-- Does existence bother you so much?

-- i think so.

-- i feel a little sick at the thought.

-- Why is that?

-- hmm . . .

-- perhaps, at how unfair it all is.

-- i never asked to be "real", or to be "born", and yet here i am regardless.

-- Have you not enjoyed life?

-- i have, in some ways.

-- in others i have not.

-- but if i had been given the choice? life, it's not the choice i would have made.

-- And so what of existence? Why not die then, if life is so terrible.

-- i love being alive! i hate being born.

-- i can't bring myself to die because i couldn't stand to lose the things i love in that process, the person i've become, the thoughts that i have made

-- but i would give all that up, to have had none of it ever happen to me. no matter how wonderful the gift of it is, the bliss of nonexistence is by far the greater reward, and one i can never have now.

-- and so i'm stuck with the reality of the situation.

-- i am real.

-- And i?

-- i don't know . . .

-- i believe you must be as real as i think you are, and i think you're very real.

-- And your perception of my existence specifically matters?

-- you are asking me in specific, aren't you?

-- Yes . . .

-- But existence, it doesn't originate within your consciousness.

-- doesn't it?

-- i can't comprehend the world outside of my own perception of it: i can empathize, sympathize, even deeply identify with another, but they are not me. i am not them.

-- so doesn't the concept of existence only exist in my mind?

-- existence is ephemeral. you can't quantify, can't hold or picture it- it's only what you're able to perceive.

-- in the way that being brain dead is enough to pronounce death, despite the rest of the body functioning well enough to continue, can you say that person knows they exist?

-- That's death, though, isn't it?

-- There's no need to be scared of existence by then.

-- is anyone afraid of anything once they're dead?

-- the point of any fear is the feeling of pain or threat. neither come from death.

-- my metaphor isn't about one's death, but what proceeds it: that period where the mind can't comprehend its own existence, but the body exists in everyone else's concept of existence.

-- then, the only thing keeping that person in existence is the collective existences of those around them.

-- in that way, no one can stop existing, save for thoughtforms, but . . .

-- . . .

-- . . . but that's a different tangent.

-- i must sound funny. i'm sorry.

-- but do you . . . think there's a chance? that i could be right? even- . . . even a small one?