Gemotions

He’d been a soldier. Now, Arthur stared into the mirror, his jaw tight, muscles in his shoulders coiled. They’d given him the wrong results. The diagnosis wasn’t his. He should be fine, they said. But the knowledge that his medical identity, his past medical narrative, wasn’t his own, had poisoned him.

He slammed his fist against the counter, the sting a welcome distraction from the relentless thrum of doubt in his chest. Each word of the doctor’s explanation had felt like a lie. Every glance in the mirror showed a face he did not understand. He pictured the other patient, the one whose life he'd briefly possessed on paper, and an icy fury gripped him.

He threw on his coat, the weight of it heavy on his frame. He needed to get away, to disappear.