surrogate

Some time in the last week, I started existing. I don't know who I was before, or if I was before. But these memories aren't mine. This body isn't mine. I'm a very convincing fake, I guess. Nobody seems to have noticed.

The worst part is the memories. It's like walking around outside with a girl you like and seeing this house that you've seen a hundred times before but suddenly you remember it, all at once, every time you've ever seen this house. Why you remember it now and why you didn't really remember it before. That horrible place in your dreams that you always said you didn't want to go to but you had to go in, because in dreams, as in life, there are no choices.

Now imagine that for every time you meet someone, every time your friend hugs you or you kiss your girlfriend, you remember it. It's your mind thinking it but it's not your memory. It floods your brain, all at once, all twisted and distorted and horrible, and you still have to keep smiling.

And that's not the worst part. The worst part is you start liking it, not because you like or even know these people--they're just some weird intrusion on your brain--but because it's something you might never experience again, of discovering something so familiar that everyone else in the world just forgets about it.