WYSIWYG

K’12 Ink & watercolour sketch. Ceci n’est pas un chat.

I’ve always been fascinated by the gaps.

You know, there’s a blind spot,bang in the middle of your field of vision, but you don’t see a blank there, your brain covers it up. And you only see colour in a very small part of the picture, just where you’re focussing; the rest is gray. But your brain colours it in, or just lets you believe it’s in colour.

We only experience very small bits of the world, and extrapolate the rest. I  only  see  this  corner  now, but I imagine the rest of the room will be there  when  I  turn  around.  I can hear the cat in the kitchen. Rather, I hear noises,  and  I  think  it’s  the  cat in what I remember as the kitchen. I assume that if I get up, I’ll find the kitchen, and probably even the cat – but do I really know that?

What if the world is only what we perceive? What if things come into existence as we approach them, and are erased when we turn around or walk away? Maybe we live in a small bubble of reality we carry around with us.

I have to accept I can only check whether reality lives up to my expectation. If the kitchen is there when I go fetch a drink, I suppose it’s enough. I do worry about the cat, though…

Sorry, I know this must sound strange to you. But life isn’t easy when you live in a computer simulation.

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My second attempt at answering T.Mastgrave’s philosophical story challenge: Knowledge.

The Writing on the Wall

I don’t really know when it started. At first, I just thought graffiti was on the rise. When I mentioned it to a neighbour, she just stared. Then I realised it was only me seeing the messages.

Some were more general “Who are you”, “Cheer up.” Then it was “Don’t” and “He’s a liar” when I was considering an offer to work for this chap.

The doctors have checked me out: my eyes are fine, and it seems I’m not properly crazy either. So am I getting messages from somewhere? Or just hallucinating? And how do I know the difference?

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T.Mastgrave’s philosophical story challenge: Knowledge. My story is inspired by Joan Slonczewski’s The Children Star: a lovely read!