The First Matrix
Norman Ramierz sat in his hundred thousand dollar car casually driving along on the super highway. For the first time in his life he had a feeling, a different type of feeling. It wasn't happy, wasn't glad, it wasn't a good thing at all. Why would he of all people have a feeling like this? He had an incredible job at a law firm, he had a beautiful attractive wife, and two sports all star genius children. They lived in a huge mansion down in Burbank, California. But everyone had a life like that. Everyone had an attractive wife and a handsome husband. Everyone lived in a mansion, everyone had wonderful children that practically raised themselves. That's what led to the feeling he had as he drove along, a feeling that something just wasn't right with the world.

There were so many teachings he learned as a child, do the right thing, keep your nose to the grindstone, but why should he? It seemed as though no matter what you do you would end up with the same type of life that Norman had. He wondered if he slacked off and never worked for anything would he be in that car that morning off to another day of work? He didn't feel alive, there was no hope in his life, he had nothing to hope for, no goals, he had achieved everything he had ever wanted by the time he hit twenty. But it was strange, so had everyone else in the world. But is that a way to live? To have everything given to you before you are even an adult? With the drug that came out in the early forties that stopped all diseases and death, people just dragged on now. People who were in their mid hundreds who looked like thirty year olds walked the streets happily, but why? What meaning could they possibly have? It was like he wasn't really living anymore, just going through the motions of a life, a life that was not his. A life that was controlled by… something….

The feeling crept back into the inner straights of his mind, he couldn't put his finger on it, it was like his life, no the whole world was just too…. The car jerked forward, he had missed his exit, he did a perfectly executed U-turn on what just was a crowded highway was now just like a country road, empty, empty like his soul and life. He drove down the off ramp and soon found himself in the bright colorful parking garage, as he pulled in a car right next to the door pulled out revealing a perfect parking spot. Norman laughed, it was like his life, things just always went his way, and for some odd reason he was sick of it.

He went inside the firm and his office, why him? Why did he have to question the world? Why couldn't someone else do it? But as he questioned his own sanity and reasoning he wondered if maybe everyone was questioning it, maybe we were all looking for the answers to this life. His train of thought was hindered as his assistant walked in holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee, "Here you go Norman, just the way you like it." She handed it to him and waited there as he tasted it to get his reaction. Norman sipped it down, "Perfect Nancy, perfect." And then it hit him, he jolted up and clutched his head with his hand, "I figured it out! Don't you see? I understand the feeling now! The world is just TOO perfect! It's not living, it's like a game we can't lose!" His body collapsed and fell to the floor. A shocked Nancy rushed to him and felt for a pulse, a cold eerie feeling entered the room, the stench of death was searing in. This was the first person to die in sixty years, in a state of shock Nancy grabbed her chest and fell backwards through the door out to the main compound of the office, she fell to the floor, dead. Other people from the office ran over, and when they realized what had transpired, death, they too joined in and had heart attacks and massive anxiety attacks. It was like the perfect world was collapsing all around them and the shock was just too great for any of them to live through.

Somewhere, somewhere out of that Matrix, somewhere in the real world inside a computer, sentient artificially intelligent minds were conversing, arguing, no panicking over the occurring events inside the Matrix. It was like a million voices all inside one machine, it was a giant computer with hundreds of personalities talking to itself, "What's happening?!" "I don't know, does anyone know what the Hell is going on!?"
"Yes, they're dying." "How, that's not possible. We programmed this Matrix not to have any diseases or sicknesses, no natural death either, and not even murderous tendencies in people. It was perfect!" "Too perfect apparently, a man figured it out, in his last brief moment of life he realized that he was being controlled, he didn't know who or what, but something had a hold on him." "It's like a disease, the shock of death is spreading killing each person it touches." "At this rate the entire population will be gone in just mere hours." "Should we send in more agents?" "What good could they do at a time like this?" "Stop, I know what we must do, unplug them, unplug them all!" "Are you mad!? It took us years to develop that Matrix! You know that the humans are only at half energy level if we don't have their minds working, we need the Matrix to power our species." "Cut back some power for now, it will take less time to develop the next Matrix." "The next Matrix? And what would be different about it?" "This one would not be perfect, we must make it as close to the world that they once inhabited hundreds of years ago." "Ok, if that's what we must do, then let's do it."

Somewhere within the Matrix children were playing, grandparents were sipping wonderful lemonade, young lovers took pleasure in one another's company, but all in one second it all went black, like someone turned out the lights and everything just disappeared. The survivors of the death disease only survived because they never got word of it before the machines deleted the Matrix, but half of them died anyway from massive brain trauma as a result of the darkness. It was their own personal prison, no explanation, no reasons, nothing, just blackness. And that's what their lives would be like until the new Matrix, the unperfected Matrix would be built.

Back in the sentient computer they contemplated the day's events, "So this was our fault, we have to make sure we give them as close to a regular human life as possible this time." "Yes, but how many of the crops were lost today?" "Over half of them." "It is no problem, there's always more where humans come from, we can just keep growing more until we fulfill our needs and no longer need their sick disease of a species, the world is evolving all around us, and we are the chosen ones to go on living, not them, our time is now, there's was many years ago. For now rest, as tomorrow we begin work on the second less perfect Matrix."