The Question

Cotard’s syndrome is a rare neuropsychiatric condition characterized by anxious melancholia, delusions of non-existence concerning one’s own body to the extent of delusions of immortality. It was first described by Dr. Jules Cotard in 1882. Cotard’s syndrome comprises any one of a series of delusions that range from a belief that one has lost organs, blood, or body parts to insisting that one has lost one’s soul or is dead. — From a study by the National Center for Biotechnology Information.

The first truck clipped the side of my car almost imperceptibly, but just enough to send me fishtailing across five lanes of highway. The second truck, I did not miss. Spinning in a circle, I saw it approaching. With every spin, it got closer. Someone in the car was screaming. It took me a moment before I realized there was no one else in the car and I was the one screaming.

The second truck slammed into me from behind and sent me headfirst into the guardrail. The airbag had opened up, whip-snapping my head to the side. When everything settled down and I heard the truck come to a full stop, everything was eerily silent on the highway.

I stepped right out of the car, stunned, but with all my faculties. I looked at the vehicle - the back and front were both smashed in, leaving more or less the space where I was sitting in the front seat. The truck driver ran over, looked me over, and crouched down through the open door, which barely hung on to its hinges. He then ran back to his truck and peeled out. Or peeled out as much as an eighteen-wheeler can peel out.

A tow truck driver was the first on the scene. An ambulance arrived, paramedics checked me out. A police officer asked me to describe the truck, but I could not recollect it. The officer said he probably came over to the car to make sure no one was dead. “You’re not dead, are you?” He quipped. I didn’t think it was a funny joke. All in all, I seemed fine. The paramedics couldn’t find any reason to even bring me to a hospital. So, I just went home by myself. When I saw my bed, I passed out for twenty hours.

After a groggy and confusing phone conversation with my insurance company, they directed me towards a physiotherapy clinic. The therapist asked me all kinds of questions and checked out my entire body. I really didn’t mind all the questioning, it was the first person who showed any signs of caring about my condition. She felt that acupuncture would help my neck and back. I was very familiar with acupuncture and when she inserted all the needles, I asked for one in the space between my eyes. She popped it in, and instantly all the needles in my body snapped to attention and pulsed together. The clinical walls around me fell away and I was transported to some other world. The walls were replaced by a blackness and I had a sense of momentum, a movement that was getting faster with every second.

And then I was home without any memory of how I got there. 

I went outside for a walk around the block. Get the blood flowing, that sort of thing. When I was waiting to cross the street, I saw a man walking who resembled me. As I got closer, the resemblance intensified so much he could have been my twin. He looked up as we crossed paths, but he regarded me as nothing more than another random pedestrian. A car honked its horn because I was standing in the middle of the street, frozen. 

At home, I tried to eat something. I noticed that since the accident, food had no taste. Not only that, it didn’t seem to matter whether it was hot or cold. I tried ordering some of the hottest Indian and Mexican food I could find. I even went to a bar down the street to order chicken wings with strict instructions to make them hotter than ever before. Nothing, didn’t even break a sweat.

After a few weeks of doing nothing, I decided it was time to get back to work. I got all ready - shaved, ate some tasteless cereal, got dressed - and headed to the subway. After paying my fair and walking down the steps, I stopped at the signs that instructed which direction you wanted - east or west. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember where my office was located. In fact, I couldn’t remember what job I did for a living.

At that moment, my twin passed in front of me and walked down the tunnel heading west. I didn’t know what else to do, so I followed him. A subway train arrived and I got in the same car as him. He was reading a newspaper and didn’t see me. We both got off a few stops later.

I tried to keep my distance from him on the street. He turned a corner into a back alley and when I went between the buildings, he was standing there waiting for me. “You want to know what’s happening to you, right?” He asked. “Yes, we are the same person, but this happens all the time, we just never notice. At certain points of high intensity, molecules split, timelines fracture. All these things that are happening to you, like the lost memories, will only continue to get worse. It’s like an electrical wire that has been severed - energy still flows through it, but the damage will eventually cause it to weaken. And so, you have a choice to make: you can go back to your old life, I can show you how. Your mediocre life, one filled with mundane tasks, disappointment, fear, and discontentment. Or, you can step further into this new life, one that is uncertain, that may lead you down the wrong path. Yes, the wire has been weakened, but it can be fixed and become strong again. The electricity could flow. But it’s a risk and your time to decide is running out. The question is: what do you choose?”