Shorts:Plum's Trip
Disclaimer: This article does not promote the usage of Psychedelic Substances.
The flickering neon sign of the 24-hour laundromat cast long, distorted shadows across the rain-slicked street. Inside, under the hum of the dryers, sat Arthur, nursing a lukewarm coffee and a simmering resentment for the world. He’d spent the last hour doomscrolling through articles about record inflation, stagnant wages, and billionaires blasting themselves into space.
“Seems you’ve stumbled upon the grand illusion,” a smooth, resonant voice chuckled. Arthur looked up. Sitting across from him, seemingly out of thin air, was a man with twinkling eyes and a mischievous grin. He wore a tweed jacket and held a pipe, unlit. It was Alan Watts, or at least, a convincing facsimile.
“The illusion?” Arthur scoffed. “You mean this soul-crushing grind? This endless pursuit of a dollar that’s worth less every day?”
Watts smiled. “Precisely. You see, you’re trapped in a game with rules you didn’t write, playing for prizes that don’t truly exist.”
Then, Watts offered him a small, unassuming pill. “A little nudge,” he said, “to see behind the curtain.”
Arthur hesitated, then swallowed it. The laundromat began to shimmer, the hum of the dryers morphing into a low, resonant drone. The world around him dissolved into a swirling vortex of colors.
Then, clarity. Arthur found himself floating above his apartment building, the rain-streaked windows now crystal clear. He looked down at the lives unfolding within. Below him, in his own apartment, a digital alarm clock flashed 6:00 AM. His doppelganger, a pale, tired version of himself, stumbled out of bed, already dreading the commute, the emails, the soul-numbing meetings.
He zoomed out, seeing the entire building, a hive of similar activity. People rushing, grabbing coffee, glued to their phones, all seemingly driven by the same invisible force. And then he saw it: the lines. Invisible lines connecting each person to their workplaces, to their banks, to their debts.
The lines pulsed with a dull, electronic thrum. He saw mortgages, like thick, constricting cables, tethering people to their apartments for decades. Credit card debt, thin, shimmering threads, pulling them further into the system. Student loans, heavy chains, weighing down their potential.
He saw the subtle manipulations, the carefully crafted advertisements, the social pressures to consume, to acquire, to keep up with the Joneses. It was a meticulously designed system, a digital web woven to ensnare and control.
The façade was crumbling. He saw the truth: the pursuit of money wasn’t about survival; it was about perpetuating the system. The 30-year mortgages weren’t about owning a home; they were about securing a lifetime of servitude. The endless cycle of work, consume, repeat, wasn’t natural; it was a script, meticulously written and ruthlessly enforced.
He saw the people below, oblivious, trapped in the performance, believing it was real. They were actors in a play they didn’t realize they were in, reciting lines they hadn’t written.
A wave of nausea washed over him. The sheer scale of the deception was overwhelming. He understood now. The “red pill” wasn’t just about seeing the truth; it was about realizing the depth of the illusion.
As the effects of the pill began to wane, Arthur found himself back in the laundromat, the hum of the dryers a jarring return to reality. Watts was gone, leaving only the faint scent of pipe tobacco.
Arthur walked out into the night, the city lights now seeming less like beacons of progress and more like prison spotlights. He looked up at the apartment building, no longer seeing homes, but cages. The truth was a heavy burden, but he couldn’t unsee it. He was awake now, in a world that was still very much asleep.
