There were strings, water and pain, then there weren't.

A didgeridoo was playing, its music growing louder as his sense of hearing returned. Wally awoke. He was sitting down, eyes closed, dry, and feeling comfortably pain-free.

While the didgeridoo was peaceful on his ears, his nose was being overwhelmed by a war of incenses, perfumes, and the hint of something Wally needed. Something that tugged on his primal urges and filled his heart with longing. He 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 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 to 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 to his body. 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.

Her size was so great that Wally felt like a child looking up at an adult. She was wearing an intricate black dress, long dark gloves, a pair of sunglasses, and a bunch of gold jewellery. All the perfume he'd been smelling since he woke up seemed to radiate from her. Her mouth was drawn out thin and her eyebrows furrowed in a deep, contemplative, expression as she stared at the strings.

Wally had a lot of questions, and although this woman seemed like the right one to answer them, he wasn’t quite ready to socialise yet. He’d need a drink first.

Luckily he had smelled one nearby earlier. Looking past the large lady, he learned that the table he sat at was in the centre of a large shop of some kind. There were all sorts of mystical knick-knacks, like dreamcatchers, crystals, and incense sticks, lined up on shelves around the room. The didgeridoo he was hearing was actually coming from a CD player on a display surrounded by meditation CDs for sale. He spotted price tags attached to everything and prayed to the goddess that the prices weren’t in Australian Dollars. Nothing should cost that much.

His eyes dropped back to the table he was sitting at. It was strewn with more hippy junk. There was the ashtray, a lighter, a large crystal ball, tarot cards, a couple of empty little wooden chests, and eureka! A jar, filled with a clear liquid.

Wally’s right hand was occupied by the cigarette, so he reached out with his left to grab the jar. It was then that he learned his left hand was missing from the wrist up… and that his skin was black.

His eyebrows rose right up at that and he glanced from his dark-skinned left stump to his cigarette-toting right hand, discovering it to be equally dark-skinned. His famous stubbornness was all that held him back from freaking out, he had promised himself a drink before anything else, and so drink he would.

Rather than make a scene, he put the smoke in his mouth, held it there between his lips, then reached out for the jar with his right hand. After pulling it over, he gave it a quick sniff, confirming it was indeed hard liquor. He then jerked his head back and downed the whole jar with several loud glugs

“Ugh. Goddess,” Wally blurted out, face scrunching up involuntarily. He shivered as the extremely potent devil juice burned its way down his throat and filled his belly with warmth.

Turning his attention back to the giantess sitting next to him, he saw her mouth was now agape, her eyes darting back and forth between Wally and the bundle of strings in her gloved hand. Looking closer at the strings, he saw they seemed to be wriggling around in the empty air. Another oddity to add to his growing list of questions, but not now. Now, one question burned above all others: "Holy Mackerel, Duck me! What in the name of all that is sacred on earth was in that jar?! Tasted like a dog vomited up rotten milk into a jar of battery acid!"

The woman screamed.

And wow could she scream. Wally physically recoiled, his eardrums stinging from the ridiculous sonic attack ringing out from the woman. The crystal ball on the table trembled as if about to shatter from the sheer pitch. “Tone it down, ya bloody banshee! Yer volume matches yer size!” Wally shouted, his power fully activated.

The scream fizzled out and eventually stopped moments after the powered profanities wormed their way into the woman’s ears. The panicked expression on her face was replaced by one of equal parts indignation, disgust, and fury. Ever so slowly, her face grew redder as she found no constructive way to express the anger welling up inside her heart at the verbal filth Wally had just directed her way. Words were just not enough, she clearly needed violence.

It was at this moment, Wally realised that he messed up. His powers, like the woman's volume, had been set too high. This sort of thing happened to him from time to time so Wally knew all too well that he was more likely to get strangled or have the police called on him than to get answers. It was now in his best interests to leave quickly before things escalated to that stage. He'd have to find someone else to provide answers.

He looked around again and spotted two doors, one had a staff-only sign; the other, one of those reversible 'we're open/closed' signs. That'd be the exit then, he figured, time to make a dash for it.

Ignoring the still flabbergasted woman, he stood up and started for the door, surprised by how light on his feet he was. Looking down, he realised why. Something he really should have figured out earlier, this was not his body. He had the body of a thin, young, Australian aboriginal man.

It wasn’t the body that caused him to stumble though, it was the fashion. He was wearing a tiny white t-shirt with a unicorn printed on the front. It was clearly made for a little girl, so it stretched tightly over his chest and revealed his midriff. The shirt was contrasted by a pair of XXXL cargo pants, held up by a shoestring. It seemed like they were supposed to be three-quarter lengths but were so large they reached his ankles. On his feet were bathroom slippers, both different colour and design.

Wally was no fashion diva, but this was unacceptable. Just what was going on? He shook his head and took a quick glance back. The lady was now standing, pointing at him like an evil guilt ghost, quietly murmuring things like “how dare you” and “filthy mouth”. So, yeah, she was still no use.

He started again towards the exit but was abruptly cut off. The lady grabbed something off of a shelf, rushed over to stand in his path and now pointed it at him. It was a tall statuette of a dragon wrapped around a pointed fake crystal. It looked super cheap and tacky but the fake crystal looked sharp enough to take out an eye. She held it one-handed, her other hand was still grasping the strings by her side.

Now Wally was in a bit of a dilemma. Because he didn’t do apologies, ever.

The woman's deafening volumes returned, “Who the bloody hell are you?! What are you doing in Tomas’ body?! Sit back down this instant!” she demanded.

The lungs of this woman! He thought as his brain rattled about in his skull. He shouted back using his power again, “Who the bloody hell am I?! Who the bloody hell are you?! Who the bloody hell is Tomas?! Get out of my way! I got stuff to figure out!”

She lurched forward and tried to stab him. He had to jump back to avoid the crystal. Through gritted teeth, she growled, “I said ‘SIT BACK DOWN!’”

“YOU’RE CRAZY!” Wally backed up a few more steps and bumped into the table, his arms raised.

The woman towered over him, his head barely reaching her shoulders. Her body was thrice as wide as his. She was giving Wally ‘wicked witch’ vibes. Her unnaturally black hair cast her make-up-coated face in shadow. Satanic black lipstick and creepy sunglasses stood out against her pale, wrinkled skin. What kind of maniac wears sunglasses indoors? Wally trembled. He was officially intimidated. No further attempts to escape were made.

“O-O-Ok. Chill your nips, I’ll sit, I’ll sit!” Taking care not to activate his power, he backed his way to the chair slowly, careful not to make any sudden movements. She followed, statuette pointed.

He sat back down in his chair and so did she in hers, it creaked under her weight. Locking eyes with Wally, she spoke in a quieter, yet somehow much more dangerous tone, “Now, put my cigarette back.” she ordered pointing at the ashtray.

Wally took one last puff before complying, carefully placing the smoke down.

The statuette waved in front of his face as she demanded, “Answer me, who, or what, are you?”

Again, with great care taken not to activate his power, he replied, “I’m Wally. Just a man.”

She glared for a moment before continuing, “I very much doubt that. Where are you trying to take Tomas? What are you trying to do?”

“I… dunno who Tomas is.”

“Don’t play dumb with me. This is Tomas,” she held the strings in her cupped hand up, “And you have stolen his body!”

“Lady, that’s a bundle of strings, and I just woke up here. Listen, really, I have no idea what’s going on. One moment I was out fishing, the next I was here. I didn’t steal nothing!”

A long moment of silence stretched on as she glared daggers at him, considering. Finally, she broke the silence, “You're really just a man?”

“Yes, really!”

She sighed, seeming almost disappointed at his answer. After some more stink eye, she put the statuette down on the table and said, “I’m not ‘Lady’, you may call me ‘Madame’, ‘Madame Wanda’,” Then ‘Madame Wanda’ pulled off her sunglasses. It turns out her eyes were emerald green. They were highlighted by excessive purple and gold eyeshadow. She held the sunglasses out to Wally, “Now put these on. Supposing you’re telling the truth, it's best you see for yourself.”

Madame? This ain’t a brothel and those are sus as hell, Wally wisely kept his thoughts to himself as he looked at the sunglasses but made no move to take them.

He glanced towards the exit, “Don’t even think about it. Put on the glasses!” The ‘Madame’ warned, waving the glasses closer.

Reluctantly, he reached out and took them. After inspecting them closely for traps, he put them on. They were just normal sunglasses. Or so he thought until Wanda brought the bundle of strings up in front of his face. There she held a ball of wriggling light wrapped up in strings. The light seemed to be not only alive, but struggling against her grip. Several tentacles poked out through the gaps between strings and wrapped around her fingers. Then he noticed a similar light coming from within Wanda herself. It was obscured by her body but it was definitely the same light.

“This is Tomas. Well, this is his soul,” she paused to bite the finger of her free hand’s glove so she could pull it off before continuing, “He is a young man who came into my shop just before you showed up with what I suspected to be some kind of curse. See these red strings that are visible even without the soul-glasses? Very unusual. OK, give me back the glasses.”

She didn’t wait for Wally, pulling the sunglasses off of his face. After putting them on again, she wrapped Tomas' wriggling soul in the loose glove and placed it into the jar that Wally had emptied of booze earlier. She checked that the soul couldn’t escape then continued, “I discovered the strings after I removed his soul from his body. And while inspecting them, you appeared and here we are. Now the thing about you is, through the soul-glasses I can see your soul shining out from within Tomas’ body, which means you have a soul, which means it must have come from somewhere, which is very odd.”

“Why’sh that odd?”

“Well, souls don't just float around and possess bodies, Wally. If they aren’t already in a body or held together by something like my gloves, they just dissipate into nothing.”

The fact that she knew that had frightening implications. Wally ignored that for now because something didn’t add up about her story, “Huh...Ok, wait, I have a queshtion, how long did you and Tomas know each other before today?”

Wanda tilted her head, “We met today. Why?”

“Well, excuse my language, but he Jusht walked in an let ya tug out his soul? Ishhe a bit slow or what?” Wally's head was starting to spin. He had learned two important things about Tomas since Wanda had sat him down to explain.

First, the fella made poor life choices: he let strangers pull out his soul, his hand was missing, he wore unicorn shirts, etc. Wally was hardly one to judge when it came to making life decisions, him having died from chronic alcoholism and all, but still...

Speaking of alcohol, the second big thing Wally had learned about Tomas was that he had no tolerance for it at all. That single jar of paint thinner, or whatever it was, he downed upon waking up had left his eyes spinning and words slurred. That much would have just been breakfast for his old body. Weird thing was, Wally liked it. This was the first time in ages he had been this drunk and felt buzzed, as opposed to just numb and sick.

Wally was also learning a lot about himself. He had never realised just how unwell he had been. He had forgotten how it felt like to not be hungover or sick. What it felt like to be young and light on his feet. Even his skin felt better now that it was only slightly sunburned. The absence of pain was glorious! “I vow to wear a hat from this day forth,” he murmured to himself.

“WALLY!” Wanda snapped him out of his thoughts. He had completely zoned out and not paid attention to anything she had just said.

“What’d ya shay?” He tried real hard to pay attention to her this time.

“I said…” She squinted her eyes at him, “You know what, never mind. Tell me about what you last remember. It may give me a clue as to how you ended up in Tomas’ body.”

“Right, yeah, right. Lemme jusht… I need a thing,” He looked around the room spotting a coat rack by the door, “Can I grab one o’ those hangersh for a bit?”

“Why?” her eyes narrowed.

“For a… just wait,” he got up, stumbled over to the rack and grabbed a hanger. One of the other hangers gave him pause, it held some kind of fishnet jacket on it. Just the kind of thing Tomas would wear, Wally mused. He turned to go back to his chair and found Wanda right there behind him, the statuette raised over her head, ready to stab him.

He came very close to wetting himself.

“Go back to the chair,” Wanda growled.

He tried giving her a charming smile. He realised that he had a full set of teeth now, “No need for that. Back to the chair.”

Wanda was not impressed but let him sit back down with his hanger, un-stabbed. The hanger was a sturdy wooden stick with a metal hook screwed to it. He held it in his armpit and unscrewed the hook from the centre. Then, with great difficulty, propped the stick up between his legs and screwed the hook into one end. Doing things one-handed was hard, but now he had a long wooden stick with a hook on the end.

His body wavered as he held it up triumphantly for Wanda to see “It’sh a fishin’ rod!”

“Are you… drunk?”

“Watch this,” He stood up again, making her very uncomfortable and made his way into an open area by the table. He held the hanger out in front of him like a fishing rod, “So, I was out fishing on the lake…”

A master actor can captivate an audience and spirit them off into the world of the story. No matter what prop they hold in their hands, to the audience, it is what the actor wants it to be. Wally could be a master actor. As long as the prop had a hook, like the coat hanger in this case, his power would take care of the rest.

Wanda’s eyes sparkled in excitement as Wally gave the most dramatic and captivating rendition of a fish’s capture she had ever experienced. She was literally on the edge of her seat, gripping the table when it sounded like the fish would escape. She jumped and cheered when Wally revealed he had one last trick up his sleeve. She shed tears of joy upon his capture of the fish and tears of sorrow at his subsequent death in the water.

Wally finished the story with a bow, “and that's the last thing I remember before waking up here.”

Wanda stood and applauded. Even the weird part at the end with the talking fish had been amazing.

Her applause was cut short when the front door to her shop was kicked open. Both Wally and Wanda spun around to see what the commotion was. Three armed intruders rushed through the broken door into the room. They held rifles aimed at Wally, “Don't move! Put your hands in the air, Tomas!”