A stab at Neurofiction

Below is the winning entry that was submitted to the Neurofiction contest held by Monsoon Brain meeting 2020.

The Imposter

By Samatha Mathew

Even before I open my eyes, I know it is going to be one of my favorite days. There is a rhythmic tap tap of water outside the window. It is raining. I lay there listening to the breeze and the swaying rain sheets along with it. I’m smiling, instinctively.

I reluctantly push the blankets away and get up. I walk onto the balcony and feel the moisture in the air. All of the greenery around is so much more vibrant with the rain drops glistening on them. The breeze is blowing gently. Life is good.

Amma calls out from the ground floor. I find her in the kitchen few minutes later, humming a tune. “Nice weather, no?” she asks with a smile. I smile back at her, nodding. One of the many tastes we share. After all I’m told that I am her mirror image.

Normally I would immediately open my laptop and set to work after breakfast, but today I decide to climb up to the terrace, wanting to have a wider view of the soaked terrain. My mind wanders while my eyes feast upon the scenery and my ears listen to the calling of the birds. Memories both good and bad, with a backdrop of rain, teem up my brain. I sigh deeply after half an hour of brooding, and half-heartedly turn away. Rainwater has seeped on to the stairs. The last thought before I tumble all the way down through the stairs is, ”…Shouldn’t slip and fall.”

***

Beep. Beep. Beep.

There are sounds that aren’t quite reaching my ears. Body feels like lead. I’m lying down.

My head feels heavy and there’s something else…pain? I try to open my eyes; it seems like a herculean task.  It’s a dimly lit room. The beep sounds are coming from nearby. My right hand is in a cast. I let my consciousness focus on different parts of my body. Several tears leak sideways and fall onto the pillow. The pain in my head is building.

A nurse walks in, and before I gather the energy to open my mouth she adjusts the drip and I slowly dissolve into nothingness…

***

There’s something definitely not right.

Where is Amma?

As I lay in the hospital bed, I had asked my brother about how she was holding up. It was so stupid of me to put her in this situation. At the time he had said that she was at home. And every time since then he said Amma was coming to look after me, there was this other woman who would come with him. She took care of me the whole time. Like Amma. But why wouldn’t Amma herself come? I thought maybe she was too tired and sad to come see me. And that woman was helping me anyway.

Urghh. The headache again. The wounds have healed, but the doctor says it would be sometime before this headache would go away. Why oh why did I have to go up the stairs on that day. Should have stayed with Amma.

This other woman like Amma. Why does my brother keep calling her Amma? I thought about it many times, and I once even tried to ask him at the hospital. Then there was this blasted headache again and… maybe they sedated me.

I waited till we got back home. She came home with us too. And as soon as I came, I went looking for Amma everywhere. Only she wasn’t there. And the other woman was looking at me like… I have lost it. She started crying. So I came up to my room.

But where is Amma?

The other woman does look a lot like Amma. But of course she isn’t. Because I don’t feel the warmth and the peace I used to feel when I look at her. I don’t feel the need to hug and hold onto her. No. She definitely isn’t Amma. She is not the person I’m the mirror image of. Or am I?

I step in front of the mirror. My hair is starting to grow back. I’m thinner. There are dark shadows under my eyes. If only Amma was here, I could have asked her to give my head an oil massage.

There’s a movement at the door. The other woman is looking at me sadly. “You will be back to normal soon” she says. I nod jerkily and look away. I pretend to search for something in my bag. I hear a sniff but when I turn around and look she has walked away from the room.

 ***

After dinner I retreat to the room as usual. There’s a knock and I find my brother standing at the door with a searching expression on his face. I laugh. “Since when do you knock to come to my room?” I playfully try to hit him, but he looks at me in astonishment.

“What happened?” I ask him. He looks at me again, as if gauging my expression. After a long pause he asks, “Are you feeling okay?”

I mull over the question. I do feel okay in the sense that I can walk around and do things pretty much by myself. But yes, the nagging feeling about Amma… should I ask him? Isn’t he too worried about me already?

“Why? Why do you ask that?” I ask gently.

“Because you are behaving weirdly with Amma. You don’t talk to her. You don’t even call her Amma anymore. Is… is everything alright? I… I wanted to ask you. But… I just wanted you to feel better first.”

A thousand things explode in my head. A dull pain is again starting to surface somewhere. I feel confused.

“Amma? I am weird with Amma?” What is he going on about? I rub my forehead to suppress the headache.

“Listen, I wanted to ask you something too…where is Amma?”

He looks at me like he couldn’t believe his ears. His eyes searched both of mine.

“What do you mean where is Amma?”

His voice is shaking. Is he going to cry?

“Umm… I thought she was too shocked to come see me in the hospital…and that’s why the other woman kept coming to stay with me… and today I came and searched for Amma everywhere…” A sudden thought struck me. “Did something happen to her?”

His eyes are bloodshot. His voice is pleading when he says, “Amma was with you the whole time. That is no ‘other woman’. That is Amma. And she is heartbroken. Why are you doing this?”

It is taking me sometime to process his words and they pierce through me like shards of glass. Why would I call another woman Amma? Anger flared inside me after a long time.

“What do you mean why I am doing this? You tell me why you are calling her Amma!” I realize there are tears in my eyes too. I step closer to him. “Please tell me Amma is fine!” My voice drops to a whisper. I am begging.

He walks to the bed and sits down, shaking with sobs, head in his hands. Tears run through my face too.

“What are you guys arguing about?” There she is. I turn angrily to her. Before I can speak a word, my brother runs up to her and says, “Amma please go now. Let me talk to her first.”

But the despair and anger has gotten the better of me. “TELL ME WHERE AMMA IS! AND WHY IS SHE HERE? WHY DO YOU KEEP CALLING HER AMMA?” I hurl words at my brother who seems to get angry too.

The woman has a shock on her face which slowly turns into something like sorrow and she starts weeping. My headache is at a breaking point now.

“You ask her to go back from wherever she came from. And you bring Amma back. Now! I’m going to sleep, but I don’t want to see her in this house again!” I shout, pointing at the woman. Her sobs turn louder.

My brother shakes his head. Holding the weeping woman by her shoulders, he leads her outside.

I stagger to the bed and lie down, clutching my head. Tears are gushing down my face and my breath is catching amidst sobs. I lie in the bed crying for a long time into the night. It starts raining.

***

Capgras delusion.

That’s what they call it. My brother tells me that that’s why I can’t see that the other woman is Amma. He tells me that my brain injury is the reason. He says I should call her Amma. She does look a lot like her. Like the mirror image of my mirror image.

Something is definitely not right. Maybe it’s all inside my head.

The End.

___

Inspired by the description of the delusion in Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind by Padma Bhushan Dr. V.S. Ramachandaran and Sandra Blakeslee.