Autopilot

“Fucking hell.”

I grab my head as it begins to split open like a coconut after a couple of blows from a good, sharp rock. That’s how I describe the feeling tomorrow when I visit the doctor. He is just as confused as I am. Or he will be, at least.  

“What’s wrong, mate?”

I hear the question but Lance’s mouth doesn’t move. He looks over at me with eyes glossy and red, shining out dimly through the smoky haze. I keep staring at him, waiting for the inevitable. Finally, his mouth starts to move. 

“What’s wrong, mate?” Lance asks. 

Mate, I thought. That’s not my name, is it? I try to remember what my parents had called me growing up, but there’s nothing there. I try to remember how I got to this place. What is this place? I look around because I know that’s what I will do. The van I’m in will get a flat on our drive home and the cop that checks on Lance and I will smell the smoke. The cop will ask for my ID and I’ll find a wallet in my coat pocket. The face on the ID means nothing to me now, but I know it is mine. When I get home tonight, I see it staring back at me in the mirror while taking a piss, which will smell like absolute shit. Did I eat asparagus today?

“Gideon, you all good?” Lance asks again. Gideon, yes, that’s my name.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I manage to mumble. “Just a bit of a migraine creeping up, I think.”

Lance gives me a nod and goes to ash his joint out of the back of the van. We both get out and head to the front. Lance takes the passenger seat and I hop in behind the wheel.

“You sure you’re good to drive?” He hasn’t asked it yet, so I decide to get ahead of him.

“And don’t worry, I’m fine to drive.” I smile at him, that’s how people will try to reassure me in the following weeks. “The migraine's not a bad one.”

Lance gives me a nod. He’ll tell me tomorrow that he knew something was wrong, but there’s no point in bringing it up now. The car stalls at first, but I know on the third try it will come to life. Lance’s concern about the battery life is amusing. I want to tell him that there’s nothing wrong, but that’s not what I do. On the third turn of the key, the engine revs to life and Lance eases back into complacency. He dies in two weeks from an overdose, alone in his room watching reruns of Seinfeld. There are worse ways to die, I guess. That’s what I’ll think when his girlfriend calls me the day after his death, but of course I won’t tell her that.

“Alright mate, let’s hit the road.” Lance slaps the dashboard of the car like it’s a horse he’s whipping into a gallop. “Shelly’s alone and will kill me if I don’t get back soon, or she’ll kill herself.” I look over at Lance with confusion and all he does is shrug. “Not actually Gids, but she’s been taking some pretty potent chems lately. I took a dose last week – it’s fucking great, a bloody brilliant high – but lots of mates have been ODing on it.”

“I completely understand, it’s important to be careful.” I smile at him even though I know he will tell me later that he found it to be unsettling. I’ll explain to him that it’s hard to smile when you’ve only done it then and not now, but that will only confuse him more. I drive the van down the roads I know I will take. It’s only a few minutes later that I run over a pothole and the van careens off the side of the road. We’re both alright, but Lance will begin to panic when he sees the police headlights flash in the distance. That’s when they start flashing.

“Shit. Fuck, fuck, fuck.” he stammers. “Open the window and toss the bloody grass.” I tilt my head at him, confused.

“But that’s not what I will do,” I tell him. Now it is his turn to look confused.

“What the fuck does that mean?” He asks, but before I’ll be able to answer, a cop will knock on my window.

Knock. Knock.

“Fuuuuuccckkkk,” Lance whispers through a fake smile.

I roll down the window and a bit of smoke rises through the cracks as it opens. The cop frowns right away. He wants to let us off with a warning, but we haven’t gotten to that part yet.

“What are we smoking, boys?” He asks.

“Just a f–

“Weed, officer. We were smoking weed down by the lake but we only have a couple of grams on us,” I tell him, while handing over the bag of bud in my cup holder.

Both the officer and Lance furrow their brows, neither expecting me to be so straightforward. Lance opens his mouth to say something, but I’ll never know what it is. Perhaps he never had words to utter then. The officer groans, his wife is waiting for him to eat dinner, and he was just about to end his shift. She made meatloaf, his favorite.

“Okay, look,” he says. “I’m going to let you off with a warning, but I’ll need to see an ID.”

I reach into my coat pocket and find the wallet where I knew it would be. I take out the ID and look at the picture. It’s the first time I see my own face. I hand it over, along with my vehicle registration. The officer jots down a few notes into a pad and hands them back to me.

“You two are lucky,” the officer says, “It’s meatloaf night – my wife’s best dish by far – and there’s no way I’m missing that and working overtime cuz a couple of stoners.” Lance and I both laugh, but the officer remains stone-faced.

“All kidding aside, I don’t want to catch you two doing this again, alright?”

We nod back to the officer and he picks up his radio. He’ll call Triple A, which will be here in half an hour. I don’t bother to listen to their conversation now, in fact I don’t bother to listen to Lance while we wait for the truck to arrive. I simply anticipate the gaps where he doesn’t speak, and fill in the holes with the words I know to say. The truck arrives exactly when I knew it would, and they fix the van up in a matter of minutes. Shortly after, I’ll have dropped Lance off. After ten more minutes of driving, I’ll be home.

When I get there, I will start to question my sanity.

How is this happening? Will I be like this forever? What happened in my past? None of those questions will be answered. Of course, I will attempt to learn about my past, but when I do, the information never sticks. It’s a curse, I will think, why must I have to live my life twice? If it is a curse, I never find out how I got it. The urge to take a piss arises and I go to the bathroom. The toilet paper will be empty, which means I’ll have to pick more up tomorrow. Luckily, I know this is only a piss. The stream comes out more yellow than usual, and a pungent sulfuric smell accompanies it. Did I eat asparagus today? That’s another question I know I’ll never get an answer to. Yet, I still ask it. I look into the mirror and see the face from my ID.

“It’s nice to meet you, Gideon.”