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All was quiet.
Grass swayed in the gentle wind, painted a neon emerald green whilst the sky was its usual pale blue. Something felt significant about it, almost surreal, as I surveyed my surroundings in more detail.
The pale blue sky was absent of birds - no grey pigeons or white seagulls to be seen. It wasn’t as if I liked birds, I was indifferent at best, but it was odd to see the sky without their feathered bodies blocking at least some of the beautiful sky.
Aside from the peculiar nature of the grass I could see nothing wrong. Sure, I’m certain I fell asleep in my bed beneath the warmth of cream covers, but sometimes sleepwalking could get a bit out of hand.
But that’s when I saw him.
As I approached I realised he was about my height, which I suppose made sense considering how small he was in all of the booklets we’d had. He reached his hand out for a handshake and I tentatively shook it, still baffled by what by senses - or sensory hallucinations as he would put it. After all, the senses were only set to deceive.
More importantly, wasn’t Descartes
dead?
Not even freshly dead, but
long
dead! He’d been dead for several centuries, substance dualism was a theory as good as dead in today’s society. His strong French accent pulled me out of my senses and alerted me that this wasn’t a joke.
“I think, therefore I am. And I think you should come to my house.” Was all he said before pulling me along, and I could do nothing but walk along and gawk at him. There was no point in staying here, I didn’t know where I was, and trying to understand what my teacher saw in this man was going to be an added bonus when I went back on Monday.
-
It was a quaint little French house, typical of the period he was from, and I sat carefully in the chair offered to me. Saying he was going to do something, he left me to my own devices as he made his way to what I assumed was the kitchen.
It made sense to me that he was going to make a drink. He was in the kitchen, and I felt thirsty. Maybe wherever I was made it possible for him to know that. If mind was separate from body, could he know my mind, and therefore know that I wanted a drink? Mind you, that’s not how substance dualism works, and the theory sucks regardless.
Maybe he doubted my reason for coming here? He’d sat and doubted everything else, and my existence was something that could not be certain.
After a while of contemplating, and realising that he’d been gone already for what felt like five minutes, I made my way to the kitchen with careful steps.
But it was empty.
As I stood in the kitchen, nothing like my modern kitchen at home I was used to, I realised that the little man was nowhere to be seen. Where had he gone? No matter where I looked, he refused to turn up and left me absolutely baffled. There was no other door than the one back to the living room where I was - he’d seemingly disappeared.
That’s when I remembered all of my philosophy lessons. All of the time I sat around joking about what I now deemed to be his most iconic ‘personality trait’.
I opened the door, and there he was.
He was sitting in the oven, right where he should be, deep in thought about what could one day become one of his great theories. Maybe his Cogito. Maybe his ontological argument for God. Who knows? Maybe I too would get to hold a cooy of one of his books.
Or maybe I could do the world a favour.
Creeping across the room, I started fishing in his drawers and managed to find an archaic-looking lighter. Given it wasn’t an electric stove, I was forced to light it and quickly did so, sparking a flame and quickly closing the stove door.
As I heard agonised screams behind me, I calmly stuck my hands in my pockets and whistled out of the room. My teacher could live - she loved The Matrix and creating and alternative timeline wasn’t that dissimilar.
Like The Matrix I felt my world begin to fall away, as I turned to face a stove that seemed to be fizzling out of existence. In a panic I began to run left and right but all of my escape routes were falling away in a blur. Shouts were soundless, cries were carried away. I felt my legs go numb and I felt myself wobble; just as I was about to fall onto the floor that was crumbling away…
I sat up, bewildered and confused.
What a dream.