Of late, an event occurred that disturbed me immensely for it defied logic and try as I may, I was unable to explain the incident in a logical manner. It happened a couple of days back. After lunch (in my bedroom, what with me being quarantined and all), I went to the bathroom to wash my hands. I noticed that the mug was in the bowl of the toilet (and not in the bucket where it usually hangs out). It took a whole 2 seconds for this to sink in. For a split second, the part of my brain infested with primitive fears and base instincts jumped to the conclusion ‘Ghost!!’. However, the rest of my brain kicked in immediately and reasoned that there must be a logical explanation for this. As I washed my hands, I pondered on this strange incident. The bucket was at a much lower height than the toilet and even so, no wind strong enough could reach inside to blow it in. I certainly hadn’t dropped it in or left it on the shelf from where it might have fallen in. My mind raced searching for explanations, and panicking that it couldn’t find any. I had taken a bath an hour back and it was in the bucket then. How could it have moved on its own (apparently)? My theories started growing wilder and wilder. Maybe the handle snagged on my towel, and when I left the bathroom, dragged it into the toilet. I stopped. Ok, that sounded stupid even to me! It slowly dawned on me that the possible explanation was a very unsettling one, and no, it wasn’t one that shook my entire belief system. The most possible explanation was that I had accidentally knocked it into the toilet and didn’t even remember one bit of it. I staggered back as if hit physically. For those who wonder why, its because I have always suspected that I have memory issues, even complete lapses, but this, was something I was not prepared for. To forget incidents that occurred when I was half-asleep or distracted with work/hobbies was one thing, but to forget something in “broad daylight” when I was in my full senses (relatively speaking of course) was definitely scary. The words “short term amnesia” and “Alzheimer’s” marqueed across my brain. Think as I may, no other explanation made sense, and the pale, translucent, spooky ones were definitely not logical to me. Unsurprisingly, this incident left me disturbed for a while, until another memory lapse wiped this from my active train of thoughts till yesterday.
I was taking my regular afternoon shower, and once done with that, I set about cleaning the bathroom which mostly involved just Dettol-ing the floor and washing it away with scoops of water from the bucket. Once the floor looked relatively Dettol-free, I turned towards the door and was throwing the mug back when I stopped myself. I looked back incredulously at my hand which had aimed the mug at the toilet. Realization came crashing down on me. Damn! Me and my “complex reflexes”!! Not the first time that my so-called “acquired reflexes” have come back to bite me. The repetitive process of throwing back the mug once I was done, had slowly grown into an acquired reflex associated with turning to leave the bathroom. As such, the control for that passed to some other part of my brain which obviously had a dismal sense of aim. Hmm, or maybe there was nothing wrong with its aim since it was aiming right for the toilet bowl. Maybe there was something wrong with the logical circuits there. Bucket – container. Closet – container. Put mug container. See container. Throw at container. Sigh! The toilet just happened to be the nearer “container”. I don’t know if I should be scared or just resign myself to being a complex bundle of simple pieces trying to group together and pass itself off as an “intelligent” human being (homo complexio simplo sapius?)