“Is that it? That’s it now, right? It’s over?”

My best friend stood up from the couch, directing his question to an unseen force above me.

In response, the universe stopped.

My friend dissolved. The walls collapsed – my room was revealed to be a cheap set on a sound stage. My body merged into the couch, which entwined itself with the fabric of the universe.

As it was steadily revealed that my entire life had been a lie, I gradually became aware of the truth of the universe.

I was back where it all began. I’d been here for eternity, and I’d travelled towards and away from it countless times. Floating in the void, helpless victim of the machinations of chance and pure, formless existence.

Everything I’d ever known was a plastic play-toy. Everyone I’d ever loved was a pathetic puppet. It was all a vast cosmic joke at my expense, repeating for eternity. I could never break free.

Planes of joke-realities became visible to me. Like the pages of a gargantuan book turning, I could see inside these fake dimensions, containing their doll-house furniture and robot-people. A never-ending windmill of pages, pages, pages: endless forgery and deceit.

It was time for me to be sent back now. To become an actor in yet another pointless production. It was time for me to slot back into the machine – the machine I could never escape, and would always be trapped in.

My memory is voided.

I am sitting on my couch. My friend is looking at me with mild concern.

He describes me calling out my partner’s name, with terror and wide eyes.

I ask if he is real.

His answer makes no difference.