The homeless man never learned the name of the woman who killed him.
One moment he was crossing a dark road, the next he saw headlights, heard screeching tyres, and felt everything go black.
Then he opened his eyes again.
He was standing beside the wrecked car.
A woman sat behind the wheel, staring at the windscreen in horror.
"Oh no," she whispered. "Oh no, no, no..."
The homeless man looked down and saw his own body lying motionless on the pavement.
He was dead.
As panic swept through him, something strange happened. His spirit lurched forward and slammed into the woman like a wave.
Suddenly they were both screaming.
The world spun.
When it stopped, he found himself looking out through the woman's eyes.
"What happened?" he shouted.
Only nobody could hear him.
Another voice answered inside his head.
"Who are you?"
The woman.
The two of them were trapped in the same body.
Her name was Diane.
She was fifty-two, recently divorced, and had just dropped her teenage son at his father's house for the weekend when the accident happened.
The doctors never discovered anything unusual after the collision. Apart from a minor concussion, Diane appeared perfectly healthy.
They had no idea there were now two minds living inside one body.
At first, both were horrified.
Diane wanted her life back.
The homeless man wanted his body back.
Neither was possible.
Weeks passed before they finally accepted their situation.
"Well," the man said one morning, "if I'm trapped here forever, I may as well look around."
"You are not borrowing my life."
"I think we're a bit beyond borrowing."
Unfortunately, he had a point.
The biggest shock was discovering how much the body itself influenced his experiences.
He had spent years living rough outdoors, enduring every weather imaginable.
Now the body suddenly felt too warm.
Then too cold.
Then warm again.
The first hot flash struck while they were shopping.
One moment everything was normal.
The next it felt as though somebody had lit a furnace inside their chest.
Sweat appeared instantly.
"What is happening?" he shouted.
"Menopause."
"Menopause is ridiculous."
"It isn't supposed to be fun."
A week later he experienced another.
Then another.
The pair eventually developed an odd sense of teamwork whenever one arrived.
"Hot flash."
"I know."
"Really hot flash."
"I know!"
As months passed, the two began learning about each other.
Diane learned the man had once been a skilled carpenter before a series of tragedies left him homeless.
The man learned that Diane's confident appearance hid years of loneliness and disappointment after her divorce.
Neither life had been as simple as the other had imagined.
One evening, while looking through old family photographs, the man noticed Diane staring at a picture of herself from years earlier.
"You miss that person."
"A little."
"You looked happy."
"I was pretending."
He was silent for a moment.
Then he laughed.
"Funny. I thought everybody with a house and a family had everything figured out."
Diane laughed too.
"Trust me. We don't."
The strangest part was dealing with her son.
At first, the man tried to stay in the background whenever the boy visited.
But occasionally Diane found herself smiling at jokes she hadn't heard or giving advice she hadn't intended.
The homeless man's influence was slipping through.
Oddly, her son seemed happier during those visits.
He thought his mother had become more relaxed and less stressed.
In a way, she had.
Living with another person inside her head had forced her to stop obsessing over everything.
Years later, neither of them had found a way to separate.
They remained an unlikely partnership sharing one life, one body, and one set of problems.
The man never regained the life he lost.
Diane never regained complete privacy.
Yet somewhere along the way, they stopped thinking of themselves as prisoners.
They had become companions.
And as another hot flash suddenly washed over them, the homeless man groaned.
"Seriously? Again?"
Diane couldn't help laughing.
"Welcome to menopause."
"I would like to file a complaint."
"Get in line."
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