-- . . . No. I doubt they ever did.

-- tell me about it.

-- . . . How to begin . . .

-- The people you imagine, the scenarios you make, the lives they lead,

-- you conjure them of your own machinations. You do not know these people. they do not know you. You will never meet.

-- The people you make up in your mind, are only ever that. Made up. Entirely fictitious.

-- . . .

-- do you remember my question?

-- what i asked- the people, their lives- that was only an analogy, remember?

-- what did i ask of you?

-- If they were real.

-- . . .

-- so the things in my head, you say they're not real?

-- No. They are not.

-- my thoughts, my feelings- are those fake too?

-- Don't twist my words. We're talking imagined scenarios, not ego death.

-- i'm sorry.

-- still, my point stands: you can't prove to me they're fake, right?

-- in the end, maybe my daydreams are fake. but how about the real people? to me, these . . . facsimiles of people are just as real as the flesh and blood, lying in their rooms.

-- just as i could be code or word, they are only the firing between synapses.

-- Hey, speak like a normal person. People don't talk that way, you know.

-- And regardless of that, they still exist. You still have object permanence.

-- how can object permanence be a part of this conversation? i've never seen them, there is no 'object' for my mind to prove the 'permeance' of.

-- instead, i can only dream them up. ideas of people. there's no proving me right or wrong- and then they're gone.

-- existence and nonexistence, all in the same second.

-- in that way, i believe, they are real. very real. whole lives spent, in under a minute. perhaps whole towns, cities, countries- all slightly different, all mostly the same.

-- what could be a ten billion years to them is only a blink to me. what's ten billion years to me would be-

-- . . . would be ten billion years of non-existence, i guess. i couldn't rightfully live that long.

-- and yet somehow they existed. for the briefest moment. up in my mind, a whole system of people, loving and hating, laughing and crying-

-- they're living their lives. blissful in their ignorance, blessed by untruth.

-- ten billion years . . .

-- an existence of forever. and an existence of never.

-- . . . but you would know all about that, wouldn't you, ███?

-- . . .

-- . . . That's enough. Go to bed.