Choices

 

"If you take the blue pill, you will stay in this world and everything will carry on as it was before. If you take the red pill, nothing will ever be the same again."

 

"What do you mean?"

 

"You will be free! The illusion of reality will shatter before you."

 

"Not sure I fancy any shattering."

 

"It is a metaphor. The only things that will truly shatter are your perceptions."

 

"So everything I think is true will be destroyed?"

 

"Obliterated."

 

"Again, sounds painful."

 

"Again, metaphor. Don't take everything so literally."

 

"So what form will this 'freedom' take?"

 

"You will be wrenched from the comfortable-but-false reality you have grown to accept and plunged into a bleak-but-true world of darkness and despair, where the machines we have created are intent on destroying the last clinging vestiges of humanity."

 

"Really?"

 

"You will know Zion!"

 

"Why didn't you say that in the first place?"

 

***

 

"So what will it be?"

 

"What do you mean?"

 

"Blue pill or red pill?"

 

"Can I think about it?"

 

"The decision must be now."

 

"Why?"

 

"Because that is how it has always been."

 

"Yes, but why?"

 

"What do you mean?"

 

"Just because it's always been that way, doesn't mean it has to be."

 

"Why do you question me so? Why do you cling to your false reality like a baby to a blanket?"

 

"Are you saying the world is like a blanket?"

 

"In a sense, yes. A blanket that has covered your eyes and blinded you to-"

 

"Reality?"

 

"Reality, yes."

 

"Reality, truth, freedom, metaphor, Zion, blah-blah-blanket..."

 

"'Blah-blah-blanket'?"

 

"Blah-blah-everything! Jeez, what about cheese on toast?"

 

"I do not understand."

 

"What's to understand? You're blathering on about alternative realities, illusions, different coloured pills and whatnot... and you know what's going through my head?"

 

"What is it? Tell me your thoughts. Tell me how you feel."

 

"You wanna know how I feel?"

 

"How you feel right now, at this moment, is the most important thing in the world."

 

"Really?"

 

"Truly."

 

"OK."

 

"Speak."

 

"I'm hungry."

 

***

 

 

"Ahh lovely, scrambled eggs on toast."

 

"Will you take the brown sauce or the red sauce?"

 

"Shut up."

 

"OK."