The Typist
I wake up on Monday morning. I glance sideways and the clock says 6.55 AM. The alarm is set for 7. I feel fresh and well-rested. I lie in bed, collecting myself. Today is the most important day of my life. I have an interview with Amazon, and I couldn’t be more prepared. There is so much calm around me and I can hear the birds chirping outside.
My alarm cuts through the silence. I smack it off and spring from my bed, full of enthusiasm. I have exactly one hour until my best friend Rahul picks me up; that’s plenty of time.
I am in such a good mood, I dance my way to the bathroom. I pick up my toothbrush and pretend it is a microphone. I head bang as I sing into it. With the same energy, I grab my toothpaste and squeeze a dollop onto the brush. I start brushing with gusto, looking intently at myself in the mirror. That is when something unfamiliar catches my eye.
There, on my right cheek, is a scar. It's not alarming, more curious than concerning, yet it's undeniably new. The mark appears to be a recent scratch, just a day or two old, now in the final stages of healing.
I am a little perplexed. I don’t remember scratching my cheek or even noticing this scar before. I shrug; it doesn't matter. Nothing else is important today. I slap my cheeks to pump myself up. “Focus” I am talking to my reflection now. “You got this”.
I forget about the scar until I get into the shower. The more I don’t want to think about it, the more my brain fixates on it. I can’t shake it off. Oddly, I hadn’t noticed it until today. I try to remember if I had done anything recently that could have potentially scratched me. My mind goes blank.
Dripping water, I step out and sit on the edge of my bed, racking my brain. “What’s the last thing I remember about yesterday?” I ask myself.
I close my eyes. I am in my parent’s living room. I’m watching TV. I can hear my mom cooking in the kitchen. And then, Ankita, my ex-girlfriend walks out of the kitchen. I get up from the couch and follow her into the guest bedroom. And then blank. Nothing
I open my eyes to the present. How did I get back? Why did I go to my parents'? And why did my ex's presence seem so ordinary?
My face is twitching in shock now. My parents live 3 hours away from my place. And there is no way I would go there one day before my interview, let alone watch TV. And Ankita! I haven’t seen her in 4 years. Last I heard, she married some Investment banker and moved to London.
I start pacing around the room nervously. I am a rational person, and I always believe there must be a logical explanation for whatever happens. “If I put my head to it, I can figure out what’s happening,” I tell myself.
To begin with, the memory of Ankita in my home could be completely false. I’m probably just imagining it. Together with the fact that I have a scar that I was not aware of, leads me to only 3 possible scenarios:
- I have had a concussion, which led to short-term memory loss
- Someone accidentally slipped a drug into my drink and I am hallucinating
- I have a medical condition. Something like dementia
I sit there, thinking if there could be any other possible explanation for this strange phenomenon when the doorbell rings.
“Dude it’s already 8. Why aren’t you ready?” It was Rahul. He’s here to pick me up for the interview.
“Brooo! Listen ! Some weird shit is happening to me! Do you know where I was yesterday ?” I question him.
“You were at home I guess? We didn’t hang out coz you had to study. For the interview ?” He answers, looking puzzled.
“So I didn’t go to visit my Mom. And you wouldn’t know if Ankita was there?” As I ask the question, I watch him very closely. I start to notice his expression change. His pupils dilate, but his face becomes calm and flaccid.
“I don’t think this is the time to have this discussion. You really need to get to the interview” he says, in a robotic voice.
“Bro! Are you even listening to what I’m saying? Fuck the interview. Fuck Amazon. I am losing my shit over here!!” I frantically grab his arm and look into his eyes.
“Just get ready. I need to drive you to the interview” he replies in the same emotionless voice. My heart sinks. I lose whatever little hope I had for a logical explanation. Rahul’s behaviour definitely indicates otherwise. There is something definitely off.
A rush of emotion floods me and I storm out of my apartment. Once I am on the street, an idea suddenly hits me. I pick up my phone and dial my mom’s number.
“Helloooo” I hear her feeble voice through my phone.
I am in no mood for pleasantries. “Ma, did I come over to visit you?” I ask her point blank. “Was she there?” I add after a short pause.
There was silence on the other end of the phone.
“Ma?” I press on.
“You should focus on your interview now. I don’t think this is the time to have this discussion. You really need to get to the interview” she says in the same life-less voice I heard from Rahul not so long ago.
Hearing this knocks the air out of my lungs. But, I got the proof I needed. It became very clear to me. There was no denying it anymore.
Someone or something is tampering with my reality.
“Hellooo? Beta?” I realized I had forgotten to disconnect the call in my panic. I stop walking and stand on the road looking at my phone, trying to disconnect the call. To my right, I hear a loud honk. I turn to see a huge truck speeding towards me. And then, everything goes dark.
The next moment, I woke up. I was back at the Typist’s office. And almost immediately all the knowledge came flooding back in. I was in the familiar Dentist’s chair with a bright white light pointed at my face. To my left, the typist sat bent over his monitor.
He was an old balding man in a loose white shirt that had started to yellow with age. He had a long face and his forehead was filled with wrinkles. A pair of square spectacles sat perched at the edge of his long nose. He had a sheet of paper in his hand that he was staring intently at.
“What happened?” I asked him, in a matter-of-factly tone.
His head was tilted back, eyebrows raised, pupils pointed down, peering at the text through the glasses. Without moving his head, he lifted his eyes and looked straight into me. His eyebrows softened and he had a smirk on his face.
“This is what we call a glitch,” said the typist, calmly. “You see, Ankita was supposed to bump into you at the interview, potentially putting you in a state of panic and jeopardizing the interview. But somehow, the simulator confused memories of Ankita with actual events.”
“Huhhh” I replied, in an amused tone. “Does this happen often ?”
“All the time!!” he said, chuckling. “But mostly, you don’t even realize it. I am impressed you noticed this one” he said beaming at me.
I smiled back at him. I felt proud, for no apparent reason. “But this one was weird. I started questioning my reality.”
The typist looked at me with his peering eyes. “Yes, I noticed. I was tempted to see how this one goes. But the simulator could not handle all your questions. So, I simply decided to pull you out.”
“What happens otherwise?” I asked, half knowing the answer to this question.
“Well, if everything goes well, you will live the entire day dealing with the crisis. And when you go to bed, you wake up here- with all the knowledge in the universe. And then we do it all over again- new story, new identity, new memories, new suffering.” He answered, in the same soothing tone.
“So it’s just the two of us? You and me? And you make me suffer?” I asked Ironically.
The typist seemed to ignore my question. “The next one is quite amusing. Do you wanna hear the story?” He asked me, with a twinkle of mischief in his eyes.
I shrugged.
“You are a German woman. You quit your job to become a tattoo artist, you even have a mean sleeve. You travel to India to ‘find yourself’. Except, the locals heckle and steal from you.” He looked at me, expecting a reaction.
I rolled my eyes at him. “Such a cliché!” I thought to myself.
“Just when you think things can’t get any worse, you get a bad case of diarrhea and end up spending the rest of your trip in a filthy hotel room.” He said, chuckling happily.
I looked at him with a forlorn look on my face. “And this never ends ?” I asked him.
He looked at me, his loving eyes unchanged. In a kind tone, he replied, “It ends the day you learn.”
“The day I learn what?”
“How to not suffer.”