Ever wonder whether reality is an illusion and we’re actually living inside a simulation run by an omnipotent being? Well, here’s the proof that it’s true. And that the omnipotent being is Tom Wolfe.

Alternate headline: “George Zimmerman hasn’t moved out of Florida yet?”

George Zimmerman, who has been in hiding since he was acquitted of murder in the death of Trayvon Martin, emerged to help rescue someone who was trapped in an overturned truck, police said today.

Sanford Police Department Capt. Jim McAuliffe told ABC News that Zimmerman “pulled an individual from a truck that had rolled over” at the intersection of a Florida highway last week. Florida Highway Patrol is now handling the case, McAuliffe said.

The crash occurred at the intersection of I-4 and route 417, police said. The crash site is less than a mile from where he shot Martin.

Actually, if this were a Tom Wolfe novel, the guy Zimmerman pulled from the truck would be a reporter who’d been especially loathsome in demagoging the trial’s racial angle. And then, once news of the accident and rescue broke, Zimmerman-hating nuts would descend on the site to protest, claiming that it was all a stunt arranged to rehabilitate his image. (Which, in fact, is already happening in the comments to the ABC story linked up top.) Then the reporter would face a crisis of conscience: Tell the truth about how the whole thing is legit and risk antagonism from his colleagues in the media, or keep quiet to protect his leftist cred and let Zimmerman go on languishing in hiding? If you’ve ever read a Wolfe novel, you know how that story ends. Write it, Tom.

Now we wait to find out what the race of the rescued man was and whether any narratives will need to be “adjusted” in the wake of it. (Here’s one adjustment to expect.) I also want to know if Zimmerman was part of a group working at the scene to free the trapped driver or whether it was basically a solo act. The only way this story could get any more surreal is if there was a crowd there and he was recognized. The ABC story does say that he “helped” rescue someone, not that he did it all by himself.

Exit quotation: “When will he learn to stay in his car?”

Update: Kerry Picket of Breitbart has more details. It was a family of four trapped in an SUV, and Zimmerman was indeed recognized at the scene:

The deputy reported, when he arrived on the scene that one of the two men there was George Zimmerman. According to Sanford Police Zimmerman had a fire extinguisher and helped assist the family to get them out of the vehicle.

“Zimmerman was not a witness to the crash, which was why he was not referenced in the police report,” a Sanford Police spokeswoman told Breitbart News. “He left after making contact with the deputy. There were no reports of injuries of any of the vehicle’s occupants,” she said.

Update: NBC reports that the car was on fire, as suggested by the Breitbart report, so there was some danger here to Zimmerman and the other rescuer. I just got an e-mail from Tom Wolfe: I give up.

Update: NBC’s now updated its piece to remove the claims that the car was on fire. Hmmmm.