Fictionarium 13. A Reality Too Shocking

 "Life in the Box" was a popular saying, even though the ones who tended to say it were usually completely unaware of what 'The Box' really was. The inhabitants of The Box had no knowledge of their own history-- they'd been passing around stories, the tales that had been given to them, and while the stories were truly unbelievable, the average Box dweller found the narrations easier to digest than the idea that their true origins had been hidden from them, and that they, their parents and entire generations had been fed an elaborate and ongoing fabrication. 

"The Moon" was a much less popular term in the Box culture. It had become part of a certain underground rumor which often tried to surface into the dialogue of the world, the declarations that there had once been a moon visible in the sky. The Moon, as it was called, was said to be a brightly lit spheroid which would light the world at night with it's brilliant glow, a rather preposterous claim to those who could see that the night sky had only stars-- stars which had been seen for thousands of years, studied and plotted by astronomers and people of Science-- the dispute about the existence of a moon was absurd to most Box dwellers. 

  A 'moon' was said to be an idea made up by those who needed fantasy, and was to be dismissed by the rational thinkers who could see the sky for themselves. After all, the very idea of moons had been discredited by the greatest minds known, and the topic was often used to make a joke about 'conspiracy theories' if it was mentioned at all in polite circles at all.  

 According to the legends, this 'moon' would circle the planet roughly thirteen times a year, and that ancient cultures had based their months on it's cycle. Even more difficult to believe-- the moon was said to face towards the planet's surface as it orbited, never revealing it's far side to the viewers who were supposed to have enjoyed such a fantastic nightlight. 

 

 When they weren't laughing at the idea of moons in the sky, the Box population was able to cling to the notion that they had an understanding of their own history, and that there was little mystery in how they had arrived at the Box; that their forefathers and mothers had colonized the region after it's discovery some two hundred years earlier, and that their civilization was a grand experiment which had succeeded wonderfully-- they had survived in a remote location, had created new government structures based on the best versions of rulership that they could remember, and that their 'Box' was now a cultural wonder, a marvel of human achievement.  

 In the mind of the population, however, there was always a large looming figure of doubt and uncertainty. The stories of the Box and it's people's origins were well understood by scholars, while the rest of society was expected to simply accept the official version of that history, and those who questioned it were just being silly. But still, the looming figure of doubt persisted, and the dissonance in the conversations on the topic made it uncomfortable for most. Few could bear to entertain those myths for very long in the real world, no matter how compelling they sounded. Until a shaman or holy person came along to explain it, the myths were delegated to fantasy.

 In time, every society will produce it's shaman-- those who's vision is clear in the muddied waters of perception, and who could see well in the black of night. The Box had indeed produced such a seer, though few had ever heard his name. The modern world of the Box had no place for such esoteric history, and the shaman and his vision of their reality was ignored universally by the new tribes.  
Such is the way for the one who can see-- a group will attach to a comfortable version of reality, and any conflicting version of that reality is not accepted by the group's mind-- certainly not coming from a 'holy' man.  

 The shaman in the Box was called Mynx. He had traveled to the Box like everyone else-- through a transportation room which tended to scramble the 'memory field' around the typical traveler, but being part of the maintenance crew for Box civilizations, Mynx had been equipped with an electronic device which was designed to lock the geometric pattern of his memory field while in the room, so that when he and the other maintenance workers arrived in the Box, they would be able to carry out their tasks with memories intact.  

 Mynx had originally been assigned as an 'Observer' in the Box, and his job was to report back to the Board of Science when trends developed which might slow production and efficiency in the Box, so that corrections could be made in the programming. Few knew that the Box was actually a gold mine, the inhabitants thought that they were simple pioneers and settlers.

 Mynx didn't know at first that the Box was a mine, and that gold was the prize. The adventurers who had agreed to relocate to the Box had no idea that they were to be managing and operating a mining town, and even the Observers were told that the towns were built as sophisticated Science projects, with little emphasis on the mineral aspects of their venture.  

 There are always variables in science, and even the wisdom of the Science Board couldn't have foreseen the possibility that one of their own Observers would find the serenity of a cow pasture to be the gateway to enlightenment in the restricted environment of a Box mining civilization. Mynx had recognized the mushrooms which graced the summer mornings in the pastures, and had partaken in communion with the forbidden fungus. Mynx hadn't known that he was the shaman, but the fungus had proven it beyond any doubt. 

It had been a summer morning when Mynx had met the fungus, and it had been that summer morning when he'd realized just how 'remote' the Box really was.  

As part of the Fictionarium crew, Mynx had been told that the Box was far from home, but the specifics were never disclosed, since strict control of scientific experiments was necessary, they were told.  

 The transport rooms were instantaneous-- there was no way to know how far one had travelled when a jump was made, so it was always presumed that the Box was in a sub-tropical region of the world, and that the surrounding forests were the only thing between the Box's occupants and their original homes, but Mynx had been shown something else.

 The device which had preserved Mynx's memory had been calibrated to disturb a few particular memories in the Fictionarium crew's minds, but the mushrooms had restored that pattern in the mind of Mynx, and he'd remembered a detail from his original home; 

he'd remembered the moon. 

Mynx had remembered the cool glow from the mysterious orb, and how it had bathed the world in it's bluish shimmer. He had remembered it's peculiar orbit, and how the far side was never viewable, and he'd realized, with an electrical jolt, where he actually was. The far side of the moon was lonely indeed.

 When it came to explaining that the 'Box' that they were in was actually that back-side of the moon, and that every single occupant of the Fictionarium complex was convinced that they were still on the original world while they were all actually living on the far side of the planet's satellite, Mynx had soon found that most of his fellow occupants on the moon were unable to accept the idea at all. It was just too much.
 

---------- 

thanks for reading this episode of FICTIONARIUM

previous episode link HERE

follow @therealpaul