Dimensions of Illusion
It was an ordinary day, or so she might have called it had she been a little different. But she couldn't ever bring herself to call a day ordinary. What a waste, she thought, when each moment you lived you had only once. What a waste, to say that a day had been ordinary, when that day would only exist for a day; when it would be over and forgotten so soon. So instead, it was a nice day, despite the rain and her father's harsh words. It was a day for reflections, for realizations.
She was sitting on the floor, for no reason other than that she wanted to. Her mind was on books, and writing, and the art of creating a world with words.
The idea struck her suddenly, as such things are apt to do. It was almost violent, the thought, and it punched into her mind; made a home for itself amonst her doubts and regrets and fears.
This isn't real.
Over the years, this becomes the only truth she knows. Her life is an illusion; that is her reality. And it follows her through boyfriends and cars and jobs, encouraging her to embrace it even as she struggles not to. Enjoy the dream, she tells herself. Make something of it. But she doesn't want a lie.
It ends in the bang of a gun. She has a moment, before she knows nothing, and in it she smiles her victory.
It wasn't real. Reality is solid, tangible.
Reality is unbreakable, and never shattered by a single thought on a nice day.
End
One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.
-Oliver Wendell Holmes