Nothing Beyond the Platform and <P> and Other Lies

Chapter 4

**Journal Entry**

Here is my story. I was a young boy. All my life I have lived in Holdance 47. Always in this house and with the guidance of <P> and my parents who in a sense were my teachers, though I'm afraid I shall never amount to the hero you will be. But I hope that we will be remembered in a sense, for we are the ones setting the steps for you to take. Did we cause the disturbance? I do not know... my parents have never answered. I pray not.

My wife tells me to focus. I have never gone to the Tariph in my life. My parents forbade it and instilled such a fear in me should I ever disobey them.

I grew up and my childhood self perceived something was wrong or missing and my parents told me a story that I shall now replay to you. This is history, and if you do not believe in this you cannot make the change.

Please! Hear my plead: Do not ever conform. Make a difference. It is what you are made to do.

(At this point my head began to swim. I put the book down for a little bit, flipped through it to see how long it was, and then continued to 'read.' Really, it was just the voice in my head talking to me...)

The journal continues: I skipped a few parts where the writer, my father, kept switching back and forth. Eventually it seems that when he's about to make a point, he just goes off again. I think someone told him to get his act together because now it 'reads' like a 'story' whatever that means.

My father grew up never going to the Tariph. He was raised being told all of these things about the collapse of the world. Are they true? I don't know, yet they seem to offer a reasonable explanation for why things are the way they are.

There were waters so deep that you couldn't touch the bottom. They were called oceans or seas and I saw one in my dream. I don't know where they are today... how could they just leave or vanish?

There once was a silver ball in the sky that changed from people's emotions. It was called the moon, but now I can't see it because... actually I've never seen it because I've never looked up at night...

And the flaming ball in the sky sustained by it's own wrath? It's called the sun but I've never seen it because it's always bright during the day. Sometimes too bright but this light comes from the whole sky, not from an object.

There was a time when the world was much bigger but now it's gotten smaller. Apparently it used to be normal for people to have minds and thoughts and 'creativity' whatever that means.

People used to write and read and paint and cook and surf and vanish and explore and... create. So what has happened to us?

Well, what I know as <P> is known officially as... nothing. It was created to sustain humanity, given no mind of it's own and it does that very well. Early on, many humans thought that technology would overpower humanity, but instead it has no mind except for the one it's given.

I don't know why I call it <P> because it was never given a name so maybe I should also not give it a name. humbug I think. <P> is nothing.

Humanity was starting to decline as a whole. Life became faster and faster until it crashed and slowed down. Before that, <P> or humbug or whatever you want to call it was developed as a last escape-life plan before humans completely lost the ability to think for themselves.

Why? Why did we lose our minds? I dug deeper into the journal. The fog was swirling around me crazily but it was getting thinner.

This had happened in my grandparents' generation, who were one of the last ones to have a mind. (Why? I asked again.) <P> started the Tariph which I have been to almost every day of my life, since there isn't anything better to do.

The Tariph is whatever you want it to be. A lot of times it's just people being people around each other. I usually enjoy going but it is very different then these 'schools' that existed once upon a time.

Why did <P> invent the Tariph? In the journal it says to keep a better eye and study the humans that go. If <P> is a simple caretaker, I guess it would want to study how humans interact with each other....

<P> has a headquarters. Where, I don't know, but the different systems in allHoldances connect somehow and if <P> were to be shut down... humans would become crippled.

<P> runs every single system and has control over everything. It has no malicious intent... but what would happen if <P> got shut down?

Is that my purpose and goal?

A memory, like a needle, pierces me and I focus on it. It's me being shown how to put <P> to sleep.

I put down the journal. Now the memories won't stop invading me. The fog has been lifted and I can no longer ignore the ugly sights that are before me.

My heart is pounding and it feels like I cannot breathe. I fall down but I need need need to get out of here because now that the fog is lifted there is no hiding. I can't hide anymore and the smell fills my mind. I can't run away and it's relentless. Cutting deep and cutting true.

I want to avoid this and hide in a dark hole but I can't find any and my hands are under me, heavy as a million pounds, so I can't dig or move. Vomit builds up in my throat and I retch everywhere as memories of blood and pain and truth come back into remembrance.

They hit me and hit me and hit me and I just want it to end. For the sweet relief of darkness I would give anything. My mind feels like it's exploding and stretching and it hurts. Why did this burden come to me? Why couldn't I be like Jada?

Jada triggers another string of explosions in my mind and maybe she is a part of this too I just haven't noticed.

I lay there, covered in my own vomit, and too defeated to even raise my head or open my eyes. All at once I understand.

This is what it's like to be lost and drowning in the ocean.

This is what it's like to stand on the moon and have it slowly dissolve underneath you.

This is what it's like to be sinking in the wrath of the sun and being completely consumed by it.

The things that don't make sense now make sense. I was wrong. My thoughts aren't trying to get in, they already are in.

My mind is me, and I am my mind. Now... something has awakened inside of me and I can think clearly. It doesn't hurt anymore and it's freeing.

I start laughing. I lift my head and open my eyes. I can see, on the journal that I threw far away from me are the words, I think, therefore I am.