“What’s reality really like?” I wonder and then realize how sad it is to be thinking like this. “What kind of a sad freak am I?” I wonder. If you don’t know what reality is like then what does this say about you? If you don’t know what reality is like then just what do you know?

The virtual doctor was doing a mini mental state assessment on me. “Do you know what day it is?” it asked, cunningly. “Do you know what year it is? Do you know what the name of the current president is? Do you know where you are?” I didn’t know the answers to any of these questions but I didn’t want to admit this. The virtual doctor spotted my hesitancy. “Is what is happening to you now real?” it slyly asked me, from close range now. It winked its one big eye, very slowly, and then – not seeming to care about my answer – it began float lazily from one corner of the room to the other. I was caught out on this one and the virtual doctor knew it. It had me where it wanted me. I was in the simulation and there was no way out. I was in the simulated clinic sitting on a simulated chair and I was being treated by a simulated psychiatrist. “Do you know who I am?” it asked me then in slow, measured tones, its one big eye glittering menacingly.

Somehow, the answer came to me. You’re the Director General of the CIA, I told it. You’re the Royal Nincompoop. You’re the Presiding A.I., the Arch Artificial Interrogator of the Cybernetic Imperium. You are the Fish God from the Retroactive Ocean Depths. You are the Trout Princess, the Sacred Malefactor whose name is known only to the Agitated Angels of the Angostura Biomass who can speak only in low murmurs. You are the Prehensile Parabolic Proto-Predator – He Who Devours Worlds. You are the Grand Imposter, the Chief Fornicator of the Forgotten Dynasties. You are the Psychonaut, the Ogdoad, the Necromancer, the Divine Parasite, the Malignant One, the Spider King, the Great Ejaculator, the Silver Seamstress. You are Hoorobooros the Hieratic Homologue, Keeper of the Keys, Emissary of the Broken Brotherhood, Interpolator of the Nine Words of Power.You are the Sacred Mutant…

“You speak truth,” replied the Doctor-Thing after a very long pause, eying me with evident approval and waving its flippers in a mysterious but nevertheless welcoming manner. “You may ascend to the next level…”