieved that his aura was fixed for now. With a bit of one-handed trouble, placed his fishnet jacket on the rack. Wanda, meanwhile, had returned the dragon statuette and sat down at a large table covered in mysterious, spiritual goods, in the middle of the room. She gestured for Tomas to sit opposite her.

Tomas sat down and smiled across at Wanda. She gave him serious ‘master of the spiritual arts’ vibes. Her dark outfit, her intricate make-up, the copious amounts of jewellery and even her intimidating size left Tomas feeling very impressed.

She lit a cigarette and held it elegantly between two fingers, smoke curled up around her, “I hope you don't think this too forward of me, but I simply must read your palm. Those with only one hand express stronger impressions through their remaining palm. I'm fascinated to discover what yours has to tell. Oh, but first,” she chuckled, “tell me, stranger, what is your name?”

“Hello. My name is Tomas. Nice to meet you, Ms Wanda. Would it matter if I lost my hand only recently?” he asked, holding his hand out.

“A pleasure to meet you too, Tomas. Madame Wanda if you will; not Ms,” she took a hold of Tomas’ hand and gazed down at it, “Actually, it’s even better for the reading if you lost it recently. Oh yes, I’m seeing very strong impressions. You have powerful lines. Why don’t you tell me about yourself while I decipher the flows?”

“Oh um ok, my name is Tomas, I’m 22,”

“Haha, oh Tomas, dear, you’ve already told me your name, and I already discerned your age from your life line. Tell me about the real Tomas!”

The floodgates of Tomas' heart opened, “Oh right, of course. Well, I like video games. I grew up in the Church of the Wolf compound nearby. Uh...I suppose you don’t know about that because it's a secret. Anyway, um… I can turn into an octopus. That’s why I’m here actually. The other day they were going to sacrifice me and have me eaten by the Matriarch. She’s the leader by the way. But then she got struck by a bunch of lightning so I ran away. I read an article about you curing some tree man or something? And thought, what if she can do that for me too. So I escaped out into the wilderness and had to eat a bunch of raw fish and had my hand bitten off by a yowie. That reminds me, my favourite video game is called “Night monsters”. Which is pretty fun, but I might give it a break now, since one of the playable monsters is a yeti and I kinda have trauma from the one that bit me…”

Tomas looked up to see Wanda was no longer looking at his palm. Instead, she was staring straight into his eyes. Her eyes burned with intensity. Tomas felt very exposed all of a sudden.

“Did you say you can turn into an octopus?” she asked.

“Um.. yes? Here, look,” Tomas turned his stump arm into a tentacle.

Wanda to her credit didn’t even flinch. Rather, the intensity in her gaze seemed to grow, "Is it some kind of octopus curse? I'll need to look at your soul. Hang on, let me get my gear." her flamboyant tone from before was replaced by one that was all business.

"Eh? What gear?” Tomas asked, confused by the sudden change in Wanda’s energy.

She had already gotten up and gone into the back of the room. Tomas could hear her rummaging around, "My soul gear,” she called out through the door, “So I can take your soul out and get a good look at it."

“Pardon?”

Wanda came back over holding two boxes and a mason jar filled with clear liquid. She placed them on the table next to an ashtray that held her cigarette. She sat down and opened the first box, "Let me tell you, Tomas, you’ve come to the right place. Have you ever seen the movie ‘Ghostbusters’?”

“Ghostbusters?”

“Yes, Ghostbuster! Brilliant film. It completely changed my life after watching it. It helped me find my calling, so to speak. I spent years in my youth, travelling the world, looking for ghosts and the supernatural. And while unfortunately, I didn’t find any ghosts, I’m quite proud to say, I succeeded in discovering the secrets of the soul!”

“Ghostbusters?”

“Never mind that,” She pulled a pair of sunglasses from the first box, “These here are soul sunglasses. They're made by slicing an extremely rare metal called ectoplasmite, thin enough to be transparent. Here, try them on and tell me what you see." She said, passing them over.

Feeling awfully confused, Tomas took the sunglasses and put them on. He looked at Wanda and could see a blurry light shining out of her body, “Wow! Is that…?”

"Yes, exactly, you're seeing my soul! Unfortunately, you can’t get a proper look at someone’s soul while it's still inside the body, but that's what these are for,” she opened the second box. It contained a pair of gloves and a long pair of BBQ tongs, "We don't want your soul to disintegrate once it leaves your body so we'll insulate it with these ectoplasmite laced gloves. And these tongs here will allow me to remove your soul without damaging your body."

"Disintegration? Damage? Wait, this is all happening so fast. Is this safe?" Tomas asked, passing Wanda’s sunglasses back.

"Yes yes, perfectly safe. I've done it a dozen times before. Now your body is going to enter a coma-like state as soon as the soul leaves, so I’m gonna need you to bring your chair over here and get comfy so you don't fall down. Don’t worry, bodies can live for days without a soul.”

How on earth does she know how long a body can live without a soul?... “Um... You mean right now?” Tomas was a little bit worried about how casually she planned to rip out his soul, “It’s my first time, I don’t know if I'm ready.”

Wanda chuckled, “Of course, right now. The best time to examine a soul is when the moon is at its spiritual equinox, which, as I’m sure you already know, is right now. Hurry over here before the equinox ends!” she urged.

Tomas panicked, “I see, yeah ok. Don’t want to miss the equinox,” he did as he was asked, swiftly dragging the chair behind him over to next to Wanda and got seated.

Wanda smiled. She put on the gloves and sunglasses and unscrewed the cap off of the jar. Tomas could smell the strong alcohol from across the table.

“What’s that?” he asked.

"Oh, this?" she picked up the jar, "This is my special homemade moonshine," She took a large gulp and shuddered it down, "It keeps my hands steady."

She needs steady hands?! Tomas felt himself start to sweat. He tried stalling, “Do you think you can cure my condition?”

Wanda picked up the tongs and pursed her lips, thinking, "Well.. that depends on what I see once I take it out and have a look. I’ll identify the problem, then put your soul back so we can discuss the price,” she saw Tomas starting to panic about money, “Don’t fret, realistically you shouldn't be looking at anything more than 120 dollars for curse removal, plus the 25 for the aura cleanse and 15 for the palm reading, of course. So 160 total." Wanda calculated with a smile.

Tomas wanted to weep. In hindsight, he should have known better after his painful lesson in economics at the pub. He decided to stop the procedure today and come back with money next time. As he opened his mouth to tell Wanda, She shoved the tongs into his chest. He gasped as they passed through his shirt and into his body as if there was nothing there. He felt a strong discomfort like something tearing away inside his body. He tried to scream, but before he could open his mouth, everything went black.

Fun fact about souls: They have no perception! They have no vision, hearing, touch, not even a sense of time! That means from Tomas’ perspective, only an instant had passed since his vision went black and he was awoken by the sound of Wanda’s voice calling out from the darkness.

“Tomas?”

His consciousness returned slowly, alongside copious amounts of pain, “AHHH!” He struggled to move, “Ouch! Oh god! Ow ow ow! Everything hurts! I thought you said it was safe!” He stopped talking. Something was wrong. Completely wrong.

His voice was deeper, his body: meatier, his number of hands had increased from one to two, and his number of clothes had decreased from some to zero. It was all wrong. He forced open his eyes and looked down. He was lying on the floor. A gargantuan, naked, white guy was laying right where his body should have been.

He gasped, a burst of adrenaline sent him right into flight mode. He scrambled back along the floor, trying to escape from the huge naked dude only to discover that there was no escape. Why? Because that hulking, pale-skinned, body was actually Tomas. His voice came out in a stuttering shrill “W-W-What…??? What’s going on!? Why am I…!?”

He looked up and saw he was still in Wanda’s shop but it looked like it had been trashed. The sounds of an angry crowd rioting outside came in through her ruined shop door. The woman in question was standing, towering over Tomas, looking down. Makeup running down her face indicated that she had been crying.

Tomas didn’t know where to begin. He looked up at her and said, “This isn’t my body!”

🎣Wally🎣

Half an hour earlier, our old mate Wally had a similar experience to what Tomas was going through.

His last memories were of strings, water and heart attack pain. Then he experienced a moment of darkness.

Next thing he knew, it was all different. He woke up to the sound of a didgeridoo playing, its music growing louder as his sense of hearing returned. He was sitting down, eyes closed, dry, and feeling comfortably pain-free.

While the didgeridoo was quite peaceful to his ears, his nose was being overwhelmed by a war of incense, perfumes, and the hint of something Wally knew all too well. In fact, two distinct smells tugged on his primal urges and filled his heart with longing.

Wally could smell a cigarette and some hard liquor somewhere nearby.

For some reason, he was having trouble getting his body to respond. Despite his ears and nose working just fine, his eyes wanted nothing more than to stay shut. It took a great effort, but he managed to crack them open.

He saw a wooden table in front of him. His eyes immediately locked on a lit cigarette sitting in a glass ashtray just within his reach. He wanted it more than anything in the world. The challenge was in getting his body to listen to him so he could take it.

He closed his eyes again to draw his focus inwards. For this, he was going to regain control of his body no matter what. The didgeridoo helped. Only his right hand listened at first. He twitched his fingers until he could wriggle them a little, then twisted and rotated his wrist. He flexed and willed his arm to move until finally, he was ready to take that cigarette.

Eyes still half closed, he lifted his arm to rest on the table. He felt the grain of the wood on his skin as he slid his arm forward to where he knew the cigarette rested. The cool touch of glass announced when he reached the ashtray. His fingers stretched out and he took a hold of his prize. Gotcha!

It took less effort to slide his arm back to the edge of the table. He put all his willpower into lifting the smoke to his mouth and holding it there to take a deep draw. He let out a long, smokey breath of pleasure as the wicked poison woke the rest of his body up.

Slowly cracking his eyes back open, he finally took a proper look at his surroundings. He was startled upon discovering that he was sitting next to a particularly large, dark-haired woman, staring intently at a bundle of red string in her hand.