There is no way to know how or when it happened. When you can’t trust your own memory, how can you know?

It seems like one day I was hearing about it, reading about it online, and the next it was affecting people on campus. My teachers forgot their lesson plans and then rambled on about alien abductions and lizard people. My friends forgot to do their homework, then how to get to class, and then who they were. They would think they were disciples of Jesus, soldiers of the Civil War or colonists on the Moon. Anne, the engineering student in the room next to mine, became convinced that she was a court lady in Poseidon’s underwater palace. I had become a little forgetful myself, but I felt like I still had a pretty firm grip on reality. But then again… how was I supposed to know?

In the end, things got so bad that we decided to leave our dorm. That night there were three of us: Gene, Arthur and me. I was studying psychology, Arthur was studying medicine, and Gene was studying theology. For some reason, we seemed to be the only ones there who hadn’t completely lost our minds. We huddled under the bare trees behind the building, the old snow crunching under our feet.

Gene took a long drag on his cigarette and let it out into the frigid air. “The Robarts Library is our best option. I hear it’s a sanctuary. An island of sanity in…” He waved the cigarette. “All this.”

Read more science fiction from Nature Futures

“You can’t believe anything you hear,” Arthur said, his voice muffled behind a surgical mask. “Not anymore.”

But it made sense. Robarts would have books and records from before: ancient physical documents that we could get our hands on. Those we could believe. And the library itself was built like a fortress.

“Do you have a better idea?” I asked.

Arthur sighed and then shook his head.

“Then let’s go,” I said, and started walking.

“Uh…” Gene said.

I stopped and turned around. They looked at me strangely.

“The library is over there.” Gene pointed his cigarette in the opposite direction. “You know that. We go there almost every day.”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes. I just turned around.” It was the snow, I told myself. It covered everything, it made the landscape new and unknown.

We took a roundabout route, passing through Queen’s Park. Trudging through the snow, we came across a man shaking and dead-eyed. He was wandering around the park, handing out poorly photocopied flyers that featured a photo of himself beneath the words:

WHO AM I?

I shrugged, but politely took the paper, folded it, and put it in my pocket.

Passing between the Conservatory of Music and the Faculty of Law, we found the Conservatory besieged by law students in black robes and white wigs; I wondered where they got the wigs from. The building had been set on fire and thick columns of smoke rose into the gray night. From within came discordant music, a thunderous anthem of tubas and drums. I have no idea what fight the lawyers had with the musicians; maybe they didn’t like his performance.

Some of the robed figures approached us, one of them holding, ominously, a torch.

“Papers,” said the man with the torch.

“Papers?” Arthur repeated.

“You need transit documents to pass through here. It’s the law.”

“Here you go, sir.” I handed him the pamphlet they had given me earlier.

The man passed the flashlight to one of the others and then unfolded the paper, frowning and scratching his wig as if he had forgotten how to read.

I cleared my throat. “Is everything in order?” I asked.

He handed the paper back to me. “Keep going. You can see we’re very busy here.” They turned around and left.

Arthur looked at me. I shrugged. We continue on our way.

“I called my parents this morning,” Gene said. “They were talking about how the government was listening to the line and monitoring their brain waves. How the hell did it get so bad, so fast?”