He woke up with a start.  It took him a moment to realize he was at home, in his own bed.  Something about breaking in a new body made him feel like he was in a strange place regardless of the surroundings.  The perceptions were different.

He had been running it, breaking it in, getting it in shape.  It was a good body.  He was just about ready to go back to the team.  He would have preferred to work with it for another week.  But the playoffs were just around the corner, and his team wanted him back.  The team paid for his body and his lavish life style.  The fans paid to see him play.  He would go back tomorrow. 

But there was another reason he was uneasy.  Was it just a bad dream he had before he awakened?  He listened to the night sounds.  It was summer, and he had the window open in his bedroom.  There was something different about this body.  He couldn’t put his finger on it. 

But then there was always something different about every body.  No pun intended. 

Still, he couldn’t get around the feeling there was something wrong – something crazy; something he couldn’t control.  He looked at the absurdity of the thought.  What was there not to control?  Harm was the master of controlling bodies.  That was why they paid him so much.  He knew he could control a body.  The notion was absurd. 

He focused again on the night sounds.  There were crickets, and a slight breeze caressed the branches in the tree by the window.  He had been working with this new body for three weeks now.  He couldn’t recall having this level of uneasiness after working with a body for three weeks before.  He couldn’t help the feeling there was something different about this one. 

He rolled over and went back to sleep.

His right eye was slightly lower than the left one. 

He studied the face in the mirror.  It wasn't bad.  It was like the face of an identical twin; not really identical, but a very close facsimile.  The hair had been cut by two babbling little Fingurian women.  They were the first people he had seen other than the quiet nurses that come and go in hospitals like this.  The nurses are trained to make no remarks; not to react.  Getting a new body can be an emotionally trying experience.  The nurses know that one small remark to a person with a new body can cause a snap; especially in the first few days.  The Fingurian women had no such sophistication.  For Harm, it was a relief to see their expressive faces and listen to their laughing voices.  He didn't understand a word of the Fingurian language, but he could see they were talking about his body.  Maybe about him as well, but he didn't really suppose they followed bamball.  He didn't suppose he was a celebrity in their culture.  It was probably about the body.  

He looked at the eyes again.  Could they have remarked about the right eye being lower than the left?  He would never know, but he doubted it.  The difference was slight.  He supposed that someone with such a difference might not even notice it themselves after a while.  He tried to look at it objectively.  Would he notice the difference in someone else?  He thought about people he knew.  Were their eyes at an even height?  He couldn't recall noticing that feature on anyone.  Is it something he would notice? 

Just then another nurse came in.  She was distant and non-committal, almost ignoring him, in the manner he had become accustomed to in the nurses.  She put down her tray, then moved toward him to usher him to the bed for treatments.  She brushed against him a little too long and looked directly in his eyes for a little too long.  This isn’t about the body, he thought.  This one was a bamball fan.  She had sent a little signal, and he considered picking up on it.  But he still ached.  He still wasn’t completely comfortable with himself.  He let it go.  Echoing her passive demeanor, he lay back down on the bed and closed his eyes; the high one on the left, and the low one on the right.  When would he stop thinking about that?

When Harm woke up, it took him a few minutes to adjust to the new body and the way it felt.  He wasn’t enthusiastic about looking in a mirror.  It was always a shock to see a new face.  This was the 18^th time Harm’s body had been replaced after near-fatal injuries in a bamball game. 

He knew this body would resemble his last one.  He was a celebrity.  They worked hard to duplicate the body when they replaced it.  From the stands nobody would be able to tell.  But it was never really the same. 

He regretted losing the last one.  It was one of the best he had ever had.  He remembered when he was younger he had worked for a motorcycle racing team.  They had several bikes of the same type.  But everybody knew which ones had that extra something that made them special.  There was no such thing as an exactly duplicate body.  In his intimacy, he could already feel differences.

It usually took him weeks to really get used to a body.  This time would be no different, he thought.  So he didn’t even bother to look in the mirror.  He settled back in the bed and went back to sleep.