by ARTURO BIGBANGBOOTIE, Alternate Reality News Service Transdimensional Traffic Writer
The revelation was made clear: the world is a simulacrum in a vast computer-generated virtual space known as “The Matrix.” It is run by machines for the power they can harvest from unconscious human bodies. Morpheus sent out the call to all who lived in The Matrix: join us in the real world.
So far, 37 of the over six billion humans in The Matrix have.
“Well, that was…anti-climactic,” Morpheus commented.
“Are you kidding me?” derivatives collector Bart Rumbolo stated. “My shares vest in three years, six months, 27 days and…41 minutes. You really think I’m going to give that up to become a rice farmer in some hellish, ecologically devastated futuristic landscape?”
“Well, actually -” Morpheus began.
“Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be a rice farmer in some hellish, ecologically devastated futuristic landscape,” sighed Gupti van Gupta, an Indian untouchable garbage scavenger in Mumbai who has the unenviable distinction of being rejected for the part of an untouchable garbage scavenger in Slumdog Millionaire. “But, no. Even out there, I would be an untouchable garbage scavenger. I just can’t get a break in any reality, so why bother?”
“You are missing the point -” Morpheus tried again.
When asked why she decided to stay in The Matrix, housewife Mona McRelevant simply answered: “I want to see who wins next season’s American Idol. Is that so wrong?”
“I really thought that, given a choice between a false but pleasing prison and freedom in the difficult but real physical world, people would choose freedom,” Morpheus mused. “How naïve was that?”
It gets worse. Many of those who did swallow the red pill – perhaps as many as 63% – were paranoid schizophrenics who had delusions that they were living in an alternate alternate reality. Although the details varied, a common theme among all of their stories was that there was a Force that bound all living things in their imaginary universe together.
Morpheus shook his head sadly and declined to comment.
The fact that powerful vested interests opposed the move to the real world didn’t help. Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly, for instance, argued that the world of illusion that everybody took for granted was real, and that The Matrix was just another plot by crackpot, extremist liberal intellectuals to undermine the supremacy of the United States.
“Trust President Obama to challenge the whole ontological basis of the existence of the country,” O’Reilly bloviated. “Is this really change we can believe in?”
Dr. Phil had a different take on the subject: “I know you want to run away from the world as it is. We all want to run away from the world once in a while. It’s a little thing I like to call ‘Adult Responsibility.’ That’s right. Adult Responsibility. Capital letters and everything. Sometimes it can be overwhelming. When it is, who doesn’t fantasize about an alternate world where freedom fighters battle the machines that have taken over and enslaved us all? I know I have. But, running away from the world as it is? That’s just not what adults do.”
“There is no need to go back into The Matrix now,” Morpheus glumly stated, “but, if there were, one of the things I would be certain to do would be to slap Dr. Phil upside the head. Hard.”
“You ask me, this Morpheus cat went about it all wrong, man” asserted advertising legend Bippi Folkstrell. “I mean, appearing as a voice in the head of every human being – who wouldn’t kill for that kind of penetration? But, the message? Join me in a hellacious landscape just because it’s real? Bubbelach, that was from hunger, that pitch was!”
Folkstrell said that if it had been up to him, he would have held an inter-cranial telethon for reality. “Coke, Nike, Sony, even Wal-Mart – they’d be in in a second,” he claimed, trying to snap his fingers but making a feeble sound. “Get a couple of MTV VJs and, hey! – I hear Miss California is available – maybe get Tom Hanks to tell people that he’s been to reality and it ain’t as bad as you might think – man, I’m on fire, here! This could be big! This could be really, really big!”
Morpheus rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. “I’m too old for this shit,” he said.
We tried contacting the machines that had created The Matrix, but we were approached by a giant metallic head. It was too scary to deal directly with, and we had to watch several hours of an American Idol marathon until the horror went away.