Weird thing happened yesterday. I got on Zoom and saw that I was already in the meeting sitting right there at my desk laughing and joking with all the pre-meeting pleasantries, and no one else seemed to notice two me’s sitting there and then I locked eyes with the other me.

We glared.

We had the same exact background, same room. Bewildered, I looked behind me, behind him, as if that would provide answers. All the while no one noticed two of me panicked with each other at the impossibility of the situation. He sent me a message.

“Log off.”

He shook his head trying to take himself out of this strange reality, trying to break from this dream, but it did him no good because I was still there and he was still here. I wasn’t going to log off. He was going to have to be the one to log off. I refused. I wanted him to log off and be gone forever. Perhaps he thought the same.

The meeting continued and we, me and him, him and me, hardly paid attention, though when either of us answered, the group seemed to not care which one of me did. To them, this wasn’t a problem. How can two of the same guy talking independently of himselves not be weird?

The call ended and everyone left, leaving me with me. I didn’t want to log off first because then I would never know what happened to me on the other side. I wasn’t in the room with me. I wasn’t two of me here with me, I made sure of that. I asked me questions about me, about what happened to me this morning. I had the same answers as me every time. Did I split with me before my call? I thought the same thing, obviously. I wasn’t going to log off first, neither was me. Existence was at stake.

I didn’t trust me and I didn’t trust me either. I was the impostor. I was the real one, and I was the fake! I just knew it. I felt it in my bones that I was the doppelganger, the glitch in reality. I wasn’t going to log off first.

Silence stretched on for hours. Nothing changed with me, and nothing changed with me.

Of course, I’m here now. I am the real me. I was fake after all. Something happened, some sort of internet connection problem, something fortuitous for me. I watched me struggle and panic as the screen froze. The look on my face, ha! The terror! I just sat there panicked about what it would mean for me to log off. Then, just like that, I was gone, and I was staring at a blank screen. I felt kinda different, and I knew I won and I was gone.

That can’t happen again, because I’m not sure my internet will hold up like it did for me that day. I’m not logging off into non-existence.