CTRL-ALT--DELETE

"Sometimes, when I picture myself, like, in my inner eye, I see myself standing, with my wrists and ankles shackled to the ground beneath me. My clothes are torn and ripped, and, I can't be fully sure, but I think I've been brutally cut and whipped. And every single time I think of myself, that's what I see."

She was having a rough couple of weeks. For her whole life, every time she told somebody what she saw when she thought of herself, they always thought she was lying, especially the doctors she saw. She assumed they were just used to dealing with real people. She had long since assumed that her suspicions were correct, and she wasn't real.

She's real. As real as you or me.

When somebody becomes convinced that they aren't real, they can go a little crazy.

When somebody stays convinced that they aren't real. They are crazy.

She was crazy. "Crazy Cara" is what people called her for most of her life. Not to her face! That would be mean. She was crazy, because she didn't think she was real. And when you don't think you're real. Then nothing around you is really real either. It's crazy.

Somebody was yelling in the other room, she was in the hospital again, because of the accumulation of her rough couple of weeks. She kept on trying to make things feel real, but the more real things got, the more fake they seemed to her. So sex was hilarious(isn't it always?). She could barely say hello to her boyfriend, let alone 'I love you' without bursting out into laughter and poking his cheek saying "That's so REAL!".

So he left her. It took her a couple days to notice, and then when she finally did notice, she just assumed that the 'real' people outside of her world deleted him. A lot got deleted from her life in as little as two weeks. Her boyfriend, most of her friends, her job, even her parents. Her parents had never been deleted before, somebody was hitting an 'undo' button for her life.

So she decided that she would delete herself as well. Except everyone thought that it was just a suicide attempt, a cry for help. She didn't want to help, she wanted to be deleted, is that so much to ask for? All of the things that could have been real, clearly weren't. Because they kept on getting deleted. So why not just CTRL-ALT-DELETE and then END TASK?

After a couple of hours of examination, it became clear that she was not crying for help. She was forced to spend a year in a psych ward. Eventually, they realized that there was no convincing her that all of this world is real. So they convinced her that her program had to behave as if it was real, and that she had to function until the program ran out from 'natural causes'.

She felt lucky when she got out. She felt as if she was the only program out of them all that knew what was really going on. She knew how fake everything was, but didn't mind. Just because you knew how full of shit the world was, didn't mean that you were allowed to change it.

Screaming.

He was thinking about the hot coffee he was pouring down his throat. He heard a scream and wondered if it was the all of the molecules being drained down his throat letting out their last call for mercy, like bison off a cliff. Then he wondered if it was him screaming, can you scream while you'll drinking something? Do you need to make a sound to scream? You do, you need to make a sound to scream. And molecules aren't alive, right?

So he was screaming, was he? Or did that come from someone else. He looked around and saw things that looked similar to himself when he looked at a reflection. He figured out that they were people. They were staring at him. He figured he should ask one of them.

"Did you hear someone screaming?"

"Yes, you were, just now, you were screaming. Are..you okay?" This one was wearing a dress. Woman. Until other information contradicts.

"I'm fine. Are you sue it was me? It could have been my coffee? No that's craz-" And he heard more screaming, so he looked down at his coffee cup. It was empty.

"So it's not the coffee. Then who's screaming."

"Sir" One of the ones that looked like him. Man. "Sir, are you okay? You are acting strange, do you know where you are."

"Ha! Trick question. That's like asking if...Why are you wearing that?" He pointed to a curious stripe design that went from the man's belt to his neck. "You look ridiculous! Aren't you afraid of being judged?

"Sir, do not mock my uniform, it's just a tie"

"Were we racing?"

"No. What I'm wearing is a tie."

"Between what?"

"This thing on my neck is called tie!"

"I wouldn't be caught dead wearing that, not even if my mom made me."

That's when the man in the tie punched him. And threw him out of the McDonald's. While being thrown out, he knew that it was he, himself, that was screaming.

The Dangers of Being Alone on a Beautiful Day.

An amazingly beautiful day outside, bright white clouds, few and far between, looking like puzzle pieces longing to be put together across the sky. Sun beaming so bright and strong, felt like the whole world outside was room temperature. A great morning to go outside and sit on a bench with a cup of coffee, and read the paper. And that's exactly what Derek was doing.

An explosion was heard off in the distance, and it wasn't quite as disturbing as it should have been. Life was like that sometimes, when you get used to something disturbing, it doesn't disturb. Derek simply got up and walked further down the park to a different bench. Away from the explosion and the noise.

Somebody was very clearly upset, he thought, or they would not have gone to so much trouble to make all of those other people upset. Derek wondered what they could be so upset about on a beautiful day. He then wondered if they waited for such a beautiful day like today to set off their explosion, or if it was good luck for them, not just to upset so many people, but to ruin such a great day for so many people as well.

It must take a lot of time, Derek presumed, to plan such a thing. More than just a day to, on whimsy, blow something up. So it was probably good luck for them it was such a nice day. His day wasn't ruined, oh no, he thought, you've just given me some ample food for thought. I am not upset, nor am I angry, he thought to himself, not about anything you are anyways.

Am I upset about anything enough to blow anything up? Lost in himself again, I don't know. I don't like taxes, or giant corperations, or corruption. As bad as all of those things are, I think I have grown to dislike people that blow things up when they are upset even more.

Except for cellphones, he though, I really hate cellphones, I would blow things up if it led to getting rid of cellphones. People laugh at me when I say I hate them too, so I couldn't go through the government to get rid of them could I? But  I would blow up every cell tower in the goddamn world if I could.

And that's how Derek became a terrorist.

Billy's conundrum

Billy was angry all the time, and he didn't know why. He would often tell his closest friends in confidence, "I'm angry all the time, and I don't know why." And Billy's friends were not very good friends, so they would say things like. "Well, what makes you so angry." And Billy wouldn't know the answer. So his not so good friends would push him and push him to talk about it. Because they weren't so focused on making Billy's anger go away. They liked that he was angry, it was interesting and fun to have such an angry friend.

 "Well, I like it when people are stupid, and then I get angry."

"What makes you angry about people being stupid?" They would say in response.

"Well, I feel like I'm better than them. And then I get angry because I know I shouldn't feel better than other people."

"That's really simple" His friends would say.

"I get angry because of that too" Billy would say.

"Because of what?"

"I don't know the difference"

"Between what?"

"Simple and stupid."

"Oh" His friends would say. They didn't know either.

:Later on in life, when Billy was still confused and angry about things. He would say the same thing to a friend that did care about him and helping Billy stop being so angry, his friend would say this:

"A square is simple; stupid is calling it a circle."

It made Billy feel better.

Control

"When I look out in front of me, I see my hands,I know they are mine from vast experience of experiments confirming this fact, and, they do exactly what I tell them to. Which is nice, because apparently there are some people who have hands that don't do what they tell them to. And there are some people that don't have hands. I bet the latter aren't magicians. I don't say that to be mean, sometimes I think questions in my head, like; are there any magicians without hands? And I'll remember a book where there is a magician with no hands, but then I'll remember that was fiction, and in reality, there are no magicians without hands. But I won't say all of that out loud. Because that would be wasting your time. But then I come across as insensitive, because it would seem to be obvious that there are no magicians without hands. But it wasn't to me, and that's why I said it. Does that make sense to you?"

She took a large drag from her cigarette, held the smoke in her lungs for as long as she could, and exhaled loudly and dramatically pointing her breath at the ceiling. Then it out in an empty beer bottle lying on the floor.

"The point that I'm trying make here though, is that it's hard to actually know things sometimes. And I think that's why my behavior is erratic sometimes. But that's hard to know too, cause, well, if I knew why my behavior was erratic, then I would probably be able to fix it wouldn't I? And then, I wouldn't be so erratic, would I. But it might not be about me not knowing things. It might be the world around me. Always trying to control me."

She sat on her stool in the unfinished basement they were talking in. It was a well lit with with uncovered light bulbs. And she enjoyed the cool feeling of the cement on her bare feet. Her counterpart, strapped to the chair in front of her, did not.

"It's like! Like! Those fuckers at the Starbucks, always fucking trying to control me. Trying to like, fucking control my responses to their questions, you know? Like, I walk in, because I'm walking down a street and I think, fuck, I'm thirsty! So I'm going to get a coffee. And as luck would have it, there's a Starbucks every fifteen seconds in every direction no matter where you are in the world. And I start thinking... Do I like Starbucks coffee? Or did they just tell me that I like Starbucks coffee, so that I'll give them my fucking money all the time."

Her counterpart whimpers, and she jumps out of the stool and takes a knife out of her back pocket and puts it to his throat.

"I'm getting to my fucking point! Just fucking listen would you!" She pulls the knife away from his neck, and slowly walks back to her stool. " So I go in to Starbucks because I'm thirsty, but I'm also a little confused as to my decision about going in to a Starbucks, you know? But I walk in, and like, the guy behind the counter, he says to me 'How are you?'...And...like...I'm in a bit of a mood, so I say, 'I'm thirsty and I'm in a bit of a fucking mood, thanks for asking.' And I was being sincere when I said Thank-You by the way. So then this fucking tool says, 'Miss, could you please watch your language." And I am aghast. Aghast! Because like, how dare he? So I say 'You can't fucking watch your language! You fucking retard! No more than you can fucking listen to a fucking painting! Okay? I'll get a fucking coffee.' And the fucker, doesn't give me coffee! He refuses to serve me! And so I waited for this little piece of shit to get off work. Didn't I?"

The man in the chair is weeping softly. His hands have been removed. He's in shock. His mouth is gagged. She walks up to him again.

"I guess you're not a magician." And slits his throat.