The doors between mind and eye

Isaac stood in front of the two doors, and thought it was ironic how they were both colored the same lame brown of wood.

Ironic, because the Matrix was his favorite movie; because he realized, very clearly, that this was his red pill blue pill moment. Hell, even the man, the manifestation of his very subconscious was a bald, light skinned man wearing a long black leather jacket and round shades with no temples. He wondered how they stuck to the man's face, but figured that wasn't the most important question at the moment.

The man called himself Murphy, as if Isaac's mind respected the real world's laws of copyright infringement.

"What's it gonna be, Isaac?" Murphy asked, crossing his arms behind his back, like he owned the place. And what place was it anyway? Isaac looked around, and found that they stood on nothing. They were surrounded by nothing. It was neither black nor white. Neither bright nor dark. Isaac tried to make sense of the endless void he was looking at, then decided it couldn't make sense, because the truth was, he wasn't looking. His eyes were closed as his real body laid on a hospital bed after the plane crash. Perhaps that was why he never saw any planes in the sky during his life in this fabricated world. The one that created itself for him in his most dire time of need. Everything he saw since that plane touched the ground, was using his mind's eye.

"What if I'm not ready to choose?" Isaac said.

"I cannot force you to choose," Murphy said, no pause between his words, no shift in tone between the syllables, "but you cannot stay here in-between worlds. It is too dangerous. At any point, your cerebral cortex is overworked, here, for as long as you are lucid, and because it prioritizes the proper functionality of the organs, as well as its own, it might decide that this world is a waste of energy, and it will terminate it."

"That would be bad, huh?"

"Indeed," Murphy nodded.

"Okay," Isaac said, washing his face with his dry palms, "walk me through this again. The right door leads back to the dream, where a perfect world awaits for me. The door on the left leads to... My hospital bed. Where I could be half-dead anyway. I mean-- I was in a plane accident, man..."

"Correct."

"I think I would choose the right one," Isaac chuckled nervously, "any day of the week. I mean, the answer is right there in the orientation: the right one."

"That might be true," Murphy said, "and I cannot argue with or against."

"Why not?"

"I stand as nothing more than a neutral guide, and a presenter of your choices. I cannot make one for you."

"But you did wake me up," Isaac shrugged, "wake me into lucid dreaming. Letting me know that everything I've experienced for the last six years was a figment of my imagination. That doesn't sound very neutral to me."

"I did that because you called for me."

"I know I didn't," Isaac said, firmly. "You just showed up in the middle of a beach vacation with my..." Isaac started walking as if he had somewhere to go, and waved his hands faintly while reminiscing about the fictional life he had here: "my wife. My kid. They're not real." The realization poured on him like a rain of acid; most of it holed through and washed his heart.

"They're not," Murphy assured, "but you do have a wife. She's why I'm here. She'd stayed by your bed for the past three days, silently crying while holding your arm, and whispering to your ear: 'wake up'."

"Carol," Isaac mouthed under his breath. The figure of the woman manifested in front of him like an oil painting, before disappearing into the background. "What do you mean she's the reason you're here?" Isaac asked. A teardrop escaped his eyes. "You just said you came because I called for you."

"Both are true," Murphy said, "you called for me, because she needed me to be here."

"That doesn't-- that doesn't make sense."

"You know it does."

"What the hell do you know about what I know," Isaac said, his tone began to rise.

"I know. Because every thought you have, every decision you make, it all has to come from me."

"No," Isaac yelled, "this is wrong. It's all wrong. Why would you do this to me? Why would you-- put me in a perfect dream world just to snap me out of it years later." He didn't notice that his tear canals had been opened, and that he was weeping like child having a tantrum.

"You put yourself here, when you couldn't wake up," Murphy said, "you decided if it lasted long enough, then you should never wake up. But you missed to account for one thing."

Isaac stood silently. He wanted to shout "what?" but thought he'd already embarrassed himself enough.

"Your mind works a hundred times faster in a sleep state," Murphy explained, "and a coma counts as a sleep state. But you couldn't have known that, because you never experienced it before. So you lost yourself in its limbo, you never asked yourself how you got here, and you got attached to this world, forgetting about the real one."

"What happens if I choose to stay," Isaac asked calmly, pointing at the door on the left.

"You stay until your dream collapses, or your body dies," Murphy answered. There was no point in mincing words.

"What happens after?" Isaac said, wiping his drooling nose. "After I die, I mean."

Murphy shifted his head down without a word.

"You know, don't you?" Isaac said.

"Knowing the answer will never matter," Murphy said.

"How come?"

"Because the moment you walk through one of these doors, you will forget this place, and this conversation. That is one of the requirements for the dream world to feel authentic, or for the real world to make sense."

"Okay, but-- why would the real world not make sense if I knew what happens after I die?" Isaac shrugged.

"If I told you there was an afterlife, then whichever judge was there would not be pleased with you knowing the truth, as it would defeat the purpose of faith. If I told you there was no afterlife, then would see no point in living."

"Dude," Isaac said, "you know I'm an atheist right?"

"There's always a shroud of doubt in every belief, even in the belief of nothing. It's what makes you human."

Isaac walked again, and stood between the two doors. He loved the life on the left, that's where his wife and kid waited for him at the beach. But the right one seemed to leak a voice, a whisper that repeated: "wake up, please, baby wake up."

"Wait a minute," Isaac turned to Murphy, "how would you even know what happens after I die? Isn't that supposed to be forbidden divine knowledge or something?"

"It is, and that is why your subconscious remains in stasis, inactive for as long as you are awake," Murphy said, "because it was there when your were born, and it might've existed before that."

"might?" Isaac quoted, "you talk like you're not sure."

"I keep it unclear, because you don't want me to tell you."

"No I do."

"No, you don't."

"I'm fairly positively sure that I do want you to tell me," Isaac squinted.

"No," Murphy smiled, "you don't, and this place has exhausted your cerebral cortex enough, it is time to make a choice."

"Can I get a recommendation?"

"No."

"Can't you like, give me a sign?" Isaac said, scratching his head, "like painting the doors red and blue?"

"You don't even remember which one he took."

"True," Isaac said. He considered the left door, and touched its wood. "Feels real enough," he murmured to himself, then said to Murphy: "what if I wake up, and I find that I'm missing a leg or something? Can you even tell me if my body is whole?"

"That would be--"

"Pointless," Isaac interrupted with a wave of his hand, "right, right. I get it. I suppose it's a choice between a real damaged body, and a fake whole one."

"Think of why you're here," Murphy said. "Why I'm here."

Isaac thought for a pregnant moment. He asked himself why he was plucked out into nowhere, with a choice to go back, and another to wake up. That was it. Right? That had to be the answer. It didn't matter what the color of the pill that Neo picked was, because at the end of the day, the one he rejected was the one that promised a return to the lie. No matter how real it felt, how good it was, it was still a lie. A comfortable lie... Isaac closed his eyes, and tried to bring that oil painting back.

The honey flavored eyes came first. The the freckles on the cheeks; he adored those. With every feature drawing and complimenting the other, Carol's voice became more audible. He could hear her mourn. Her silent cries, and messy sniffs. It sounded different to every other voice he'd ever from the moment his plane touched the ground. It echoed very faintly, and he remembered how familiar it was. He'd heard this tune all the time before, and didn't spend two thoughts on it. He'd once joked about it being a tumor in his brain. He'd chosen to overlook how it always overwhelmed any other sound around him, even though it wasn't loud. He'd taken it for granted, the serenity it brought at times. He'd chosen to ignore it this whole time.

Isaac closed his eyes, and walked through the right door.