If you've been in the Matrix long enough, you begin to become so used to things that you don't bother to stop and pay attention to them. Although I know that I, as an Agent, Thompson, am not authorized to stop and rest. I don't even need to rest, because I am a program. When I do get some time, I do like to relax, possibly think like a human. I go out to a place where I feel that I will not be reached. Maybe a mountain peak, maybe a beach of white sand, maybe a boat out in the middle of the ocean. The options are endless.
My favorite place, though, would have to be a little forest I have found. I like to sit under the canopy of trees and admire the wildlife that the humans enjoyed so very long ago when they were real. But they took it for granted. They thought, "These forests and beaches and mountains and valleys will be here tomorrow and forever after that. I don't need to go outside today." They were wrong. Nowadays, they only think that these things are here because of the Matrix. The real wildlife has died off. The real world is endlessly gray and depressing. There is no sun, for they blocked it out. Pollution has found its way everywhere. All the animals that once roamed the earth are extinct.
I sit in my forest and I wonder about life, or life as it is called but it is not life. I can hear little creatures scuttling in the underbrush. Is it a chipmunk, a squirrel, a rabbit? I do not know, for they stay away. They are afraid.
A butterfly flutters past me. Butterflies are beautiful, with their brilliant colored patterns. Sometimes I wish I was one so I could fly with them. But that is a foolish wish. Wishing is foolish, no matter the wish. They are such peaceful beings, though.
You know, butterflies are not so different from Matrix and humans. You have the caterpillar, which is the human, and the Matrix is the cocoon. It protects and nurtures the humans into butterflies, but most of the humans stay in their cocoon. Others, we call them the Rebels, pop out of their cocoons. The Rebels are not pretty, like the butterflies, however. So one might call me a butterfly collector, for I chase the Rebels and catch them.
I am not sure whether that is a correct analogy, but I heard something like that told to me once. The humans and machines, joined together would something wonderful, I think it was. Oh well. There is one other object I love as much as butterflies in this forest. It is a clump of rose bushes. Some roses are pink, some are white. There are some I've seen that are black as well. I think those colors are fine, but there is one that makes me the most pleased. Roses colored red, a deep dark red. The color of wine, the color of blood. I have seen enough blood in my life, or a life that is not life, however.
I do love these roses and butterflies, though I know things cannot stay the same. It is odd for me to love such things, even though my love is not love, cannot be love. I just say that.
I have taken a rose and tucked it into my jacket. The thorns do not sting me, for they cannot sting when I cannot feel.
Though I do wish sometimes I could... but wishing is foolish.