Fiction: A story in 150 words

Unknown

I used to think that I was a person whose mind and body were interconnected as a whole, and I used to believe that this defined me as a human being. My mind possessed thoughts, ideas and feelings, whereas pain, exhaustion, physical reality and survival instincts were my body’s realm. When someone would ask me who I was, I would calmly reply, “ I am one”. But this was before.

One day, the body that I thought I had control over ceased to share my thoughts. Worse, it betrayed me. I remember my cold body lying on the bed, in the surgery room, naked, scared, ashamed and trembling. My mind wasn’t scared, but my body was. It felt things that I did not feel, and as a result, I did not recognize the feeling and was simply left aghast, not knowing what to do. It felt and did something my mind didn’t order. For the first time, it had thoughts of its own, feelings of its own.

Now, when people ask me about myself, I reply, “ I am a mind and a body, and I cheat everyday to make them one”.