The Last Conversation

(scenario continued from Imagine...)

It wasn’t Psychosis – there was no confusion of what was real and what was dreamt. It was just that reality didn’t seem all that genuine.

You arrive to your apartment shaking, feeling ridiculous. Your roommate is in the kitchen heating a can of soup. The red and white label is splotched with tomato pulp. The roommate catches you glaring at it. “Want some?”

You can’t control the gasping words that pour forth. Something sticks, like “our entire experience of life, from day to day, has been designed!”

And after some beats of silence your roommate chirps, “I think it’s nice.”

“What?”

“The supermarket. It’s nice that the produce seems fresh, and that the light is always as bright as midday, and it’s never too hot or cold. I like that the aisles are organized. It’s nice.”

“Nice? But nice isn’t real! It is a comfortable, numbing lie,” You cry, exasperated.

“You’re nice.” Your roommate plays the Devil’s advocate. You were taught that at school, to get to the bottom of things. “You’re a good person, and you’re nice – even when it’s not the whole truth of how you feel.”

“I know,” You scowl. “But I’d rather be honest.”

“We’re all products of our society. And it is produced by us, not by some manipulative entity. You have nothing to run away from.”

“I’ve memorized billboards that I don’t remember reading. I know the finalists for American Idol, and don’t even have a T.V. There are concepts in my mind that I didn’t put there that have no purpose but to induce craving, a purchase. . . I want the freedom to see things the way they are, to suffer even, to live a life unmediated.”

You march down the hall with your computer and purse.

“Where are you going?” The roommate asks, alarmed and moved by your resolve.

“Somewhere that doesn’t paint food. Some place far, where I can remember things that came before there was any question of authenticity.”