Double Exposure
“stopped understanding which of the two was the real one” In chapter four Simon’s reality “cracked” for a moment — under overload. Now the crack has become a way of life: the fantasy settles over the real “seamlessly”, holds longer than ever, and it takes effort to leave it. But the truly alarming thing is not the image itself — it is the short “he didn’t care” which of the two pictures was real.
As long as a fantasy knows its place, it is a refuge; when the border with reality stops mattering to it, it becomes an instruction. The office, the hearing, the director are already a “rehearsal” to Simon, a mock-up of his dream — reality demoted to a draft of the fantasy. Psychiatrists call this a failure of reality testing, and it is the last station before the inner picture starts demanding to be built.
