No.2: 'Ah number six, delighted you could join me.'

No.6: 'Do I have a choice?'

Two: 'Of course, life is voluntary – '

Six: ' – and death obligatory.'

Two: 'For us all unfortunately.'

Six: 'What' delights' do you have for me, this morning?'

Two: �Oh just a general chat, to let you know where you stand.'

Six: 'In the dock?'

Two: 'You're not on trial, this time.'

Six: 'Unmutual?'

Two: You always have been and always will be. No, it's back to that old chestnut, why did you resign – no, don't jump to conclusions or try to defend yourself. This is about putting you in the picture. You probably think we need to know your secrets, so that we can blackmail you into silence through guilt.'

Six: 'I don't believe in society. I'm an individual, a loner. I don't care what other people believe.'

Two: 'A little bit of fear keeps people in line, don't you think? Your openness means we have nothing to fear from you; no plots, no rebellion, noon escape plans and nothing original to threaten the conformity of the village.'

Six: 'So you want to be stuck in a time warp?'

Two: 'Why not? What's so wrong with that? Fear of death is fear of escape from life – the body. The physical world is your comfy prison, your home from home, your heaven on Earth.'

Six: 'Hell to the awake. A playground for the mindless. Idiots paradise.'

Two: 'Precisely! Sheep to the slaughter if necessary.'

Six: 'Simple Simon says and a simpler Simon does what he's told.'

Two: 'Exactly. No reason to wonder why, just do or die.'

Six: 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. It is a noble thing to die for one's country.'

Two: 'You know your Latin.'

Six: 'Yes, lying about reality even back then. Selling fantasy.'

Two: 'Still the cocky individualist! We'll break you as we've broken all of them, through love and hate.'

Six: 'Love and hate?'

Two: 'Soften you with love, shock you out of it through hate.'

Six: 'Good cop, bad cop?'

Two: 'Yes but it is more than that isn't it? They think that if they get away from here, they'll find a different world out there. That carrot and stick allows them to think it's different but it isn't. It's a bigger prison out there but it still plays by our rules. Snakes and ladders to break you – up the corporate ladder through promotion, then down again through demotion and of course we lie about what we're doing or why, just to keep you on your toes or in reality to break your spirit.'

Six: 'What if we don't want to play or cotton onto your little game? '

Two: �Well you can see that here. You're taken off the board and put in a little box, where you can't contaminate the other players, with your diseased mind. We can't have you on the loose, spoiling things can we, by pointing out what is really going on. If you are not deluded, we throw you down the rabbit hole and totally destabilise your mind. We could of course break your body but we won't, if we need to use you in some capacity.'

Six: 'Poor Roland.'

Two: 'Indeed. How do you break a stick? You push it back and forth until it snaps. You see we've worked out how reality works and tweak it for our own purposes.'

Six: 'And I intend breaking it for mine.'

Two: 'Quite so. You are an amusing fellow... at times. We want you to settle in, become a proper member of our community.'

Six: 'A leader of the bland?'

Two: 'We want you to realise that the smooth running of the village is in all our interests.'

Six: 'Polite society?'

Two: 'Humour and goodwill is the very essence of a democratic society.'

Six: 'Sheep are easier to handle than wolves.'

Two: 'Especially lone wolves. Psychosis is unwillingness to accept things as they are and move on. It is resistance to the reality you find yourself in.'

Six: 'Stone walls do not a prison make.'

Two: 'Yet the more you struggle, the deeper you sink into the quicksand of the village. You can either slow down and settle, accepting your fate, discovering all there is to know about this place or rebel and try to rush off somewhere else, thinking that the grass is greener on the other side of the hill but it isn't. Oh my dear chap I have so much to teach you. You take things so seriously and defend your position because you simply don't understand it. If you could laugh this mystery off, you'd be so much freer. Life is a conjuring trick and the speed of the mind deceives the 'I.' You think rushing around will disclose the truth? No, staying still is the only thing that will.'

Six: 'Words, words, words. . . '

Two: 'Ah yes, talking of which I understand you're a writer, a poet?

Conform, conform

Do things my way.

Conform, conform

Do what I say.

Six: 'I have no love affair with this place.'

Two: 'Yet it is your home, sweet home.'

Six: 'I will escape from here.'

Two: 'Where to? All roads lead to Rome. You'll end up back here because there is nowhere else for you to run.'

Six: 'Oh, I doubt it.'

Two: 'That's the trouble, you see. As I said the village is everywhere, even if you don't recognise it at first. Be seeing you and you'll be seeing me too, here there and everywhere because I am you and you are me and we are all together. We're two sides of the same coin. I am just a reflection of that part of you, you refuse to acknowledge. Meeting Number One will be a real damascene moment for you, I can tell you. On the road to calvary you will suffer no more illusion. . .

Paigetheoracle

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