Crystal ball (transformation)
Mark and his son, Jamie, had always been close.
They lived together in a modest house on the edge of town, just the two of them. Jamie was twenty, athletic, dark-haired and halfway through his second year at college. Mark was in his late forties and, although he would never have admitted it aloud, sometimes looked at his son with a strange mixture of pride and envy.
Their life together was happy. They ate breakfast at the kitchen counter, watched football together, argued about what to order for dinner and spent evenings talking on the sofa.
But Mark had regrets.
He had been single for years. Dates never seemed to lead anywhere, and lately he'd started thinking more and more about being twenty himself: crowded bars, spontaneous nights out, meeting someone new and having no idea where the evening might lead.
There was one other difference between father and son.
Mark smoked heavily.
Jamie didn't smoke at all.
One rainy afternoon, mostly out of curiosity, Mark visited a fortune teller whose shop he'd passed dozens of times. Inside, an elderly woman sat behind a table with a crystal ball between them.
"You want something back," she told him.
"My youth, maybe."
She smiled.
"Not permanently. But I could give you a weekend."
Mark laughed. "How?"
"Choose someone whose life you wish to inhabit."
Immediately, Mark thought of Jamie.
"I'd like to be my son again. Just for one weekend. 18 years old. No responsibilities."
The fortune teller's expression became serious.
"When your son falls asleep on Friday night, your consciousness will enter his body. You will remain there until Monday morning."
"And Jamie?"
"He will remember nothing."
Mark should have thought harder about that.
Instead, he touched the crystal ball.
"Deal."
That Friday, Mark waited. He was nervous, but also excited. He smoked more than usual that night, much to Jamie's polite complaints.
So shortly after midnight, Jamie went upstairs.
Mark sat alone downstairs until he was certain his son was asleep.
Then the room vanished.
When Mark opened his eyes again, he was lying in Jamie's bed.
He stumbled towards the mirror.
Jamie stared back.
Mark touched the younger face, then flexed an arm almost experimentally. He felt light, strong and astonishingly awake.
He laughed.
It had worked.
The following morning he went downstairs and made coffee. Sitting at the breakfast bar, Mark tried to decide what he should do with his extraordinary weekend.
Then his eyes settled on his cigarettes.
Almost automatically, he opened the pack.
Only when he had lit one did the significance occur to him.
This wasn't his body.
It was Jamie's.
Mark stared at the cigarette.
He should have extinguished it immediately.
Instead, after a moment's hesitation, he took another drag.
"It's only a weekend," he muttered.
That afternoon, Mark went out.
He found a crowded bar where nobody knew Jamie and ordered drinks. For the first time in decades, strangers treated him like an 18-year-old.
It was intoxicating.
Outside, cigarette in hand, he got talking to another young man. Mark found him attractive, and soon the two were laughing together.
Mark smoked another cigarette.
Then another.
Later he went to a nightclub.
The hours dissolved into music, alcohol and smoke. Mark danced until he was exhausted, drank far too much and smoked almost continuously whenever he stepped outside.
Eventually he met another man he fancied.
They danced together, talked over the music, and disappeared towards the bathroom together for some privacy.
Mark hadn't had sex in so long, he worked his cock inside this young lad for ages. Both of them smoking, both of them loving every moment.
The next day Mark was up late. Immediately he grabbed his cigarettes and smoked a couple before he went out. He ended up at the pub, loving the attention he was getting because of his great body. He realised that he had the winning formula of an older man's confidence in the body of an 18 year old. He continued to smoke.
By Sunday evening, Mark had treated Jamie's body with a recklessness he'd never have tolerated from Jamie himself.
But Mark kept telling himself the same thing.
Monday would erase everything.
Jamie woke on Monday morning feeling dreadful.
His head pounded.
His mouth tasted awful.
Even his clothes seemed to smell faintly of stale smoke.
He sat upright.
"What the hell?"
He remembered Friday night.
Then nothing.
Downstairs, Mark was drinking coffee.
Jamie shuffled into the kitchen holding his head.
"You look rough," Mark said.
"I feel rough."
Mark forced a smile.
Jamie stared at him.
"I feel like I've got a hangover."
"Maybe you're coming down with something."
Jamie accepted the explanation because he had no better one.
Mark drove him to college, feeling a bit guilty because of what he'd don.
Jamie spent the morning talking to his mates, trying to ignore the strange restlessness inside him.
By lunchtime, he realised what it reminded him of.
Cigarettes.
Which made no sense.
He didn't smoke.
Yet whenever he saw someone smoking outside the student building, his attention fixed on the cigarette.
Part of him wanted one.
When Jamie arrived home that afternoon, Mark wasn't there.
A cigarette packet sat on the coffee table.
Jamie stopped.
He stared at it.
The urge appeared immediately.
Take one.
He picked up the packet.
Then dropped it again.
"No."
He walked away.
That evening he and Mark watched television together, and eventually the craving faded.
Mark was being really nice to Jamie that night, and Jamie didn't complain once about his dad smoking.
But after Mark went to bed, it returned.
Stronger.
Jamie lasted another twenty minutes.
Then he took one of Mark's cigarettes and went outside.
He lit it expertly, like he'd done this before even though he thought he hadn't.
The first drag should've made him cough, but it didn't.
The second drag felt strangely familiar. He liked it.
By the time he finished it, the tension he'd been carrying all evening had diminished.
Jamie stared at the cigarette end in disbelief.
"That's ridiculous."
He promised himself it wouldn't happen again.
It did.
First it was one cigarette outside college.
Then another after lunch.
Soon Jamie found himself standing against the wall outside campus with smokers he'd barely spoken to before.
At home, he became secretive.
He would hear Mark's car approaching and quickly finish a cigarette before his father came inside.
Within weeks, Jamie stopped pretending it was occasional.
He was smoking every day, several times a day.
Eventually, hiding it became impossible.
One evening, Mark came into the living room and found Jamie sitting on the black leather sofa.
A cigarette packet was on the table.
Jamie looked miserable.
"Dad, I've got to tell you something."
Mark sat beside him.
Jamie covered his mouth with his hand.
"I think I'm addicted to smoking."
Mark looked at his son, and for the first time, the guilt outweighed the thrill of his memory.
He realised he hadn't just borrowed Jamie’s body; he had rewritten it. He had left the ghost of his own vices in his son’s blood.
He looked at Jamie—vulnerable, beautiful, and fundamentally changed.
Mark didn't scold him. He didn't preach.
In fact, he had no idea what to do because it was his fault, so he simply reached out and offered him a cigarette telling him everything will be fine.
After a while, the mood lightened.
Both of them relaxed and enjoyed the cigarettes together.
Mark checked in to ask if Jamie enjoyed smoking. He said that he did, which was a relief to Mark.
He also looked great smoking.
They both thought it would end at one or 2 cigarettes that night. But Jamie seemed to get into the habit quickly.
The 2 of them talked for hours, bonding like they hadn't before.
The ashtray filled quickly but they didn't care. They would clear it and smoke more cigarettes.
So they did.
