Have you ever looked down at your body and questioned whether what you feel and perceive to be your physical form is nothing more than a collection of sprites designed to be your digital avatar in a virtual world?
Have you ever wrestled with the notion that there is another world out there above and beyond this one, where our true existence continues and that this one is merely a facsimile of the truth that has been created to distract us from a harsher reality by appealing to our greatest desires and letting us indulge in our most base urges?
All of these were me, as I sat before my computer screen last night, desperately trying to focus on writing my next blog article but unable to concentrate as these thoughts gnawed away at the back of my mind.
Then, as if someone was observing me trying to come to terms with the inner conflict that was swirling within my mind, my screen flickered before resolving into a message intended specifically for me. It invited me to find the answers that I was seeking. The only clue for where to find them, an address.
Before I could even contemplate whether to take this seriously or not, a crash at my door as local authorities kicked it down and stormed into my house! Was I being doxed by a follower who had taken exception to some of the opinions that I had expressed in my podcast? Surely, there could be no other explanation!
Bundled into the back of a car, my senses cut off from the world by the black bag pulled over my head, there was essentially nothing until a blinding light as the bag was aggressively pulled off. As I squinted, slowly the shapes within the room focused and I became aware of where I had been taken. An interrogation room!
But no interrogation followed. I was simply held there for what felt like hours. With my perception of time distorted by the disorientation from what had happened, I cannot honestly say how long I may have been held for.
And then, just as suddenly as my apprehension had occurred, the door popped open and I was free to go.
Making my way cautiously out of what seemed to be some sort of detention centre, I did not see a single other person. Not a soul.
It was clear to me what I must do next though. Returning to my apartment, I quickly found the scrap of paper that I had hastily scribbled that mysterious address down on. Whoever it was who had descended upon my abode to take me away, had either neglected to, or had no interest in, taking or destroying this one clue that I had.
Punching the address into my satnav, I was taken on a short trip to a run down part of town. A place that I would normally give a width berth. A very wide berth.
I found myself outside a dilapidated and abandoned apartment block. The door unlocked and ajar, I hesitantly made my way inside. My need for answers was took great to turn back now, but all I thought I had found inside was more questions. A message scrawled on the wall asking me to pick the red pill or the blue pill.
As I swallowed the red pill, I found myself transported no longer in the room where I had been sitting just moments before. Although, it looked similar, it was certainly not the same room.
In the middle of room stood a plinth with an old fashioned, red telephone sat upon it. Leaning in to examine it closes, I almost jumped out of my skin as it suddenly rang. Again, as if some one was aware of what I was doing and responding directly do me.
A deep voice spoke to me as I put the handpiece to my ear. Just two words, "come inside" and then the tell tale sound of the other caller hanging up.
In perfect unison with the end of the call, the only door in or out of the room creaked as it swung open. Beyond, a long white corridor that stretched on for what looked like forever. Along each side of the corridor, there was door after door after door. All of them closed, save one.
My need to have my curiosity satisfied was matched only by my confusion at the realisation that, not only was I somewhere new, but that my clothes were no longer what I had been wearing just moments before. Instead, I was now dressed head to toe in tight, black leather. Things were just getting weirder and weirder...
I pressed on and, peeking my head around that single open door, I found nothing. And I don't mean to say there was nothing of interest. I mean, there was literally nothing. Not even a room. Just an open space with nothing.
Nothing that is, except a solitary figure sat in an armchair with a very retro television before him.
He beckoned me over and to sit in the vacant armchair to stood next to his. He explained that my trip down the rabbit hole in wonderland had only just begun but it was up to me how far I was prepared to go. He would give no further insight into what was happening but did hand me a collection of keys. And then I found myself once again standing by that red phone again.
I spent the following hours painstakingly trying each of keys in every door, slowly working my way down the corridor, although I could not perceive myself getting any nearer to the end of it. Who knows how far it stretched on for or if there even was an end to it.
My time was not totally spent in vain. Some of the keys did indeed belong to doors that I tried. Inside each one, I found mysterious rooms that made little to no sense to me.
One was just a wall of screens, each showing the same individual freaking out and having a melt down. Another a traditional Japanese training dojo. An empty tube station which would loop me round if I tried to walk down the train tracks. A castle perched high in the mountains.
But most baffling of all, one was my room, in which all of these strange events had begun earlier in the night. Or was it another night? It felt like I had lost all sense of time.
The only commonality between the rooms; that after spending a little time in each one, I would somehow find myself transported back to that same red phone to start all over again. Until, eventually, that red phone began to ring once more.
This time there was no caller on the other end when I answered. I just found myself transported to another location. Back to that abandoned, old apartment building again.
How long had I been gone? I couldn't tell you. Hours? Days? Longer? I really don't know.
Perhaps it was all a dream. Some drug-induced hallucination? Well, I might agree for that, if it weren't for the fact that I was no longer wearing what I had on when I swallowed the red pill. Instead, I was still dressed in that sexy black outfit that I had been wearing throughout this bizarre experience.
Was all that I had just experienced real after all? Or perhaps none of this was real, including being back in what I thought was my true reality? Maybe all of this is just some digital construct after all?
All I know now is that nothing is as it seems...
