A perfectly innocent question has led to the complete unravelling of an autistic man’s sense of self, it has been claimed. 

Anand Trivedi, 32, was reportedly minding his own business, sitting quietly and contemplating unresolved maritime mysteries, when he was cruelly dragged from his favourite pastime and hurled headlong into an extended existential crisis by being asked a harmless, solicitous question.

Trivedi said: “It was horrible. There I was, thinking about the Baltic Sea Anomaly, doing nobody any harm, and then suddenly I was forced to question the very nature of my being, my behaviour as seen in the eyes of others, and whether I will ever truly be happy. I just wanted to think about weird things in the sea!”

Trivedi’s partner and instigator of this harrowing period of introspection, Emma Bernard, 34, commented: “I passed by the living room and saw him sitting on the sofa staring off into space. I wanted to check to see how he was doing – if he wanted a cup of tea, things like that – so I asked if he was alright. Then all the blood drained from his face and his lower lip started to tremble.”

Trivedi added “‘Are you alright, love?’ How could she? The emphasis on ‘alright’. The slightly extended inflection of ‘are you’. The pause before ‘love’ with it rising at the end to really hammer home the question. It was like a punch to the gut. Did I not look alright? Why did she ask? Do I look like someone who doesn’t look alright? Surely if I wasn’t alright I’d have said something, so what made her ask? Oh God, maybe I’m not alright!”

Bernard responded: “He didn’t even say if he wanted that cup of tea.” 

At the time of reporting, the situation, much like what happened to the Mary Celeste, remains unresolved. 

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