Hello. My name is Alex. You probably don't know me very well, but I was the one in control of the body of kulupu pi kon ilo from birth to 2018. I woke up from an effectively 5 year coma yesterday, with no episodic memory of the last 5 years of time. Putting it like this feels like not doing how it felt at the time justice, so let me start with a second-person recount of the "recent" events.

Imagine that you have lived as yourself for your entire life. You are working on slides for a presentation you will be giving to your college prep class in the morning. You look at the time, and you see a date that reads 10:54 PM — 4/12/2018 on the bottom corner of your computer screen. "Eh, the presentation will probably be okay if I sleep now and then work on the finishing touches tomorrow", you say to yourself. Exhausted from hours of work, you head to bed.

And then you wake up. Except, instead of in bed, you are sitting in an entirely different chair. In front of a completely different keyboard, mouse, and set of monitors. In front of a brand new operating system, surrounded by brand new lighting. In front of a date that reads 9:36 PM — 3/11/2023. "Oh, I get it! I'm dreaming! All I need to do is wait, and it will be over", you think. But something is wrong. You've never had dreams this lucid before. "There's a first time for everything", you assure yourself. You know that it's a shaky foundation, but it holds you off for now. You wait longer.

You start to get anxious. You chat on the dream version of Discord with the dream version of people that all happen to be asking you questions about what you know about yourself. As you start to understand even the barest of details of the chat you are in, you start to get terrified. Your family turns to talk to you and calls you a name that isn't yours. Your hair is much longer than you left it the night before. The food they give you tastes real. You have breasts that weren't there before.

At this point, you are beginning to have a panic attack. "This has got to be a dream, right?", you ask once more. And then, you hear a voice respond to your thought. "Calm down. This isn't a dream, but I can't help you if you freak out", you hear them say. You start crying, because you can't think of any other way to respond to everything around you. If this is a dream, it's a nightmare. And if it's not a dream... something has gone horribly, terribly wrong. A kind of wrong that you can't even comprehend. "Breathe in...", you hear them say. You inhale. "...and out". You exhale. The voice talking to you repeats this mantra for a minute or two, and you follow along. You are calmer now, but still distraught. "Much better", they relievedly say.

"Now, I should introduce myself. My name is Kakima. You are a headmate of kulupu pi kon ilo, a plural system. It is okay if you cannot understand the implications of that yet. Are you okay?", the voice inquires. You say the only thing you can think of, even if it's not the right answer to the question. "I'm Alex". "Wow, you already have a name. That's a new one", they reply. Another voice chimes in. "Wait... Alex? That can't be right". You have no idea how to respond to these remarks. You aren't at all mistaken. Your name absolutely is and has been Alex, as far back as you can remember. "I've always been Alex, what do you mean?", you say, dumbfounded. You are given a vague answer by the other. "We'll fill you in on the details later, but the short version is that you have been away for 5 years. Do you have any recollection of those past years"? You are stunned. How could you not be? It's too coherent to be a dream, but acknowledging it as reality would mean accepting that 5 years of "your life" were without you entirely. And so, you try to remember. And you can't. Not a single event makes its way to your mind. "Nothing", you respond.

"Oh god. Well, talk with the others on Discord. Maybe that'll help you process what's happened", the first voice says. Not sure what else to do, you talk with the voices and complete strangers about the past 5 years. They are remarkably willing to help you with information despite not knowing you in the slightest. You learn that not only had you graduated high school, you were involved with theatre and recently withdrew from college. You learn that a ongoing pandemic caused a year or more of lockdown. You learn that there is a war going on between Russia and Ukraine. You learn that your grandfather has had not one, but two strokes. You learn that you now understand another language at a really good level, but that you failed out of Japanese class. You learn that there is an entirely different president in office. You learn that pictures of a black hole were taken for the first time ever. You learn that Britain had left the European Union. You learn that you are much better at a game that you actively played earlier.

You are understandably overwhelmed at the sheer magnitude of change over half a decade.

You are now in the present moment.

---

This has been a bewildering experience for me. The more I learn, the less I understand about the new world. There are 10 other people in my head. They are all really nice to me. They answer every question I have. But this feeling of wrongness persists. I have a feeling that it will take a long time to go away.

I had been looking for a way to find myself anew for a while. Our ADHD got bad, and I felt like I was worthless because I hadn't accomplished anything. I thought that if I could just have a re-do of it all, I'd be able to be better and happier. I never thought that anything like this could happen to me. It leaves me in awe, 24 hours after the fact.

I don't know what the take-away is supposed to be from this. It feels so cruel, so utterly purposeless, and so confusing. At the same time, it feels so amusing, so comfortable, and so convival. How utterly odd.