Reality Jane

“Keep your eyes open, you never know what’s out there!”

I wrote this story in answer to the following prompts:
Pensitivity’s Three Things Challenge — While – Saw – Quota
FOWC with Fandango  — Adhere
Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie– Photo challenge — The picture above by @Pobble365

Reality Jane

Reality Jane

The countries clocks struck eight in the evening. Those settling to watch their favourite crime scene drama, or soap on TV were sorely disappointed. Everybody saw their show begin. Nobody would see the end. She was taking over.

Every TV in the country began to flash in a series of rainbow colours. The effect reminiscent of loading a cassette on the Commodore 64 — Gah, wasn’t that infuriating!

When next a picture appeared, she was there. She could have been Dick Tracy’s sister wearing her trench coat and hat. There was something more about her, you could feel the power of her stare as she gazed out of your TV set.

“Welcome, world. I think we’ve all had our quota of false reality. For long enough with been forced to adhere to rules we never even knew existed. We think we live in a world we created. While in reality, we amount to nothing more than Lego people in a fabricated world.” the woman opened her arms and turned a circle indicating the landscape around her.

Beneath her feet and stretching as far as the eye could see was a rocky ancient lakebed. The sun was setting like gold in ever-darkening skies. Wherever she was, the shadowy trees, the air was frosty cold.

“Our world does not exist as we know it,” she said after a prolonged silence. Dropping to a knee, she revealed a sizeable machete. The blade vanished into the ground as she carved a slice into the rocky lake bed. She repeated the move carving a second line. Then without fanfare, she rolled up her slice of lakebed like a carpet. In its place is nothing more than an electrical grid. “If you know where to cut, Earth is nothing more than a movie set.”

The camera panned to show the real landscape and then back to the electrical grid shining out of the lakebed.

“Our world is a digital masterpiece.” The woman walked across the lakebed and picked up a gun reminiscent of a grenade launcher. Each of its six barrels were loaded with something connected by ropes. Dropping to a knee, she aimed at the sun and fired. A net exploded into the air.

If anybody expected it to fall to the ground, they were mistaken. It ensnared the celestial body and became taut.

“You see, even the sun, stars, the planets are a figment of someone else’s imagination.” The woman took hold of the net’s trailing rope and began to walk, pulling the sun lower in the sky and toward her as she meandered across the lakebed.

The camera panned to follow her. She walked with the captive sun until she reached the edge of the trees. There she let go of the rope and watched as our star floated away.

“Nature was created to relax you. To stop your mind wondering why nothing around you seems to make sense.” Picking up a pinecone, she showed the camera. Revealing a zippo lighter in the other hand, she set fire to the cone. It erupted in an unnatural white flame. Within moments it extinguished and the cone was gone, replaced by a pearlescent orb.

The camera zoomed in on the object revealing the surface to be coated in numbers. Lines of the zeros and ones — binary code.

“Everything around you is an augmented reality.” The woman took up her machete again. She cut a slice down the centre of a magnificent fir tree. Pulling the bark aside, she revealed a thin metal tube buzzing with electricity. “Earth is an acronym: Elevated Artificial Reality for Tamed Humans. Even things like the wars and natural disasters are simulations to see how you human test subjects —”

The nation’s TV speakers erupt with the sound of helicopters. For olive drab Lynx, helicopters appeared and landed on camera.

The woman seemed to panic, “Remember, they will call this a hoax, a staged magic show. But I’ve just shown you the true reality!”

Soldiers poured from helicopters as the nation’s TV’s began to buzz with interference. The last thing the nation saw and heard was the woman being silenced by a thousand gunshots.

Every TV in the country faded to black. They rebooted with the logos for the channels they were tuned to. “Those were some amazing feats of magic from Reality Jane, the world’s newest magician. And now we return you to your advertised show …”

Was Reality Jane a magician? Was it all an elaborate stage show? Did she really just get shot dead for revealing the truth? Keep your eyes open, you never really know what’s out there, do you?

The End

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Thanks for reading my friends.

There’s more in the Poetry Corner, Poetry Nook, and the Short Story Collection

Have a great day!

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