Real Illusions

He scratched the chalk against the blackboard so hard it snapped in half, underlining the numbers with his fingernails.

‘The math,’ he groaned, rubbing his face with a hand that was trembling, but not with age. His teeth gritted as he spoke, irregular nicotine yellow shards rubbing together so hard, I winced, expecting them to shatter.

‘The math makes sense. It’s the only way it makes sense.’ he said.

‘Explain it to me again, please,’ I said, trying to fit it all in my head. The edges of my vision kept darkening like burned parchment. I grabbed the edge of a table, steadying myself as my fingers turned bone white under the force of my grip.

‘Reality, our reality, is a simulation,’ he said. ‘The debate’s been over whether this was an inadvertent result of a three-dimensional hologram being cast over a four-dimensional surface. Or an actively controlled and stimulated reproduction of reality. A videogame with really good graphics, you understand.’

‘Sure, I know that. You’ve taught us this already,’ I snapped. Then, ‘I’m sorry. I just need to understand what you’re saying.’

He waved away my apology, pushing his spectacles higher up. His eyes, though shrunken by the refraction of lenses as thick as my thumb, seemed cinema-screen large.

‘The math, however,’ he continued, ‘means this reality isn’t just a simulation, it’s not just a shadow in four-dimensional space. It’s got will. It is the way it is because it’s being shaped so. It’s guided.’

‘By who, dammit,’ I screamed.

‘By us,’ he said. ‘The terrible terrible world that this is. Being alone in the universe. All of it. It’s our choice. The wars, the pain, the terror, everything. We’ve chosen to have it this way. It’s all our fault. We are our own God, and we’re destroying our creation. Because we don’t believe we deserve any better.’