Did My Body Get Snatched . . . or Yours?

There it lay, on that unpainted pine shelf, flat on its back, eyes wide open, arms motionless at its sides; and I got down on my knees beside it. I think it must actually be possible to lose my mind in an instant, and that perhaps I came very close to it. ... The hair, like Becky's, was brown and wavy, and it sprung up from the forehead, wiry and strong ... Under the skin, the bone structure was pushing up; cheekbone and chin, and the modeling around the eyes, were beginning to show prominently, as did Becky's. The nose was narrow, flaring into a sudden wideness at the bridge, and I saw that if it widened only a fraction of an inch more, this nose would be a duplicate, precise as wax, of Becky's. ... I hope I never again in my life see anything as frightful as those eyes. I could look at them for only a second at a time, then I had to close my own. ... The steady awareness, the quiet alertness of Becky Driscoll's eyes were horribly parodied and diluted here. ... There and that shelf lay Becky Driscoll—uncompleted.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers. You may have heard of it. You may have seen the movies—Don Siegel's original (1956), Philip Kaufman's successful remake (1978) or, perhaps, the not-so-appealing second remake that Oliver Hirschbiegel thought the masses needed (2007). You may have even read Jack Finney's book, which, much to my surprise, turned out to be as interesting as the first two cinematic duplicates. It's lying on my desk before me. Reading it, it made me wonder if perhaps my body got snatched, too.

You see, I'm not feeling too well, both physically and, as a result, mentally. At times I barely recognize myself and it's been bothering me a whole lot. More than a whole lot. I know I'm still ill. I've been ill since August and I will probably never be my old self again, but that's all academic talk. We people are good at using words to console ourselves. We are masters at using words to somehow transform our reality into something that we feel we can handle or even accept. The reality of the problem itself, the thing we're facing, doesn't really change, of course, but our perception does. IF... you buy those words. Now, I'm a notorious cheapskate... I don't buy a lot. So I look in the mirror and wonder: Who is that guy? He looks just like me. He's got the same blue expression that I'm known for in my inner circle of friends and family. He's got the same spiky haircut. A bit more greyish than a year ago, but still. He's got the same prominent nose and forehead. The same piercing eyes when he's paying attention. The same smirk. The same grin.

But something's off. That guy isn't me. I don't know who that is. There's an emptiness that didn't used to be there. I look around myself. I see people crowding the streets. I hear their voices, but there's this unmistakable yet undefinable emptiness. There's something lacking that used to be there. There's a superficiality that seems to have spread from one individual to the next. Is this who we are?

If my body got snatched, I want it back. Do you know what I mean?

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