A case of lost identity (who am I)

The feeling was eerie! It felt as if I had just woken up from a nightmare but I had not. Oh my God! I was not able to see anything. I tried to rub my eyes but where were my eyes, where were my hands to rub them. I could not feel anything. There was no sound as well. Had I gone deaf? Or was I …….. dead!

“What has happened to you, why are you sitting like a zombie?” my wife shouted.

“I can’t feel or see or hear anything”

“But you are talking to me, can you see me?”

“Ahmmm, I can see you but I don’t know what I am seeing”

“You had a bad dream or what? Count my fingers” she said waving her fingers in front of my eyes.

“Two, but no that’s not the problem. I don’t know, I don’t feel normal. I don’t feel in control of myself”

My wife asked the driver to take the car out immediately.  “what are you feeling exactly?”

“I don’t think I have enough force to speak”

“You are speaking fine. Don’t worry. I think you are fine but we are going to the doctor right now”

I did not have the discretionary capability. I was like a log of wood.

After examining me the doctor asked, “How long is this going on?”

“No, he slept fine last night”

“See all his neurological functions are fine but maybe there is a small stroke in the area of the brain that helps us to emote, anything else should have been gradual. Let’s get certain tests done. Kindly take an opinion of a psychiatrist also.” The doctor suggested.

I knew it was not stroke, stroke of bad luck rather!

MRI and all other possible extensions of that were found to be normal. The Psychiatrist claimed to have made the diagnosis, written in some code numbers. On prodding, he told my wife that that was a type of dissociative disorder, usually seen in elderly, was uncommon at my age and outcome was not very good in spite of treatment.  It sounded doom for my wife. I wanted to tell her that it was not true but was unable do so. I was suggested certain more tests including blood levels of some rare elements. I was prescribed certain medicines.

I wanted to run away, but from where? I didn’t know where I was.

Back home, I picked up the newspaper. “Biggest internet company develops snag. Millions of net users stranded for hours”  I could read it, knew what was written but could not connect with it. “A jilted lover kills five in an hour”, “Minister involved in transaction scam”. Nothing affected me.

My wife had summoned various relatives by now. “what does the doctor say”, “Did he have lot of alcohol last night”, “everything shall be all right”, “Can it be some kind of black magic”. Opinions matched the number of people. Black magic caught my wife’s attention and she discussed that with the relatives.

I would have normally got piqued at that but I myself did not how I was feeling, expressing it was beyond my control. I was incapable of being concerned about myself, or else why would I try to check my mail in that situation.

I entered my user name and password. “Invalid user name or password”, the laptop prompted. I retyped but the result was same. “Has something gone wrong with my memory”, I wondered. I was quite sure of my user name and password. I clicked “forgot password” anyhow.

 “Name of the first pet”

“Rendevouz”

“Alternate e-mail address or mobile no.”

“8810886833” I could recall my number without thinking twice

“Your password has been reset and sent to your mobile.

I heaved a sigh of relief. I typed in the new password. After few moments of wait, I expected to be logged in. A blank screen is what I got instead. I waited and waited but the screen remained blank. Probably some virus in my laptop, I thought. I restarted my computer. I checked for my antivirus definitions. They were up to date and had detected only two activities recently. I re-logged. I again got the blank screen. I was confused but still I started to feel better. I was feeling better connected with the world and my surroundings.

I conveyed to my wife that I was feeling slightly better. “Don’t underplay your illness”, she scolded me.

My relatives started to leave. I restarted my computer and found it was working fine. I attempted again to log in but the blank screen was again staring at me. Why was I not able to check my mail. I tried logging in to other services connected to my e-mail.

“Invalid user name”

It then struck me that it was the news headline that the host of my e-mail provider had developed a major snag on the previous night. Probably something had gone wrong with my account.

“It would become alright in a day or two” I thought.

I continued taking the Medicines prescribed by the psychiatrist. I did not feel any better for the next 2 days and continued to stay home. Phone stopped ringing as my ‘illness’ had stopped being‘news’. My wife continued to take scientific and unscientific opinions.

Two days later I was greeted by the same blank screen on logging in my email account. ‘Such a big company, not able to make things in order’, forced me to think that “dot coms” were really affected by recession.

I contacted my webhost telephonically as mail was not possible.

“Don’t give me crap” I retorted on being told that they had made everything functional within 4 hours of the snag. I gave them my account details.

“There is no account by that name”

“I have that account for 10 years” I was shocked. My general well being must have improved I felt.

“We shall check and get back to you”.

I got a call from them within hours.

“Your account seems to have been deleted recently. We have restored it.” I started feeling better. There was something strange. “Why was I being so influenced by my email account? Was my feeling better somehow related to it”, it was queer.

I tried logging in again. This time I could. My account opened. It was blank, there were no mails, sent or in Inbox. There were no contacts. I had lost all I had. Even the related accounts were naïve. As though, I had never been there.

I felt I was in a vacuum and a vacuum was inside me. I was being pulled both from outside and inside. I saw myself being pulled into the computer screen. I was sitting in front of my laptop. I saw myself on the screen. I saw myself sitting on the chair. I saw from within the screen. I was seeing myself from both the sides.

Inside the screen, it was the same feeling, I could not see, hear or feel. I could see but felt as it was mechanical and not in my control. Everything was blank, even I was not there. I looked helplessly at myself sitting on the chair. I saw myself helpless in the screen. I realized, my virtual identity had been lost. I was virtually dead.

There was no one to help me but myself. I knew that! Where’s my identity gone. How has it disappeared. I was thinking, for the first time in many days. Me, on the chair, was feeling in control while ‘me’ in the screen was like an atom, not even sure of its existence without being connected to anything else. I decided to help myself. The question was how?

I created a new virtual identity for myself. Voila! That was so simple. I could hear, feel and see. I was complete and in control. Wow!

My new identity was sprawling all over the screen. The task ahead was to tell everyone that it was me. Getting contact addresses would not be too difficult. But…….

Somewhere in the corner of the screen, there was something squeezed. It had a scornful look. Oh! It was my older self. But it had already been lost, what’s he doing here? It was trying to find himself. Its impuissant look woke up my benevolence. Moments ago, I was as feeble. I could identify with myself, my older self. My urge to help myself was becoming stronger. However, my new self was trying to nudge it out, telling me to ignore it and go ahead with business. I saw hatred in my eyes for my new self. There was a tussle going on between the all powerful new me and a helpless older me. Only I could settle it. I decided to use my new self to help my older identity.

I told my new identity to go and make itself recognized across all my contacts. I told him, it would be possible only if he took my older self along. My older self knew where to go and only with its help the new one would be authenticated. My argument seemed to make sense to the mighty one. Actually I was sending it on the search of my lost identity. How and where was it lost?

The older one had experience and knowledge while the newer one had strength and courage. I knew it was a bad world wide web out there! But they had to go on this quest for their sake, for my sake. The older one piggybacked on my new self and left the confines of my laptop, guarded by antivirus and spyware. They had to go unguarded, without any protection that was limited to my laptop, their home. I knew this journey would be safe till my server but from thereon God save us! I reassured myself; I had gone there almost daily and had been safe prior to this accident. One accident was good enough to kill me; I was not ready for any other.

We had to jump from the server to enter WWW. It was a strange world. The paths were crystal clear and smooth as glass but they were intersected by other such paths at various angles at nearly every point. It was impossible to know which turn to take. The other people were travelling and turning at incredible speeds. There were no footpaths. The paths were lined either by huge buildings or garbage. There were gigantic cranes removing garbage, buildings as well as paths with lightening speed. New buildings, paths and garbage heaps were being created equally rapidly. I was intimidated. I looked up on my back. I smiled down to myself. I told him, “don’t worry, we don’t have to do anything, just carry the address in our hand. We will reach our destiny by any path that is not important. Long or short it takes the same time. We don’t have to take any decision”. We were travelling smoothly and turning without knowing. There were naked women soliciting us. Too many of them, the whole area looked like a red light district. I said, “Ignore them; they are here for only those who want to reach out to them”.

“They should be in closed confines, even children are here”

“It’s not like that even in the world, why talk about world wide web. They teach us discretion!” I taught myself.

We reached at my friends place. The lights were off. People were stacked in the inbox. People of various colours, sizes, in different apparels, some boisterous and loud, some quiet and shy. Some had a chain of people hanging by their one arm, they became older as the chain went down. I didn’t know what to do.

“Just jump on the top”

I obeyed. Suddenly there was a flurry of people jumping on top of us. However, we were not squeezed. We were comfortable in our space. I was waiting.

“we don’t have to wait, just leave ourselves here and let us go.”

We left ourselves there and moved to another place. It was exactly similar. We again jumped on top of the inbox but surprisingly we reached at the bottom. “Some settings stuff” I was told by myself.

Suddenly a window of light opened. We automatically started to ascend towards the window as people on top of us were gradually flown to a huge bin and dumped there. We reached the window and I saw my friend looking at me inquisitively. I said “Hi”. He didn’t reply and we were about to be thrown to the bin. Suddenly I riding on my back spoke up:

“Hi, dude! It’s me. Although you don’t see me but I am sure you can recognize me. I somehow was erased from the system and that’s why I have come to you as a new name. It’s my new identity but I continue to be myself.”

“Oh, I was wondering where you have gone, you had disappeared from my contacts also. My all mails were bouncing, the server got tired looking for you”

I sitting on the chair in front of my laptop was rejuvenated and had now found myself, at least once. Now I not only knew who was I but also was beginning to find the place I was in.

We went to hundreds of other places in seconds and were similarly welcomed. I was flying in the blissful pleasure of my new found self.

Suddenly, I on the top, was hit by a large white boulder. But I didn’t get hurt because I didn’t exist. I, the one below me, whose back I was riding, was hit and it disappeared. I was left without a body. I had no existence. I realized that boulder was a large eraser that hit us. There was a huge monster, a virus chasing us, throwing boulders of erasers on us. I found another one of my new self going somewhere with my old self on its back. I joined them. The three of us were only two. We didn’t know how to run because we were travelling automatically. We had no control over our speed or direction. We didn’t know what to do! The virus was chasing us and throwing the erasers at us. We didn’t know how to protect ourselves. I knew if we got home to our laptop, we would be safe but then our entity was to travel WWW. We had no way of communicating with myself that was sitting in front of the laptop; the only person who had any control. My newself was scared. I told him:

“Don’t worry, let the virus do whatever it can, it cannot harm me as I do not exist. I can always find you again, like I just did, if anything happens to you”

“But that me sitting at home would be shattered again”

“I will take care”

The virus was working very fast and erasing us but the virus was one and we were many. Most of us, sitting in the computers of our friends were safe. Only those of me, who were travelling were at danger. One of us, quietly accompanied a friend, who was going as a reply to my home, guised in him. The virus could not recognize me and did not attack. We reached home and were again face to face with myself.

After I read the reply, I came across the two of my selves; the new identity was badly injured. Only few parts of me were visible, it had been erased significantly. My old non-existing identity narrated the whole story. I was aghast!

“Why is a virus chasing me, who has sent him?”

The new one said “I have seen innumerable of them on WWW, many of them are thieves but some destroy just for fun, they are terrorists of the new age.”

“No”, the wiser one said, “this is different and specifically looking for us, though I don’t remember but this one may have deleted me”

“How could a virus delete me from everywhere, most personal computers were safe from these viruses” I wondered.

It was after days that I was able to think and capable of acting. I decided not to leave it at that. Revenge! That was my motto now!

I looked into my armamentarium. I had a spyware. I loaded my selves with the spyware and told them, “Just somehow tag the virus, rest I will take care”

I sent my brave duo on the mission. Now, I was a team. This time I will not lose my identity. I was determined. As soon as we jumped on the WWW, we came across the virus. The spyware automatically fired itself and stuck on the virus. Simultaneously the virus fired the boulder. We were annihilated. The moron virus did not recognize or realize that the spyware was stuck on him. It was not programmed for that as it was not programmed to celebrate after achieving its objective. Inside the spyware, there was me. Hidden inside it. It was frightening to see the virus erasing me again and again, every time it came across me. It was unaware that I was there upon it. Then I noticed something strange. I was being recreated by the virus. That was not me but Virus disguised as me. “So that is how the virus is managing to reach the personal computers of my contacts and deleting me there.” The conspiracy was strong and well-thought of.

The moment for which I had seen all the carnage, came. At the end of the day, the virus was returning home. I was shocked to see that its home was not a professional terrorist camp, as I had expected. Rather, it was computer of one of my colleagues at work. I peeped from the virus and saw the frustrated face. I could not understand why he was doing this. My job was, however, done. Next morning the information reached my home as I passed it on to another of myself guised in a mail. We had the rendezvous. Everyone of me were there

I was angry at the revelation. I put my computer on the standby and phoned my colleague.

“Why did you do this?”

“I didn’t” but the voice was lying.

“If you don’t own up, I am going to take a legal action”

“You didn’t accept my friend request”

“You are a colleague and I did not want to share everything with you, what’s wrong with that?” I asked

“I was offended”, the colleague said.

I heard my wife in the backdrop “are you fine, whom are you shouting upon?”

“Yes, I am fine as never before” I replied putting the phone down.

“Let me take you shopping honey!”