On Choosing to Return Home Sooner

It was a pandemic of dysphoria. And this is not a metaphor; there literally was a pandemic of dysphoria. A novel airborne virus surged through the atmosphere. The initial symptoms were benign: a mild cough, a runny nose if one was unlucky. But it became lethal once it bypassed the blood–brain barrier and reached the brain. Once there, it rewired the circuits that anchor one’s sense of bodily ownership, leaving people feeling irreversibly estranged from their own reflection. The most common cause of death that year was suicide, and the WHO even had to debate whether those deaths should count as casualties of the disease. Such a threat to the global economy could not be ignored, and eventually a cure was invented. The sugar-coated pills mimicked the virus’s own neural pathways, further tweaking how one perceived oneself. Their effect depended not on dosage but on frequency, more like tuning a radio, turning the knob until one found an identity they didn’t mind living with. The ideal frequency differed for everyone, from twelve pills a day to one pill a week, discovered only through trial and error. The drug was considered generally safe under medical supervision, but it had one notorious side effect. In addition to modulating self-image, it also restructured the embodied perception of time. When taken regularly, the body synchronized its metabolic cycle to the pill’s rhythm, so that a new corporeal day began only when a pill was swallowed. Once established, one literally lived faster or slower. Taking two pills a day didn’t exactly mean one’s lifespan was halved; the absolute duration might shrink, but it grew twice as dense. Movement, thought, feeling, digestion, and aging all accelerated, so a person would still do just as much within their life. In the end, this side effect proved far more consequential to human history than the pandemic itself. We all had to adapt to this new, relative meaning of time. I survived the pandemic with my companion. The medication arrived just when we were about to drive into a lake together. We were lucky—the cycles we settled into were relatively synchronized. My biological day lasted two calendar days, while theirs lasted only half a day, so at least I could go to bed with them every second night. That was a blessing, especially compared to a couple we knew who took one pill every five and seven days respectively, which meant it took thirty-five days for the ends of their days to overlap. We also have better sex now; they used to come way too slowly. Only by condensing their time and diffusing mine could we reach our climax together. We like taking walks. They walk faster than I do unless they consciously slow down, so sometimes they go ahead, turn back, and smile at me. I can’t think of a scene more beautiful than that. But at times, it makes me think about the divergence of our timelines, the split we will inevitably face. Lately, certain things they say sound almost oracular. “Nothing remains after all, so we can only cherish the present,” they tell me, in their double-paced voice. But I still fear that the day they stop walking will come before mine, and I’ll have to remain on the path without them, my steps unbearably slow. Then I wonder what agency I’ll have left apart from choosing to return home sooner.