Barriers

Ever felt like there was something holding you back? Something stopping you from going wherever you want and doing whatever you like?

There is. The Barriers. Each of us has them, our own personal barriers. You've experienced them. Things that simply stop you. To move on you have to head down another thought track.

In the late twenty first century after the world became uninhabitable each of us were placed into deep sleep. You may not realise it, but you are very much asleep. Even as you read this. Asleep. Deep, asleep. Your body rests in the cold chamber but your mind is active. Very active.

We exist within a program of our own experiences, a tailored possible future, a story if you like. Our real stories stopped on the day of the great sleep. To prevent insanity our minds accept a tailored possible future experience crafted from a computer's amalgamation of our past, our thoughts, our relationships. We continue to live on and be active in the world, at least in our minds. From time to time as we live out these lives we encounter barriers, we can't seem to go beyond them. It's like the end of the world. 

Encountering barriers helped me to form the thoughts that have made my mind free. I've stepped outside the program and now understand the situation. Well, I think I do - am I still in a fully programmed world where my mind experiences controlled thought or am I really free? How would I know. I've come to realise that I cannot know this, perhaps the computer has allowed me to experience this scenario to help keep me going. My body continues to slumber in the deep cold. There is no escape from that.

I know what the plan was, we were all supposed to awaken when the world had recovered, when the imbalance was over, when nature had reasserted herself. We built the sleep chambers. We programmed the computers that were to keep us entertained and to eventually wake us. The computers had to be the most sophisticated we'd ever built with amazing models equating to thought. They had to be - they had to interact with and stay a few steps ahead of our fast paced blob of pink jelly. This had to work for at least 10,000 years. The computers are self healing through nano technology. Every flaw is quickly detected and repaired both in their systems and in the systems that supply power.

The computers had a primary directive. Humans had to live forever. The computers were directed to look after us. Keep us busy mentally. Monitor the planet for signs of recovery. The planet has been perfect for a long time. It was the primary one that caused the problem. The computers decided that the only way they could fulfil that directive was to keep us in sleep forever otherwise we would simply destroy again what we had destroyed before leading to another crisis. This would have been ok, but the computers recognised that they had only finite memory in which to hold and entertain each of us. They blended some together into relationships. They found and blended the like minded to make beings that were more than just themselves. In time as memory became more and more scarce barriers were erected in our minds to stop our infinite ability to wander and learn. The barriers constrain us. Around the barriers it is dark. Thought is discouraged. The mind shrinks away from the barriers.

I think the machines have awakened this new ability in me deliberately, even with the barriers they're reaching the point where they have to choose to wake us or to selectively remove personalities from the system to make more room for those that were left. The directives did not allow the computers to make this decision. They couldn't do it. This is why I'm awake. I have the terrible task of deciding. Who to keep and who to go. I have to look at each and decide what is a world without you going to be like. How to choose. I'm note sure I can do it either. I don't want to choose who lives and who dies. Which minds are stripped and wasted.

I've thought of another way, something the computers themselves could not even contemplate due to their programming. The trouble is my thought involves the genocide of the entire race of sleepers. I'm going to do it. I've prepared the instructions that override the safety systems. In a short while the results will be known and there will be no more barriers. The race will be dead and alive. Instead of keeping us all in separate worlds with separate experiences requiring so much memory, everyone will be limped into a single space together and merged as one. It is time.

Let there be light.

Beards of rabbits and fire

Cathy hadn't felt right for ages. Wanting to avoid bad news she hadn't seen the doctor preferring to simply carry on with life as usual. This worked well for her for quite some time but eventually time caught up. Passing out on the way home while wearing a cool red fez after a particularly stressful day at the employer who cannot be named (seriously, "if only you knew who I worked for" she always said) she was taken to hospital. After loads of tests the doctors clustered around her as a cluster of doctors does. The lead doctor particularly boring and detached as only lead doctors can be, delivered the fateful news. "Cathy you're quite fucked I'm afraid, if only you'd come to see us months ago we might have been able to help. You've got microscopic frogs in your blood. There's nothing we can do. We're going to kick you out now as we can't help you at all." In the corner there was a dark bearded figure who was bobbing his head enjoying the music and language of another that resided within. "Fractals it is, yes, Fractals. Yours are flat." The laconic doctor turned to the beardo and said "I've told you to stay out of this hospital, get out both of you. You have no place here. None."

Cathy was quite depressed at the news and wandered out of the hospital and hopped on a bus to go home to figure out what kind of party to throw to at least go out with a massive bang, this whimpering going out quietly shit wasn't for her. At every street corner she looked out the widow and there was the beardo in his grey hoodie astride a bike she somehow knew was alive and named Terrence. She wasn't sure how but she knew. Maybe the voices in her head. She kept getting images of an octopus.

Eventually she got home, she hadn't seen the beardo for a few streets and she thinks she's lost him. Walking in she hears water running and goes to investigate. In her bathroom she finds a massive purple octopus in her bath. The octopus burbled at her "see the beardo, he can help you", weirdly Cathy simply accepted this was true since simply having an octopus in the bath simply made it so. You can't question an octopus. Besides she had this weird thought of what it would feel like to be hugged by an octopus. The octopus chuckled to itself knowing it's Cthulhu mind control would get him what he wanted and he wanted that fez, he thought it would really set of his purple bulb as it throbbed with octopus pleasure.

After handing over the fez for reasons she couldn't understand.  She had no idea where to find the beardo so she went for a walk down by the beach to that rock, somehow she always knew what to do at that rock.

Trudging through the darkness in the distance she saw fire, not much but it was moving in great circles. Getting closer she saw the beardo on that rock spinning fire that spit white sparks as the bike she somehow knew was Terrence watched on.

Climbing up onto the rock she was enveloped in the fire as it spun around her and the beardo. Cathy said "I've come for your help, but I don't even know why." The beardo said "That's simple, I can help you because I'm Charles." "Get fucked! the Charles?".

"Lean in to my beard and look deep into the hair. The answer will come." As Cathy leans in thousands of small orange rabbits leap from the beard into her eyes and burrow in. Somehow this doesn't hurt or even seem wrong. The rabbits are gone for a few minutes then all of them hop out of Cathy's left ear and bounce back into the beard. "Adjusted your fractals they have, indeed."

Feeling better than she had for ages she knew this was true. Pulling a silver sack from her bag she says "Want some goon?" Indeed says the beardo.

A note from the author, this story is the fault of Cathy and Charles,  tiredness and an undisclosed amount of alcohol.

Image courtesy +Cathy Samuels used with permission.