Of Rats and Mice

The man said to his son, "Well son, you've only got one choice here really, and that is to squeal on your friends"

"But, won't they hate me for it?", asked the son sheepishly, "Won't they call me a rat?"

"They may son, they may. But, have you ever heard that rats will survive an atomic blast? They are survivours my son. They are lean and hungry, but cunning. Your friends, mice mostly, will fall into traps and get caught by predators, while you survive."

"I don't understand,", said the son, "What traps? What predators? What do you mean?"

"The trappings of society of course, and the predators with authority. Your friends may think it strong or brave to band together against the world, but it is foolish. You cannot fight the system from without. Your best bet is to try and outlast the system, as it collapses around you. The laws and lawmen will seem increasingly frightening and hostile, but you must learn to respect them, at least publicly. In time, the old will die, and make way for the new. If you are in the right position when that happens, you can help to shape the new world that emerges from the ashes of this one."

"As a rat, I am supposed to maneuver myself to be close to those that will take power then?"

"Almost. You must be observant. You may want to hide, in a place that will likely remain untouched by the hands of revolution. Like a rat's nest; hidden from sight, but always close enough to access if necessary."

"What does this have to do with my friends? Why then, should I rat them out? Wouldn't it stand to reason that more rats would have more of a chance of...."

"No,", his father interrupted, "You will have more chance to be betrayed. If it comes to a choice of them or you, your friends will choose themselves every time. The more you are known, the more you can be exposed."

"So, I must betray them first then?"

"Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer"

Piece of Fiction(Part 4)

But he didn't know.
He fell through a void of the unknown.
Further from all light, all information, all certainty.

No reference, no input from the senses.
Just a point of terrified awareness.
Flying faster than light, or totally motionless.
Impossible to know.

He reached out with his will.
Remembering his physical self.
He hit his head.

***

He'd fallen out of bed.
Head-first, into the floor.
His head rang with the fresh impact.
He raised his hand to his head; no blood, good.

He looked around, still dazed.
He was at home.
It was almost dawn. He could tell by the brightening sky visible through the windows.

He put on his loafing around the house clothes and headed to the kitchen to make some coffee.
He grabbed his cigarettes and lit one before he filled the kettle from the tap. He plugged it in, and waited for it to boil, leaning against the counter. He inhaled smoke. He had been having a strange dream, he could remember. He seemed to recall some sort of secret, and needing to run from an unknown pursuer. The government perhaps? A spy dream? He remembered feeling as though he had been caught. Was this dream a warning about something? Had he been doing something dangerous?

The cigarette burned his fingers, derailing his thought train. He heard the kettle whistling loudly. He had missed it evidently. He unplugged it, then turned to retrieve his dropped cigarette butt, and wiped the ashes on the floor away with his socks. He discarded the butt in an ashtray, and made himself an instant coffee, and headed into the living room to turn on the television. He found there was a program he had been looking forward to watching, but had been previously unable to watch due to a series of coincidences that prevented him from being able to watch it each time it had aired. He settled in for a rewarding experience, the dream drifting further and further from his thoughts.

Piece of Fiction(Part 3)

He woke up.
Armless.
Relief floods him.

Already his memory was fading, just like a dream.
Wasn't it a dream? He woke up at the end, so it must have been he thought.

Still, he remembered so much.
He had somehow been able to, manipulate reality, or at least dream reality, with his thoughts. But somehow, it had all gone to shit. Was there a lesson he was supposed to retain? Something about balance? Or like, curiosity killed the cat? That doesn't sound right.

The ending! The submission? Is that it? Giving up, and just....

...wishing you could take it back?

Then, is it the submission at all, or willing the fuck-up to the realm of dreams? He felt sick just entertaining the thought. Had it all been real? Had he just hit the undo button back to normalcy? Why then, could he still remember? Why didn't the undo take? He felt a tingle where his arm used to be. The phantom limb sensations.

"Oh god! What have I done!"

An unseen smile silently laughs. It wordlessly tells him; "You know what you've done".

Piece of Fiction (Part 2)

(Some time later)

His arm was back. No one could understand how it was possible. As he tried to explain the process he used to materialize his thoughts, he found his audience becoming quite hostile. For some reason, he thought of Jesus. Killed for showing off?

His mind began to manifest reality uncontrollably. His fear took over. He was in a tulpa universe of pain and terror. He was afraid he would be there forever, so it was so. He was afraid everyone knew what had happened, and were ashamed. He felt their judgement stealing his life away.

He tried to imagine a way out, in his terror. He saw a doorway before him. He opened his eyes, and there it was. He had but to think it, and it was so. All of his fear disappeared in a wave of security. He felt safe, and in control once more. In fact, he felt more in control than ever before.

He walked to a store and bought himself a winning lottery ticket. He winked at the receptionist and she threw herself at him. He took a deep breath, and he was floating in space. He felt something behind the joy now. Something he hadn't expected.

He felt reality slipping away now. Having lost it's meaning, the laws which hold it together broken, the world came apart, leaving only a void. But the void was a reflection of himself, he knew, he was empty, just like the world he had created. He resigned himself to unbeing or damnation, whichever the universe saw fit to bestow upon him.

And in a flash again, it was over.

Piece of Fiction (Part 1)

He put down the book, finished.
He sat digesting what he had read.
A tulpa, he thought.
A thought-based life form, brought into existence by intense meditation, and maintained with thoughts, as opposed to food and water. If such a thing could exist, and apparently has existed, then perhaps the tulpa model could be applied elsewhere. Perhaps these phantom limb sensations he'd been experiencing since his arm was amputated, were in fact the beginnings of a tulpa-arm.

With time and effort, he thought, I can bring my arm back into existence. I can make it as real as before. Maybe better; if the arm runs on thought-energy instead of food energy, maybe it will never get tired. The possibilities swirled in his head at dizzying speed.