Glitching.

If I could live my life over.

A Glitch in the Matrix.

Do we live in a simulated reality? Scientists can neither prove it nor disprove it. But what happens if a bug gets into the program?

Fictional stories based on real accounts...

If I could live my life over.

STORY 8

That same feeling of safe comfort came over me as I sat on the log beside which I had lit my campfire. I noticed the length of smoke winding upwards out of the old tin chimney sticking out from the shingled roof of the wooden cottage built across the rambling stream among the trees.

'After all these years, the old China man is still living there?' I thought to myself.

I remembered Mr. Li and his wife since our father used to bring my twin sister and I camping with him out here a lot, where we would trap small game birds and fish most of the time gathering enough fruits and fish to take home with us afterward. Some of which, my father would share with the elderly couple.

We liked the old couple. Although as teenagers my sister and I began getting a bit too bossy for our boots and out of sheer boredom used to play tricks on them for a laugh. More ours than theirs, unfortunately. We were too young and dumb to see at the time. When I thought about the pranks later I would cringe, realizing how cruel we were actually being to the old Chinese couple. This was a small part of the guilt that had seemed to haunt me throughout my life.

I didn't know how much longer I would have left to spend in this world the way things were going. That's why I made my mind up to visit them first thing in the morning to apologize for the appalling way that my sister and I had treated them in the past and at least try to clear that part of my conscience.

We had both on odd occasions, felt our fathers' boot on our backsides whenever he caught us picking on them though. The surprising thing about Mr. Li, he would laugh along with our pranks and thank us both very genuinely for the experience?

Our father had high respect for men like Mr. Li and the bits of wisdom that he had to share. For a foreigner, Mr. Li spoke English very well due to the fact that he had been educated at a western school at some time in his early life. They would talk late into the night by the campfire about things that never interested me at the time.

How that old man made his way home over stepping stones in the river in the dark lit only by lantern, always impressed me. In his other hand was his small bag containing his precious porcelain teapot.

My own life hadn't been too much to write home about. Before long my sister and I started fighting more as our egos tried to control the other. Our personal vendettas started to affect our school work and behavior at school. We saw more of each other than our own classmates because we were always coincidentally in detention at the same time. Our father showed extraordinary patience towards our behavior when I think about it now. Those talks with Mr. Li must have worked. I think when we got too much for even his patience level we were thrown in the car and whisked out camping so that our father could get some more therapy from Mr. Li.

Before we were old enough to leave school the worst happened. My sister fell pregnant with a guy who turned out to have been in the country illegally. He was a troublemaker that got put in prison and when he was released, got sent back to his country of origin with no hope of ever being able to return. So he threatened my sister with having their baby kidnapped if she didn't willingly bring the baby to his country to live with him.

To add salt to the wound my father gets killed by a trucker falling asleep at the wheel soon afterwards and my sister is refrained by her husband from attending the funeral in case she doesn’t come back. I carried the anger of this around me for a long time and it used to come out when I got drunk or if someone made me really angry. Which started to become more regular than usual. Inevitably led to fights, assault charges, jail time, loss of job. Loss of opportunities. Relationships couldn't withstand the storms that came with me.

My life has become a mess and I can't really figure out why I hit the roof so often over so little? I am not looking for an excuse, I am looking for a cause. A cause can be understood and then fixed.

Yes, I love my sister. But at the same time, I can think of times when I have hated her just as much? Was I just getting off on the reaction and hidden admiration that some onlookers were obviously showing as I displayed exactly how intimidating I can be? All that amounted to nothing in the end, no job, last tank of gas, and this spot is the only place that I have left that will afford some comfort to a loser with no family and nowhere to go. My car has long been my mobile home and is itself on its last legs. As I lay across the back seat I thought to myself, 'If I die in the night I would rather it be here than anywhere else.'

The morning sky was overcast and I was a bit hesitant as I made my way across the creek the next day. Using the same old familiar stepping stones and then through the waist-high patch of wild weeds and the many different flowers and colors growing between the stream and their house. Scaring many small butterflies and other flying insects as I waded through the tall grasses. The scent was intoxicating. I wasn't too sure what kind of reception that the old couple would greet me with after all these years. How much did they remember of those times I wondered?

“Ah, good morning to you Mister Paul Johnston.”

“Hello, Mr. Li. I am surprised that you recognize me after all this time?”

“Yes, you have grown. And your sister?”

“I haven't seen her for years and don't know if I ever will again?”

“Hm, Yes, I can see that in you.”

I didn't understand what he meant but before I could ask him to elaborate,

“Come sit down. My wife makes a divine pot of tea. You must try it.”

As Mrs. Li fussed around us setting cups and saucers ready for the pot of tea on the small table upon the porch that Mr. Li and I sat around. I apologized to them both for the bad behavior that my sister I had shown them in the past asking that they may someday find it within their hearts to forgive us?

“We have you and your sister to thank for the chance to feel the way that you two made us feel! It made us stronger and more resilient for the worst that later came.”

I was confused.

“You and your twin sister showed us that we could trust ourselves to calm the fire that builds within when it gets stoked by outside forces. We had been visiting our granddaughter in the city when an earthquake struck. The city is not an area familiar to us. But while the fires of fear had fueled anger and despair to all those around us. My wife and I were able to stay calm and get ourselves and our granddaughter to safety.”

“But to put up with the crap my sister and I threw at you guys makes you a bigger man than I would ever be.” I put my head down and added, “if I could live my life over,”

Mr. Li leaned back in his seat with a cheeky smile on his face. I knew from experience that when Mr. Li gave me that look he was going to share one of his little stories of wisdom. It was better to just let Mr. Li talk and the answers to most questions arrive at the end or come to you much later like a sudden revelation.

Then he began this story which had me rethinking my place in the universe...

“The human psyche is hermaphroditic. Meaning both male and female.

Through the human physique, whether that be male or female, social conditioning and expectations will usually determine which of these shall be most prominent during a lifetime.

Timing is the balance.

The androgynous male and female can be found everywhere and can be very difficult to separate.

The top sits above the bottom, the back follows the front. They can enhance what the other lacks, the dark adds contrast to the light. The light adds detail to the dark. Music can turn noise into a rhythm. Rhythm can turn noise into music. They will always work together in harmony. A sound wave is just a continuous monotonous tone until one or more parts are removed leaving gaps in it. Then it becomes a rhythmical note.

No matter how beautifully decorated and gilded the teapot, the most useful part is the empty space within, and yet, the empty space within the teapot is equally useless without the teapot to encompass it. As is the empty gaps without the monotonous tone of a sound wave to show that the gaps exist at all.

Emotions are neither good nor bad they are what they are. The correct recipe depends on the judgment of the cook. A small amount of salt can make a dish sing. Too much salt can ruin its tune. Anger can get you killed or give you the courage to save yourself. Jealousy is not an emotion that you choose to have, it just happens. But you choose how you react to it. Happiness is an emotion that you can choose to have, share it with others don't try to force it upon them.

The androgyny of space... Whenever we think of a place, In order to view the place as a whole in our mind's eye. We unconsciously create space between it and ourselves. This is how the universe became so expansive. Make the inside of your home seem more appealing than the outside so that when your home comes to mind the inside space comes to mind instead, thereby reducing the space between the thinker and the safe comfort of home. This is how you cross a stream in the dark along doubtful stepping stones.”

This the elderly man said with a chuckle as if he had read my thoughts from the night before? Then he continued...

“For a vast infinite stretch of time much longer than the ages of the universe, somethings have always existed and will always exist, now and forever. These somethings have in time learned the power to create anything that can ever be conceived of, beginning with a thought. They create whole universes larger than the size of the biggest imaginations and much more subtle than the unnoticed touch of a speck of dust in your eye. They are pure ego, they do these things to impress, to be noticed, to stand out among the trillions of their kind. They long for the adulation of others and fear facing eternity in total unadulterated boredom. They believe that the adulation of others will hold this boredom at bay.

There is nothing wrong with having the desire for adulation. The desire for adulation gets great things done, gets wonders built, gets other desires fulfilled, and gets the creative source flowing.

But one should not crave adulation. A craving can be a sign of addiction.

Addiction is a state that appeals to somethings. Being able to repeat over and over the things that they like to do without becoming bored with it. But the physical beings that they have created and the environment within which it lives, from where they first learned about addictions, was not originally envisioned for overindulgence.

The somethings have experienced every dimension of emotional and physical attributes, both pleasurable and painful. Living in different entities that they create for themselves on many worlds. The more manipulative have tricked and trapped the less aware into living in some of the worlds created by the manipulative as minority groups ordered around by entities worn by the manipulative. They bask in the adulation that they demand from their underlings. Although deep down inside they know that their adulation is as false as the heart that it fails to fill. This makes their addiction much more chronic. Creating the anger which frustration has spurned upon them to indulge in acts of cruelty to satisfy a craving of revenge that only a pure type of adulation can appease. These worlds are always doomed to fail as the oppressed soon learn from the oppressor.

Once that has been experienced which has been experienced to its fullest in every conceivable way, in time, becomes boring. Somethings do not forget, every second of their existence is on mental record accessible at will.

Boredom is the only thing that somethings fear. Having done all that can be done, seen all there is to see, till their worlds become devoid of exhilaration. Discovery. Surprise. Awe. Interest. Wonder. Boredom can chew away at a something relentlessly. Make that something wish for the one thing that it could never have to escape it. The only thing that can bring to an end the slow tortuous tedious disease of boredom....Death.

But somethings have never before experienced death? Out of all the great creations they had brought into being to experience, to acclaim the adulation of their peers. They have never experienced the nothingness of death. They do not know how to just shut their thoughts and memories off so that they can become...dead?

The depression of boredom seems forever inescapable in the end. For that is the nature of the universe, the exciting unpredictable kayos over time will collapse into a predictable, structured order like a jumble of playing cards compressed into a rectangular column of shape and order.

By mutual co-operation and experimentation, the somethings adjusted the physical make up of some lower formed beings, changing the androgynous into separate self-propagating male and female forms because their power was too much for the lower androgynous forms to contain by itself. But by dividing themselves between two or more beings they soon found that they could also tear the fabric that holds memories together along with it creating amnesia in the something that inhabits the beings. The holographic nature of the somethings allows them to keep an equal measure of their own androgyny within each divided part. Old memories are broken up and split between these parts and appear like jumbled pictures and senses as a backdrop to new thoughts and imaginings.

The somethings may not have been able to emulate death to the extent of absolute nothingness but they found that they could emulate rebirth with a freshness. Old memories may drift in from time to time as interesting bits of deja vu or dreams rooted in unfamiliar memories but not much else. As each physical being loses its ability to survive, the memories get wiped away and the something is reborn with a clear memory bank ready to experience life all over again. To experience different foods for the first time again. Falling in love for the first time again.

But there is a balance to everything. With the loss of the memory of past experiences comes also the loss of memory of who they actually are and the actual power that they have, in just a thought. The more lives that they live the less that they remember from their previous lives and the skills carried through from those lives. Until virtually no memories are retained at all during rebirth. What once was whole will not understand, but will experience the loss of a soul partner for which it may yearn. Somethings get to choose the parents that may give them the different kinds of experiences that they seek before embarking on a new life.

The attractive don't fully understand the attention that they get when they do get born into such an eye-catching being. After all the parents are the ones to thank aren't they? The admirers automatically place the credit for someone's natural attractiveness on to that person as if the parents had no part in it. The same opposing feelings can be felt without reason towards someone that they don't find attractive? The judges are more correct than supposed. Somethings have forgotten that they themselves have the most input into the way that they will eventually turn out when they create for themselves the new beings to be born into.

Each something usually creates the beings for themselves that will give them the most different experience from what they have lived so far. Forever being rich and beautiful over and over is an invitation to boredom. To abstain from experience....is also an experience.

The biological physical makeup is found to be the most ideal for the purpose of rebirth over and over since it is of the lowest grade of material that beings can be made of. Its weakness adds to the challenge of experiencing things in a new and different way and soon proved to be its strength. A weak body builds a strong spirit. For an invulnerable body does not demand a strong spirit. Its life span can be kept at a minimum to allow for many incarnations. The earliest of these types of beings were at first given long life spans. But the somethings born to them grew weary of that existence long before the being's physical bodies wore out. Now each life span is measured to fit the era within which they exist.

In this out-of-the-way part of the universe, somethings have created a world for themselves from which to acquire fresh experiences and adulation from others for a much longer sustainable term. Each something still possesses that egotistical need to be seen by their peers as something special. A something well worth saving if the world just happens to end tomorrow?

Wiping old memories then renewing the memories with fresh ones, reliving experiences a thousand times over without eventually falling into the mind-numbing inevitability of boredom. An idea that is slowly becoming a new lifestyle choice for somethings throughout the universe as they come to observe and partake in this new experiment in this quiet unassuming part of the galaxy. Many have come to discover that they don't really want to remember past experiences as somethings but would rather keep repeating the cycle of lives.

Those new to the experience may take both halves of themselves and be born as twin beings. In time the something will choose to go as separate beings as a way to double the variety of experience. Those who have the greatest fear of the boredom climb to control the masses hoping that if boredom ever did eventually start to eat away at their minds and spirits, the masses will deem them worthy of salvation. Through the manipulation used on the somethings that were those masses whilst in the physical world. The memory loss prevents them from learning that this is happening.

Although the manipulators have a clearer understanding of how the universe works and leave messages for their following generations to enlighten and follow, they are not immune to the forgetfulness side effect. But the manipulators do, unwittingly add new dimensions of experience to what could otherwise become boring much sooner.

Then there are those who have lived many lives and through self-expression have found ways to be at rest and in peace with the nothingness. To them the nothingness is no longer boredom, boredom can no longer mean, nothing to amuse the mind. Boredom is time to look at the only thing left in the nothingness...oneself.

With nothing else to interrupt you, you have full focus on yourself. You have your full attention on yourself. Only now can you fully utilize your creative powers into elevating yourself above the tedious. Are you proud enough of yourself that you don't need the drug of outside adulation? Do you feel content within yourself? Even when your material props for achieving outside adulation have been stripped away. Do you trust in yourself enough to move on without them?

If you truly are proud of yourself, you will be humble with that pride. Because you don't need others to prop you up with adulation, you won't seek them out to do it. Appreciate the adulation that you get when you do get it. Then your own vessel of adulation will always feel full when you reach inside to pull forth for others. Learn to be content with what you can have and you will not crave the adulation that belongs to others.

What is fair and what is not?

Somethings forget how closely attached to each other that they really are, that they do not realize that whenever they leave the constraints of the being all those feelings that they had created in others will come back to them along those same attachments at full force and much more intense than the original output like a spring stretched to its limits. Energy will eventually return to its source. Once they have had an experience of the energy that they have inflicted upon another multiplied over, they soon learn whether or not if their actions were justified. The same applies to the good feelings that are imparted onto others.

Treat each life like it's your only one because each experience and memory for that life will be its only ones. No one in all history ever gone or ever to come has lived your life exactly the way that you have. This is from where your uniqueness as a something shall emanate.

Those who have achieved the goal of patience through contentment have been able to step away from the endless cycles of life and death, experiences of pain and pleasure. All broken memories are restored with the reunification of the androgynous. The something will be fully prepared to embrace the nothingness without fear but with many many memories and experiences to draw from.”

His little talk made me feel that at my age in my late forties, although I had nothing material to show for my life but a car on its last legs and the clothes I'm sitting in, that seemed enough? I may not have a three-bedroom house with two young kids running around outside and a doting wife inside. Nor do I have the high flying, high paying job with the company car. But I have had some experiences in life that not many others have had. I have worked for people and in places that some would give their right arm to work. On the whole, most people I've met seemed to have liked me and see me as quite fair to deal with unless they push the wrong buttons and make me angry. The way that I used my anger, I am not proud of. I have never felt like I've needed to watch my back though. I beat up on those who I thought deserved it at the time. Although I may have dished out more than the crime deserved once or twice. Which I paid for in jail.

As I sat on the edge of my seat looking down at my boots I washed my hand over my face to help me come to terms with what I was just told.

“Hey! You can not sleep there? This is my grandparents property.”

My eyes opened to a different scenery?

The house, Mr. Li, Mrs. Li, gone? All gone? I looked around to find myself sitting on the ground in a small clearing in the middle of a large patch of tall weeds with their colorful flowers surrounding me. A clearance created by the cracked and broken old concrete that was once the foundation of the Li homestead so long ago? The sun began to shine bright through the overhead clouds that had darkened the sky prior.

This couldn't have been a dream? Mr. Li's words still rang clear in my head.

I looked up to see an Asian woman about in her mid-thirties walking towards me.

“I am sorry, I knew your grandparents when I was younger, my family used to camp near here,” I said, as I rose to my feet and dusted the back of my pants off.

“Are you one of the Johnstons?”

“Yeah, Paul.”

“Yes, I do remember you. You and your sister used to enjoy pulling pranks on my grandfather and grandmother.”

I felt a little embarrassed to admit to it, but I did.

“Wait, I do remember you as well. You were little Yu Li?”

“Actually It's Julie I was too young to pronounce my own name properly back then. My mistake stuck with you and your sister.” she smiled. I blushed as I apologized once again for being such a jerk to her and her family.

As we got more comfortable with each other I explained my little vision to her and everything that her grandfather told me in it.

“Yes, I have heard him tell that story many times in my life. Maybe you had heard him tell it many times yourself? Although not realizing how much you actually did overhear and how much you subconsciously absorbed? Later to have it all come out in a place of close connected memories like this spot?”

I considered that what she said might be correct but the details were too vivid to have been a story invented from a hash up of unconsciously acquired and misplaced memories? I could still taste the flavor of the tea that Mrs. Li brewed for her husband and I in my mouth? She seemed satisfied after a few more questions that it was her grandfather that I was in conversation with just before she had arrived. Especially when I had told her about the earthquake that she had experienced with her grandparents which I had no other way of knowing.

She told me that they had passed some decades ago. Their house had since been ruined when a flash flood came down the stream one year. So her parents had it demolished hoping to rebuild it someday. Julie explained that it was the 5th anniversary of her husband's death. Her grandparent's property and the accompanying memories always comforted her in some way so she thought that she might come and visit for the day. We chatted some more about my vision and I let her know how downhill my life had been going. Julie helped me to understand what I had to do now. Get my act together and bring my sister home. My hermaphroditic missing piece.

“It is not always who we imagine it is, usually thought of as some long-lost lover or so. Rather it could be someone who is nothing like you? To complement each other by filling in where the other lacks. Or very much like you, to enhance and strengthen that which both of you already excel at,” Julie mentioned.

Then she gave me her phone number and the number of a nightclub owner she knew who was looking for someone he could rely on to keep a cool head. To become his head bouncer. I promised not to let her down. This was the start of my long journey back to life but with a different outlook. I learned to stop and be proud of myself whenever I broke one of my old bad habits by doing things a bit more diplomatically than I used to. I smile more now, I see people in a different light now, if only they knew.

I am living in a suburban house now, with my sister and her three children brought home by a lawyers firm recommended by Julie. I just love how the kids are always keen to give you adulation without you needing to do much to deserve it? This is what makes them so precious. I am looking into starting up my own security company with properly trained staff at the moment. With the right attitude and help from my sister doing the bookings and Julie doing the accounts, things should work out fine.

Julie and I are talking about building a little holiday cottage on her grandparent's property...after our wedding.

Paul Johnston's life had fallen apart around him and he couldn't figure out why?

Till a small glitch in the matrix brought him face to face with a most unexpected teacher.

Previous story here.

I wished that I had never been born. Story 7