I dreamed that the world was firmly in the grip of the Black Iron Prison, as Philip K. Dick had called it. People had been programmed, their minds conditioned not to think for themselves, their responses as predictable as pages from a hack mystery novel. However somehow I had become deprogrammed by a friend of mine, an astronaut and astronomist. I would look at particular models of S.U.V. and words would flash before my eyes, “You have been programmed to think of a more powerful vehicle.” I would look at a bottle of Coke and words would flash before my eyes, “You have been conditioned to think of Pepsi.” It was as though it were impossible to completely deprogram me, only to trigger warnings informing me of what the programming had done to my mind.
There was something wrong with the sky. I would look up at the stars, and they would be in the wrong positions. I could clearly see written there, “This is Day 41,” a reference I knew for some reason to the end of the world. Me and my astronomist friend somehow deactivated the world’s programming so that everyone could see it, thus showing them a small degree of the truth. But I had to do more. The end was coming soon and I had to warn everyone that I loved. I went in another room and my dead grandmother was there, watching television. On the screen, two women were performing some kind of ritual involving food: they would expunge the food from their mouths in huge looping coils that reached up to the ceiling, form swirling patterns, and disintegrate. I tried to warn her, but she wouldn’t listen. She was enraptured by the television and there were other people there with her, influencing her mind. I went back into the other room where my astronomist friend was.
I found him in the grip of one of the women from television, and he said, “It’s too late for me, get out while you still can.” I ran. But the women followed me, and they could extend their fingernails into yardslong, razor-sharp ribbons. “Why don’t you just leave everybody alone?” they shrieked. They wrapped their nails around my neck and began to strangle me. I knew I wouldn’t escape. I appealed to my grandmother to stop them, to help me tell everyone the end of the world was at hand. “How long do we have left?” she asked. Somehow I knew today was the day. “But one day,” I choked out, and she said, “Why not just let it happen?” That’s when I began to feel the world vaporizing beneath me. As I saw the immense body of Christ extending outward through the universe, preparing for a final trip to heaven, I woke up.