ten. text.

[improvesmorale]

Some guy behind me in the grocery store starts talking to me about dark matter. He has these big half-moon glasses, thick as though from the seventies, and he doesn't break eye contact because he can tell I want to. He starts saying how 80% of this universe is invisible, that's 19.2 hours in a 24 hour day, and then he goes on to tell me his great

Comments

voice;

[nottheanswers]

Not just a cliché, it's a koan.

text

[improvesmorale]

It's a koan. Excuse me.

permavoice

[nottheanswers]

There's an important distinction. Mere clichés are given to overuse, to the point that we stop thinking about what they mean.

[improvesmorale]

I'm not having this conversation again.

[nottheanswers]

I don't know, it sounds like this is the exact conversation you're looking for.

After all, you're questioning your reality again, aren't you? Only this time, it isn't everyone else you seem to be wondering about.

[improvesmorale]

Do I know you?

[nottheanswers]

Not particularly, I don't think.

[improvesmorale]

Of course I don't. Everyone sees me flipping out over here.

[nottheanswers]

And occasionally strangers come along to bother you about it. That's how the Network operates.

[improvesmorale]

There's new graffiti out in central park. Have you seen it?

[nottheanswers]

Haven't had the pleasure, anything interesting?

[improvesmorale]

In the Imagine circle.

"I did, but then my creation was imPorted."

[nottheanswers]

...Huh.

We've had any number of people that we might have first thought were only fictional until we met them here. The one common factor, is the natives who are familiar enough might say that of all of us.