“What Happened When We Bought Our First Reality Machine”
About three and a half years ago my wife and I bought our first Reality Machine. We had become tired of the reality we had to face everyday – for years we’d felt that our voices just weren’t being listened to – in fact, we felt completely ignored. But our new Reality Machine promised that our life would become more exciting and that we would feel important and cared about. And we believed it. Because it said so. Right on the box: “You Will Feel Great!”
And, after we turned it on, we did feel great. Finally our voices were being heard!
I don’t know how a Reality Machine actually works but I’ve heard people say that it has something to do with mirrors and the power of reflection. However, I do know that it’s made in America. Because it says so. Right on the box.
Now, in the beginning, the reality we had was wonderful. But then things began to go wrong.The first thing we didn’t like about our Reality Machine was that you couldn’t turn it off. It just went on and on and on. It actually said that in small print on the box: “Your Reality Machine is just like reality, it just goes on and on – it never stops.” But we hadn’t read that part.
In fact, we hadn’t read any of the small print, some of which said: “Once you turn on the Reality Machine, you can’t turn it off.” And, in even smaller print, the box said: “You cannot get rid of your Reality Machine but you can try to return it.”
So when we got tired of how noisy it was, we put it back in the box and took it back to the store. But the Manager told us that we had failed to fill out the proper return forms and he denied our return. When we asked what return forms he was talking about, he pointed to the smallest print on the box which said “Return forms not included”, which, I guess, meant that we had to figure it out all on our own.
Anyway, our Reality Machine just kept showing us reality and explaining it to us. Some of it seemed rather silly and hard to understand; some of it was insulting, and sometimes the reality sounded and looked very contradictory. For example, one day the Reality Machine said that it was sunny outside – but when we went outside it was pouring rain. And when we came back inside soaking wet the Reality Machine said that it may have been a little misty but that it really was sunny – even though we could see that the rain was still pouring down.
But we kept watching and listening, hoping to understand our Reality Machine. We kept it because it had cost us a lot of money, and we had believed in it when we bought it – and, besides, we couldn’t turn it off or return it anyway.
Now our Reality Machine had never really showed the world with very much color in it, but one day we noticed that even those colors had started fading and that the images were becoming just black and white. Oddly enough, after that, things began to make more sense to us and to become more clear to us. Because now something was either black – or white. Though this was not why we had originally bought our Reality Machine, we were beginning to finally feel great again.
Then it happened.
The reality we saw became whiter and whiter, with lines and shapes and forms becoming fainter and fainter, until it was very difficult to figure out what anything was, or to understand what anything meant.The Reality Machine was still loud and easy to hear, but it was hard to see anything clearly because everything had become all white.
We began to think that our old Reality Machine had just outlived its usefulness but it was hard to know for sure. Nothing about that was written on the box. There wasn’t even an expiration date.
At first we weren’t sure what to do. But then we saw an ad for a new Reality Machine which will be available in the fall. It doesn’t promise to change everything and make us feel great, but it does say that it is very reliable, that it is safe to use, and that it will show us a reality that everyone can live in.
But we think that the very best thing about this new Reality Machine is that we can turn it off. Once every four years. And we believe that. Because it says so. Right on the box.
Rick Doehring
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