Petra slammed her foot on the brakes. There had been something that just seemed to have dashed right across the road. She was not sure what that thing was, or whatever it could have been. But then she ended up losing control of the wheel from the slippery surface of the tarmacked road.

To her horror, she realized what was going on. Her brakes were malfunctioning! She continued to slide across the road, past whatever it was that had ended up causing her to lose control of her vehicle.

Her heart raced within her chest. She had forgotten to pay attention to the traffic signals, and speed limit signs. Here she was trying to drive at about a 120 kilometers per hour, thinking she would be able to manage coming to a stop whenever she needed to.

The gods must have been testing her driving abilities. She tried her brakes one more time.

They still failed her. She began to scream as her vehicle veered off the side of the road, and headed toward a Baobab tree.

She covered her face, and braced for impact. The front part of her car slammed into the thick bark of the Baobab tree, and to make things worse, the entire windscreen shattered into a zillion nano shards of glass.

After a short while, smoke started to billow from the car. Petra had been out of it from the moment of the impact, but the odor of the smoke that surrounded her made her feel queasy.

She felt as if she was going to collapse from the lack of oxygen. Her whole body was in a lot of pain, and to make things worse, she was stuck inside her car!

Luckily for her another car was not too far behind her, and a random stranger ran out of his car to her aid. He was not sure how to save her, and his feet just sprang to action.

Petra had seen a figure with wings approaching her. She began to freak out and thought to herself, "No...I am not ready to go with you, Azrael...please, give me some more time to live and celebrate Nowruz with my family."

The car burst into flames.

Petra screamed.

The flutter of wings in the distance made her calm down...for a bit.

A hand tapped her on her shoulder, "Are you alright, Miss?"

Petra smiled. There was a beautiful scent now in the air that was like a sweet smelling fragrance of her Habibi's.

The young gentleman smiled back. He stared at the lady, and felt his heart skip a beat. She was beautiful, and he was glad to have saved her from dying in an inferno.

Petra coughed, and then replied, "Yes, I am. Thank you for saving me...my dear guardian angel."

The guy chuckled. "My pleasure."

#AngelofDeath. (c)

1 Aprile, 2023.

https://youtu.be/sDEWZnPJGRU

“Hello, my name is Andrew Garrison, and I’m an alcoholic,” I said to the room of defeated faces that formed a circle around me. The man at the other end, with the spectacles, crossed legs, and rosary dangling over his hairy chest, said, “Thank you, Andrew, we’re all happy to have you here.” No, they weren’t.

“Is there anything you’d like to say? Any thoughts you might have? This is a judgment-free room,” the rosary man said.

“I don’t want forgiveness or nothing like that.” I answered. “I ain’t here because I want this room to convince me that I’m not what I am. Because I’m not confused about that.”

“Very well, Andrew. You can continue.” I disliked this man. The smile told me he thought he was above me. That he believed he was the puppet master of this room. Controlling a bunch of sinners who were looking up at rock bottom, because it was easy, because they were already defeated.

“My daughter died. She was only three months old. I was drinking heavily. I passed out on the couch while my ex-wife was at work. I placed her on my chest, and I came to with the sound of Helen screaming, as she grabbed Annie, who was lying face down on the carpet floor next to the couch. She wasn’t breathing.”

I paused to see if the rosary man was going to interject, but he didn’t say a word. Just waved a hand at me to signify that it was okay to continue. That no one was judging me, even though their faces told a different tale.

“I bet you’d think that something like that would make me put the bottle down? Well, it did, for a little while. But when Helen left, and I lost my job at the refinery, I couldn’t stand reality, you know? The thought of it. The thought of clear consciousness made my skin crawl. And eventually I found myself roaming the streets at night, fighting with myself.”

“What was the fight about, Andrew?”

“The fact that I couldn’t come up with one single reason to not shove a gun down my throat.”

“Well, you’re still with us. Among the living. So, what changed your mind?”

“A bar. Tom’s Bar. I would sit there, me and the rest of the disenfranchised. Silently having the same conversations inside our head. Well, maybe there’s weren’t quite as bad as mine, but they still had their shit, ya know? Their regrets. Anyway, one of them, this guy named Reggie, he’s a small skinny little thing, shaped like a twig. He says, he says, that uh, his sister, her name was Margie, I think, works down at the River Run diner off of Water. Anyway, he says that her man has been laying beatings on her, something awful right. Reggie says that every Wednesday they get together for a game of cards, a few beers, and just to talk about life and shit. So, he tells me, well, he tells whoever’s listening, that she comes over to his place on Wednesdays, all bruised up. One week it’s a shiner, the next it’s on her forearms, her legs, then on one of these Wednesdays, she asks if she can take a shower. Reggie says, yeah sure, no problem. So when he hears the water running, he peeks in. He tells the guys that he ain’t no pervert, or incest, or whatever, but he just wanted to see what it was she was hiding, you know?. He sees her back, and man, he said he nearly dropped dead. There were scratch marks from the top of her back to the bottom. Bite marks, scars, you name it, it was there. So he says, Wendy, this is the final straw. I’m going to go over there and beat his head in. You know what she says?”

“No, I don’t.” The rosary man said. “No, but don’t stop. Please, continue.” Again, he waves his hand in my direction, and I want to go over there and break it off. But I try not to dwell, because my thoughts get all jumbled when that rage takes over, and I want to finish my story.

“She tells him that Reggie will have to kill him. Plain and simple, because if he doesn’t, he’ll kill her. So, it’s either let it alone. Let fucking bygones be bygones or whatever, or go all the way.”

Then this lady, about fifty or so years old, scratching at her wrists, timidly raises her hand like we’re in grade school, and asks. “Well, why didn’t she just go to the cops?”

“That’s a good question. That’s what Reggie asks her too, you see? He says, Wendy, I’ll drive you down to the sheriff’s office right now, and we’ll put the prick away. But she says no. She actually laughs. Not a, this is a funny situation laugh, but a Reggie, how could you be so naïve laugh.”

The 50-year-old woman raises her hand again. “Why did she laugh?” She doesn’t make eye contact with me. She stares at her shoes as she asks.

“Well, she laughs because of society, right? This man, this man, is a pillar of the community. A stand-up guy, you know? Donates to charity, volunteers at the soup kitchen. He’s a reverend down at the Holy Cross too, or at least he was. A man of God. And she says that she was born into a white trash family and lived her life in a trailer park. So she says, what would the sheriff say? The man, who is a personal friend of her boyfriends, what would he say if a trailer trash girl from a trailer trash family tried to condemn a pillar of the community? Well, he’d laugh in her face is what he would do.”

“That ain’t right, man. That ain’t right at all,” A young black man to my right said, and I just nod my head. It isn’t right at all. “This guy should get a bullet in his head.”

“You couldn’t be more right,” I said, as I looked at the man with the rosary. “My daughter died, and nothing will bring her back, but maybe I can balance the world again by getting rid of a piece of shit.” I stood up, pulled the .38 from the back of my pants, and shot the rosary man twice in the head.

Then I turned around and walked out of the meeting, as the circle screamed.

The world is slowly cracking open all around us, revealing multitudes of corruption and greed that has kept us in chains for too long. Rome needed to fall.

We are choosing the fate of not only us on this planet right now, but everything that resides here and for generations to come. If we’re lucky to see that far ahead. We have developed a mentality that we can destroy things and it’s okay - someone else will clean it up or we can just go get a new one. Not everything works like that. We have lost our sense of responsibility and personal power. You would be amazed at how many beautiful, positive changes can come out of gaining and implementing those two concepts. We truly do hold the key to changing and saving things. It is and always has been up to us. We are the saviours we have been waiting for.

A lot of us feel there is no hope. That we have already hit the point of no return. While we are at the end of certain things, death does not always mean death as the way you think; it usually means rebirth. A catastrophic change like a dying Phoenix. A change so severe and grand that kills the old way of things, and brings upon a new age. An age of sustainability and logic. We possess all of the tools and technology necessary to usher in this new dawn. It’s grasping ourselves enough to lead with logic and no fear of the new. The unknown is not something to fear, but something to embrace with curiosity.

How do we get there? How do we make the change of the world is in chains? In concept, very easily. The world will only change once we each make changes within our own lives, and within ourselves to allow this new world to come into fruition. If you want kindness, be kind. If you want beauty, plant seeds. For every smile given ripples out 100 times.

We have hatred, poverty, sexual injustices, an immense amount of unprecedented and unneeded deaths, carelessness, greed, envy, etc. The root of all these problems is the self and life’s conditioning. Which are two concepts you are able to break the chains of. You are the only one who holds the key. Outside circumstances or things will never change the mechanics of the formula of how this works. The hardest thing to do is accept that you need to heal yourself, and then do the healing work - both mentally and physically.

Each person has their own personal journey of healing. There is no one size fits all. But the key mechanics of how to achieve healing will all be the same. How you get yourself there is up to you. It’s not about conforming, it’s about leading with logic. Logic is another key to getting us out of this big picture disaster we have allowed to happen. Each of us has a unique set of skills and perspectives. If we put them towards solving our problems and instead of allowing everything that divides us - divide us, we could come together and make this change expidentially faster than we could have never initially imagined. We need to learn to lead with our mind and hearts instead of our hurts.

For every problem that exists does have a solution - even if you can’t see it yet. This is the law of yin and yang - balance. With every negative simultaneously exists a positive, and vice versa. We have our solutions. The first step is hope. The second step is faith. The third step is self awareness. The fourth step is taking back your personal power. The fifth step is understanding and accepting your responsibility not only to your life and immediate people/things, but also to the entire world around you. The sixth is implementing those realizations and putting action and changes behind it.

If everyone would do this in their own life and their own personal way with the uniqueness given to them - we would see a ripple through humanity in a positive way. Then we could learn to set aside our differences and work together to build solutions to our problems. The issue is not possessing solutions, it’s about regaining our humanity.

Anyone writing here on Prose can't help but notice an influx of new writers and with it a raising of the bar, this is true with the entries to my latest four challenges. Prose, as I have expressed before, this lovely blank page that encourages writers to dash off their thoughts and hit the publish button so very often without another read much less thoughts of editing for even the most obvious errors much the rough draft quality of the content. With support still the aim, in challenge situations, I have begun extending my support by offering suggestions and pointing out content problems especially to those writers of distinction. This new practice has been met with contention for the most part not seeing it as kindness and a baby step to prepare those seeking publication for the rejection and severe editing asks to come. A must read for everyone is https://theprose.com/post/706556/getting-published-in-a-literary-journal-a-beginners-how-to-guide-repost by @rlove327.

This takes us into the winners and honorable mentions for my last four challenges. In review, winners receive their prizes in Prose Cash which, per my understanding, can be cashed in once $60 has been accumulated in your account; honorable mentions receive $1 in Support. I always comment and will like, repost and follow serious writers. All of the challenges I sponsor are judged solely by me and while I occasionally take popularity into account my standards for selection are how well entries fit the parameters of the challenge, uniqueness of thought, originality of expression and skillfulness in crafting cohesive content. And with that the announcements:

"No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn. April is a promise that May is bound to keep, and we know it." - Hal Borland Challenge

Winner: "Spring into Snow" by @Uschibear

https://theprose.com/post/707313/spring-into-snow

Honorable Mentions:

"I Love You Lily" by @shaivigupta

https://theprose.com/post/707159/i-love-you-lilly

"spring in your steps" by @Ness-Doublet

https://theprose.com/post/706237/spring-in-your-steps

"Isolation of Quarantine Crumbles to Reveal Spring by @akitoyo

https://theprose.com/post/706748/isolation-of-quarantine-crumbles-away-to-reveal-spring

I always do a word play challenge. If you read them you'll see a pattern of the easiest way to use the word set often repeated by several entries. You will also see entries that simply stack the words together quickly with little thought of creating a cohesive work. In these challenges, I look for entries that stand alone as compelling to the point the challenge works have been skillfully made to disappear within plot, setting, characters and conflict...those that best achieved that this time around are:

Word Play" NOT Baseball Challenge

Winner: "Desert Snack" by @Anonymus_Cookie

https://theprose.com/post/705181/desert-snack

Honorable Mentions:

"untitled" by @Evagria13

https://theprose.com/post/708754

"The Problem Child" by @rosetempest

https://theprose.com/post/711027/the-problem-children

"Ninety" by @SailorThe Robot

https://theprose.com/post/711815/ninety

The "Being Published" Challenge brought to the forefront a good deal of aspirations along with much misinformation about the actual process and its rewards. I would again suggest that an absolute must read for everyone is: https://theprose.com/post/706556/getting-published-in-a-literary-journal-a-beginners-how-to-guide-repost by @rlove327 whose word count could not fit in this challenge as a repost. The entries recognized here provided the most valuable insights and information concerning the challenge topic.

Winner: "Published Schmublished!" by @DrSemicolon

https://theprose.com/post/710080/published-schmublished

Honorable Mentions:

"Dreaming" by @SharondaBriggs

https://theprose.com/post/706736/dreaming

"Tending The Art" by @Mavia

https://theprose.com/post/708634/tending-the-art

"To Be Heard" by @ChrisSadhill

https://theprose.com/post/710080/published-schmublished

Perhaps the most misinterpreted challenge ever was the "Talent" Challenge kicking up a huge degree of vitriol submitting entries as an opportunity to argue against the concept of inborn aptitude mistaking the word talent for skill and worse yet...putting up a fight to degrade any existence of a smidgen of innate "superpower" within themselves...all this going against vast scientific proof that indeed everyone is born with measurable aptitudes to demonstrate an ability to achieve in certain areas faster and with less training than others. These differences occur within a person's genetic code, just as everyone has a different body type, everyone has different aptitudes associated with them, their brain and other bodily qualities like perception, hand/eye coordination, memory, and millions of other combinations and possibilities predisposing the individual to naturally excel in a multitude of different arenas. While Borel created a metaphor in 1913 that monkeys left to bang on an infinite number of typewriters sooner or later would accidentally reproduce the complete works of Shakespeare, while most anyone can be taught to do most anything and exceptionally hard work in any area for which no natural aptitude exists will most certainly produce a well-crafted product, there is not only value but a special joy, fulfillment and ease that comes when an individual seeks out, claims and works to hone their own unique and individual areas of natural aptitude (talent)....therefore:

Winner: "Talent is..." by @Bloodjam

https://theprose.com/post/705392/talent-is

Honorable Mentions:

"Our Time" by @amandabjaworski

https://theprose.com/post/705393/our-time

"Want" by @SailorThe Robot

https://theprose.com/post/711506/want

"The Truth of Talent" by @TempestHeart

https://theprose.com/post/703848/the-truth-of-talent

Thank you to all the vastly talented writers who participated in these challenges. It is my hope that the added commentary will clarify the challenges I create and sponsor especially for the large number of new writers I welcome to the Prose platform.

It was 1939, a bright moonlit night. So, bright you could read from it. That’s how my grandpappy began the story. He and his friend Sam went to the crossroads with Sam’s older brother Junior and his friend Willie. Junior and Willie loved the blues, but neither was any good. Junior was tone deaf sounded like skinned cat bakin in the sun. Willie had no dexterity in his hands. It looked like Nosferato’s deformed digits on his acoustic guitar. The sight was grotesque. They went down them crossroads the same one they tell Robert Johnson sold his soul. Well, these boys knew Robert’s story. Knew all 29 songs he wrote and believed the deal he made. But, they was smarter. They wouldn’t make his mistake.

See my grandpappy knows the story so well cause he was there. He saw the whole thing play out. Junior and Willie invited my grandpappy and Sam to meet a man they called the stranger at the crossroads. Junior was going to sing like Louis Armstrong and Willie would play like Lead Belly. That’s what they said all afternoon and evening while we waited. Maybe four cars drove past the entire time, but none stopped. It got dark and the sketters started eatin us like a full course meal. Me and Sam were tired and wanted to go home. Willie said if the stranger didn’t show by 11:00 we’d all go home.

Part of me thought they was playin me and Sam for fools. But, the darker it got the more Junior and Willie got angry. They was slappin sketters then each other over whose fault it was for draggin everyone there. Sam tried to break it up and got a whopping. I figured anyone mad enough to stay was serious or crazy. I ran off. Willie tried to stop me, but I was faster. Sam stayed. He didn’t believe them and wanted to prove his brother wrong.

I didn’t actually leave. I circled back and hid in the tall grass just down the way from the crossroads. That’s when it happened. Lord ol mighty. He came. I saw a man appear from nothing, he moved silent through the air then suddenly pebbles crunched under his shiny wing tips.

He was dressed in black from head to shoe. His clothes and hat were perfectly clean. Not a pinch of dust. I caught a glimpse of his handsome face in that bright moonlight. His black skin was creamy smooth and well featured like a movie star without a bead of sweat. How can that be travelin in the delta heat? And not once, not once did he have to chase away any damn sketters. He turned his head in my direction. That’s when I saw, lord, no eyelids no pupils neither. His eyes were brilliant eggshell white balls, solid and unreadable. He greeted them in a clear and friendly tone. Junior and Willie didn’t axe who he was. They were so excited they told him what they wanted. The man listened politely. All the time I knew those bright eyes were searching for me. When they finished their excited rant the man simply replied.

“You’ll get it, but it ain’t free.”

Willie quickly offered him $5.00 in jest. The man snickered.

“You boys ought to know how this work. You waited here all day.”

“You need a soul.”

The stranger nodded.

“Here you go,” Junior said as he pushed his little brother forward.

“What’s this?”

“My little brother Sam. Our daddy beats him cause he won’t do chores.”

“That true boy?”

“Yes sir.”

“You ain’t lyin are you?”

“No sir.”

“Well ok. Junior why don’t you hmm a few bars and Willie strum a few jazz chords.”

Junior suddenly had Louis’s gravelly voice and Willie’s once strained hands played smooth and silky. They glided up and down the fretboard with ease.

Junior and Willie danced about and looked like their heads would explode.

“Alright boys. Make sure you’re at the Jazz house on Saturday night.”

“Why?” They asked together.

“Cause your little brother Sam will have an accident. Can’t have you two anywhere near.”

“Yes sir.”

It’s 2002, two weeks ago, Floyd and Harold Simmons invited George and me to the crossroads. They promised we be their new bandmates. George didn’t believe my grandpappy’s story.

The way we think of ourselves and others is taught from the time you learn to talk. Mom is a label as is Dad. From there on in labels are applied like stickers on shipping crates. Many of them are mundane and serve only to provide order and comfort.

Then there are labels which can hurt the soul of every one of us. Words specifically designed to degrade and cause pain. Most of them were never intended to cause these results. Merely a way to help enlighten individuals and help them to understand themselves, they have been added to a heap of descriptions that make individuals wish they didn't have to see or hear them.

Cisgender is one that has unintentionally put a line between the LGBTQ+ community and the normal who stand around them. I love so many diverse unique individuals and embrace every little thing that makes them who they are. All I want is the same in return. Not so easy these days as the sources of information out there continually hammer on dividing us instead of allowing inclusive acceptance.

Good and bad are taught from your earliest memories. They affect you and your self-confidence instantly. The complex intertwining between labels and values are the mechanisms of self-worth. Self-esteem and the lack there of, might well be the underlying issue on how we interpret labels and values. When hurt is the perceived result, nothing we say afterward can stop the initial undermining of the human psyche.

Imposing anyone's normal over someone else's brings resentment and hurt. If you work at it hard enough, genocide and war. The diversity of the population of this world is beautiful. That is all we need to know.

Linda Whelan’s journey into space began typically for a dead person.

The funeral was cheap; the cookies and the hired reverend both a bit stale. Linda lay in state in her bargain casket, which the Beyond Horizons Funeral Fleet advertised as their economy model with a 99.8%* vacuum-proof seal. Linda wore her black skirt suit and gold earrings and a pair of tights that very nearly ended the undertaker’s commitment to her professional demeanor when she crammed them onto Linda’s mottled yellow legs. In the two hundred and sixty odd years since the invention of seamless tights, nobody thought to manufacture a version compatible with cadavers.

With all the tears wiped and the lid sealed, the undertaker closed the door to the airlocked evacuation chamber. Linda’s son pulled the lever for the release, and Linda slid neatly out on a stately trajectory out from the Milky Way. Her exit ended the workday, so the undertaker wiped her brow and hurried off to find a drink. The extended family trailed into a reception room to eat the cookies and complain quietly about the cost of terrible coffee on funeral vessels. And Linda clipped along toward the twelfth sector at about ten meters per second.

Once she passed the furthest settlement, a beacon in her casket would ping, activating a forty second jet propulsion to speed her journey into the stars. The ping would tell Beyond Horizons that she’d successfully cleared civilized space. It would also officially divest them of any liability regarding the casket. If Linda’s relatives had purchased the more expensive release package, a tracker would trace her journey, and possibly a camera would display the front row seat view into the great beyond. But Linda’s relatives decided that there would only be a lot of empty black nothing, and so the ping was just insurance for the funeral company.

Linda never pinged.

Instead her tour of sector twelve encountered a rude interruption. A sudden jostle disarranged her folded hands from her chest, although it did not disturb the firmly fixed white curls of her hair. Her casket jarred to a stop and then, sacrilegiously, opened.

Something flopped onto her still body. A foot kicked Linda in the nose, and teeth clacked against her patent leather shoes. A curse profaned the opened tomb, and a stuffing motion occurred, during which Linda obligingly disarranged to admit a second foot and a pair of arms. The lid crushed back down, albeit with a now less than a 99.8% perfect seal. A frenzied scraping rattled the crowded box, and a loud series of blows obliterated the beacon and took another percentile out of the gasket.

A long wait occurred—one meaningless to Linda, who had all the time on or off Earth. After that came one more heavy lurch, as though someone had kicked a solid boot against the casket, sending it back adrift.

Linda continued on her way, unperturbed, with her new companion’s shoes in her hair.

I wanted vines to grow over the spotted railing. My mom and aunt clipped the weeds and painted it instead.

That's what we do. What we've done for a hundred years.

We paint over the ugly flecks of brown and orange, eating away at what was once secure.

We paint over it, ignoring the shifting texture of shuddering metal.

We paint it white, a color unsullied but easily filled by filth.

We paint, again and again. Masking the slow destruction.

One day, it will fall, heavy with layers and withered by time. And I will whisper gratitudes as it crashes dully into the overgrowth.

My boots will stomp heavy, avoiding the pits left by the crabapple tree, crushing dandelions beneath my heels.

I will walk, down the hill, down the street, to the crossroads, to new homes on new streets. My eyes will linger lustfully over renovated houses and fresh, modern fixtures. Envy will turn to pride. Shame is transmuted between sighs of relief.

One day, I will look off into the distance, over the hill, past the church. The collapsed railing will be long out of sight but the wind will roll in softly, crooning tales of nature and her tenacity. Her songs will tussle my hair and set it down gently upon my neck, a story of lightning storms and hallowed ground.

An angel weeps quietly upon my shoulder.

I find her despair misguided.

We rely on terms to help identify and understand something. This is why when it comes to self-identification, terms and labels are at the center of controversy. The term itself is not what defines a person or creates a problem. Where the problem truly lies is with the stereotypes, we allow to blanket a term, therefore placing a person in a category limited by the views of others. For example, saying boy, is not bad. However, labeling blue a boy’s color implying a girl cannot wear that color based on gender alone is where the problem remains.

Even though gender roles have consumed and controlled our society for years, it is simply inaccurate to assume every female loves pink and every male loves blue. When we stop putting people in boxes and expecting them to only grow as big as the package they came in, then terms will no longer be the center focal point of the argument. The term is not the problem, it is the associations that come with it. Let us stop telling girls that they are only good for bearing children and home keeping. Let us stop teaching boys that they are to be emotionless and expressionless.

We are individuals. We are unique and always have been. Society has created a search for identity because we are conditioned to achieve an image taught to us from the beginning. Leaving us all trying to recreate the image of who we think we should be. While denying our true inner selves all along. Some so certain they are right they are willing to do what ever it takes to preserve their way of life, their perceptions and beliefs by silencing others. Imposing their standards on everyone. You may not understand your neighbor, but you don’t have to.

The ideas portrayed in The Matrix have an uncanny connection to Plato's The Allegory of the Cave, a story that explores the difference between seeing knowledge through one's experiences versus the truth. People who have lived their lives forced into a position that only allows them to look at shadows on a wall know nothing beyond the cave they are bound to. As a result, they end up naming the shadows they see, and the shadows become their reality, their truth. People have a tendency to believe what they see and narrow-mindedly restrict their beliefs to what they establish to be "reality". At that point, even if the truth dances in their face with a mustache and top hat while doing backflips in the air, they remain so fixated on their own beliefs that they are blind to the truth. This concept reminds me of a saying I have once heard about how a goldfish who has only ever lived in a glass bowl wouldn't know how big the ocean is; and if I told it that a dingy little pond about two or three times the size of its bowl was the ocean, the goldfish would be none the wiser.

Now, back to The Matrix, a film that reveals the illusions of the mind and portrays the difference between a filtered, artificial reality versus a true reality. As seen in modern society today, humans believe what they choose to believe rather than what is true, allowing them to be chained down by their own minds. Similar to how the people of Plato's The Allegory of the Cave considered shadows to be their reality, Neo considered the "Matrix" to be his reality until his eyes were opened and he came to the realization that he was living in an AI simulation. Had Neo never encountered Morpheus, he would have remained in the simulated world, completely unaware that the world he was living in was a "fake".

In The Allegory of the Cave, Socrates goes on to explain how a person released from the cave and exposed to the sunlight will initially reject the new reality they are introduced to but then eventually learn to accept the truth and even prefer it over their previous view of the world. After explaining the truth about the Matrix to Neo, Morpheus offers a blue pill and a red pill to him. The blue pill would return Neo to his previous life of “normalcy” in the Matrix, a representation of mankind’s rejection of reality, while the red pill would take Neo deeper down the path of truth, a representation of acceptance. These ideals are often reflected in modern day politics, as many people who are stubbornly fixated on their personal beliefs refuse to listen to the truth; even when the truth is presented on a platter, overwhelmingly supported by scientific evidence and held together by layers of logic. On the other hand, those who are willing to open their eyes are presented with a new worldview that allows them to realize the power of the truth.