Part One (633 KB) - Whoa is (Not)

Neo silently cursed the inventor of caffeinated drinks.
Here he was, future saviour of the human race – the one who would one day end the war, the one who
might one day even convince Morpheus to grow hair and quit the bald look – kept awake for the second
time running because of three virtual cups of tea. Nice, hot, cups of Earl Grey tea, each with a spot of
milk in it.
Neo tried to turn his thoughts to other things. For one, the conversation he’d had with Trinity earlier that
day….
“Do you ever wonder… what if this isn’t the real world” Neo asked.
Trinity looked at him. “What do you mean”
“Maybe there’s another real world, beyond this, only we don’t know about it. Like the people
still in the Matrix don’t know about this world.”
“What makes you think so”
“I don’t know, Trin. I was just wondering.”
And he was still wondering. It wasn’t as though such a thing was impossible – if his previous world had
turned out to be fake without him knowing for almost forty years, what made everyone so sure that this
world was the real one Was there any real way of telling
He rolled over in bed and stared at the sink. It wasn’t exactly a very fascinating sink, so he went to stare
at the wall instead, which was even more boring. He hoped that the boredom would eventually drive
him to sleep, the way his teacher’s lectures back in high school had never failed to drive his class to
sleep.
Minutes passed, and he still couldn’t get to sleep. Sighing, Neo got out of bed. He sat there for a
moment, then reached into his clothes rack for the sunglasses case. Opening it, he gazed wistfully
down at its shiny black contents.
He closed the case and was about to put it back into the rack when his bed suddenly gave way to
nothingness and he plunged, rather surprised, into the dark void.
**
Frank munched on a slice of pizza and stared out the window at the beautiful New Zealand scenery
outside. Summer was coming. If he were still back in his old home in the town of Fairwater, California,
it would be about winter now.
The pizza was nice. It had lots of cheese and pepperoni. Freddy had delivered a whole box to him the
day before, as he now did once every two days. There would be another box coming later. Free.
Finishing the pizza, Frank wiped his hands clean and got up from his chair… when all of a sudden, his
world spun. Startled, he grabbed hold of the table, only to see and feel it dissolve beneath his grasp,
and suddenly the floor too was gone, and he was falling through darkness.
Past midnight, Marty was lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling.
What is real
The thought revolved several times around in his head without him coming to a satisfactory answer
**
…If you’re talking about what you feel, taste, smell or see, then real is simply electrical signals
interpreted by your brain.
In that case, how did he know if he were real Was his house real Was his bedroom real Doc’s
garage, his guitar over there, his table, his clock, his homework, that sheep standing by his bed…
That sheep!