Though the event lasted only minutes, it’s become the central fracture of my existence; I now see my life as having two distinct halves. It will probably seem that way forever. I hope I’m wrong about this, but I doubt it. Whenever I’ve anecdotally described what happened that evening to other people, they inevitably ask the same question: “Did it seem like a movie?” I know exactly what they mean by this, and I understand why it’s something they’d ask. Our exposure to media makes everyone believe they can conceptualize certain popular impossibilities; by now, we’ve all seen so many “invisible man” movies that we assume we can imagine the unimaginable. But that’s not how it was. It wasn’t like a movie, except at the very end. So my stock answer to the question is this: “Not at all, except when it was.” This allows people to laugh at something that isn’t funny. After my disturbing office conversation with Y____, I counseled two more patients and returned home.
