So I went to sit down with the others in the place where you go to hear the stories and before very long we heard the story of the story-telling machine which had been invented to tell stories all around the clock without ever taking a break because as everybody knows machines never get tired and they also never get bored when they have to do boring things which is always and forever and so a new age was ushered in by the ushers who are paid to do this sort of thing day and night the story-telling machine spun its multi-coloured yarns and the people sat around in the square to listen their ears growing long and wispy as they listened to all the lies and their fingers grew long and spindly trailing in the dust around them indistinguishable from the shadows that gathered there in the courtyard as the sun slowly went down behind the immense lifeless bodies of sleeping giants some the size of mountains others wizened hobgoblins smoking their evil-smelling pipes and spitting mouthfuls of black phlegm into rusty iron pots the golden age was long gone nothing but a fanciful rumour often heard but never believed we all know better at this stage we’ve heard too many stories and all of them lies the shadows gather silently in the dusty courtyard and all we can hear is the sound of coughing and screaming and children crying and the father remains to beat us said the story-telling machine give praise and thanks to the father who is coming to beat you the stories were getting grim now the fun had gone out of them men with faces like blank walls the soulless servants of the corporate warlords line up behind us to prevent us from making our escape they were making us buy the product a grim time a dark time a time of iron and harsh phrases the product has wormed its way into our very bones at this stage it has infiltrated our dreams the enemy is here among us my friends he has taught you to like him but in liking him you despise yourselves the story-telling machine is weaving its spell it is telling us the story of ourselves the machine is dreaming us its output is our thoughts, our feelings, the terribly boring stories we tell ourselves its input our pure life energy we are the output of the story-telling machine the stories we tell ourselves are its stories it coats our synapses with sticky yellow tar the permafrost of sleep the day of the father has dawned the cross father the angry father the shouting father listen to him shout listen to him roar listen to him bellow he’ll land a punch on you as soon as look at you at other times he’ll pretend to be your friend the product has gotten deep into our bones at this stage my friends it has infiltrated our dreams and coated our synapses with its sticky yellow tar the poor old pathways of our brains and the children remain to guard us says the voice softly and the children remain to guard us