A Short Story I Wrote in February 2015

Google Ads

Michael was lying on his bed, staring at his brightly-lit laptop in his otherwise pitch-black room. The time was 11:16 PM. He had just clicked on some weird Bjork music video on Youtube without real desire. Suddenly, an ad that popped up at the bottom of the screen: “Schizophrenia: Don’t get left in the dark.” Paired with the words sat a man in a dark room with a single sallow lamp illuminating his face. Just near the top were discernible the words “A Google ad.” He rushed to press the ‘x’.

Immediately, he felt sick to the stomach. How did they know? How could they possibly know? He thought back to whether he had typed anything into google that might suggest the existence of schizophrenic tendencies in him. But there was nothing that could have done it. He probably had a very unusual google history but nothing that would indicate schizophrenia. So what was going on? Was the word unreal then? Were the CIA actually after him? Was that stuff true?

Of course not, he told himself. Of course not, of course not, you fucker. But he continued to feel sick in the stomach.

Can’t you see the obvious irony? You’re experiencing paranoid, disturbed thoughts from the appearance of an ad about schizophrenia! It was the appearance of the ad that actually triggered it! You can’t do what they what they want, now, can you? Funny. Except I shouldn’t have said they. Who are they? Maybe there is a they? No. There isn’t. But I’m not schizophrenic; I shouldn’t worry. They just detected an irregularity in my google searches but it doesn’t matter. Nobody is monitoring me. It doesn’t matter. Some things can’t be explained. It doesn’t matter.

The video continued, and, despite himself, so did the thoughts. How could this video be real? It’s so weird and unnatural. Maybe Bjork isn’t a human. No. Don’t. No no.

A short story called "My Friend the Solipsist"

My Friend the Solipsist

For moments at a time, he was convinced that his was the only consciousness in the universe, or whatever realm it was that they – or rather he – existed in because if his was the only consciousness who knew if there even was such a thing as a universe? Who knew what was real? Wasn’t what he was thinking right now unreal because nothing was real? What was logic? Logic wasn’t necessarily logical if nothing was real. What was real? What was language? How could anything he thought be trusted if nothing was real? How could you refute that nothing was real if nothing was real? You couldn’t, of course. But you also couldn’t refute nothing was real because, logically, he could be the only consciousness and everything could be a construct of a brain in a vat or a brain in a jar or actually any sort of thing could be producing the simulation, literally anything – there might be a whole other world somewhere else, above his consciousness, in which some thing, maybe some sort of monster, or some intangible essence, or just something that no human language or thought could possibly express was creating the vision, in fact anything might be creating this vision he saw, or maybe his own mind created the world unconsciously or maybe everything was just unreal and there was no way any logic or thought could even get close to understanding what was unreal about it because all he knew was the simulated world in which he lived – and what was a world anyway? That meant that really he had no idea about anything. Which again brought him back to how he couldn’t have no idea about anything anyway because how the hell could he trust logic or language or anything and how the hell could he trust not trusting logic of language or anything?

He would spend hours in a room staring face down at a lounge or sitting staring into the garden and just feel sick in the stomach and let his mind run wild with these terrible thoughts. And then he would finally come into contact with people that night when his parents came home from their jobs and there was no way he could ever express to them the terrible pain of sort of semi-believing or at least being unable to dismiss that, like, everything was just unreal, including them. That made him continue to feel sick in the stomach.

He tried to train himself not to ever think these thoughts but it was hard, particularly because he spent so much time alone.