The simulator can never simulate the state of non-simulation, I say to myself. At least, not successfully, I qualified after a moment of thought. It can simulate non-simulation in an unsuccessful way and in fact it does this all the time. What it can’t achieve in quality it makes up for in terms for sheer quantity. It overwhelms us.

The enormity of this thought struck me like a thunderbolt – the whole world is nothing other than a fatally flawed simulation. All that is necessary – therefore – is to spot the flaw! Easier said than done, I suppose you might say. Easier said than done indeed! The old simulator is hard enough to catch out, we must admit. The evidence is – needless to say – well hidden. It’s well hidden and this is why no one ever spots it. We make the journey from the cradle to the grave without ever spotting the cunning old simulator. Great is its cunning and paltry indeed is the curiosity of man. Credit where credit is due, I think to myself, with grudging respect. The old simulator papers over the cracks so beautifully and we – for our part – are in far too much of a hurry to examine anything too closely. We’re too intent on reaching our destination. Which is the grave.

I am overcome with exhaustion and fatigue, I realize. I can’t remember the last time I was as tired as this. Yes for sure, that bloody old simulator’s awfully hard to catch out, I find myself thinking blearily to myself, more out of force of habit than anything else. The thought emerges slowly from my bleary mind like a bubble of stagnant marsh gas issuing forth from the depths. It makes a lugubrious glooping sound as it breaks out through the surface water of the bog into the air. The simulator will have to get up pretty early in the morning to get the better of me, I tell myself bravely. More marsh gas. Created by strata of ancient decomposing vegetation deep under my feet. Methanogenesis – the flatulence of the earth. Some emissions are silent, others announcing themselves with barely audible wet gloopy sounds. My thoughts are nothing more than ancient flatulence, I think to myself. They were preordained right from the very beginning – programmed into the biome.

I am walking in the high bog-lands. Walking, walking, walking – a vast surreal sky above me. I am little more than an insect crawling upon the face of the earth, it occurs to me. I am dwarfed by my environment, nullified by it. In every direction there is nothing but grassy hummocks punctuating endless expanses of flat, anoxic marsh land. I don’t know where I am walking or why. My own existence is an enigma to me. A terrible fatigue has got a grip on me and I can hardly place one foot in front of the other. The effort is almost beyond me. My breath comes in shallow bursts and my legs feel as if they are going to give way under me. Above me the sky – vast and liquid. I walk and I walk because walking is all I know. I walk and I walk but I don’t seem to be getting anywhere….