I don't know how common this feeling is, but has anyone else ever felt disconnected from reality? At its simplest, this can mean that days go by without you really stopping to think about their content. Previously, I tried hard to find routines. Although they are good for giving rhythm to the day, you can also get bogged down in them. Your mind may have a ready-made arsenal of routines, from which the next one is automatically picked before the previous one has ended. And before you know it, a new week has begun, bringing with it the familiar patterns.

  The above may be a lighter version of walking alongside reality. But when I woke up today, I felt quite different. The surroundings were the same as usual, but things were not quite right. Every detail seemed to be slightly off. The cup on the table looked distorted, the perspectives did not match the distances, and the firm mattress was too soft. In fact, the mattress felt as if my buttocks had partially melted into it.

  And then it felt like I had woken up again, and what I had experienced a moment earlier was just a dream. But everything was still just as wrong. And instead of wondering about the strange softness of my mattress, I stood in front of the sink in my simple kitchen, pouring water from the tap into my cup. When I looked at my hands, they didn't look like mine. They were too long, thin, and misshapen. I had to wave them in front of my eyes, and then feel my palms. My sense of touch was real, but what I saw did not match the feeling of touching my own limbs.

  I stumbled upstairs to the café. Winston made me breakfast and listened to my ramblings. That's what bartenders do, after all. Something in Winston's gaze and his responses made me feel that he had heard stranger stories. His answers made me understand that drifting away from reality was completely normal. Sometimes the universe kind of bugs out, or whatever the fancy word for it is. Pearl snorted at this from the top of her climbing tree. Cats had been watching the screen spread out before us for thousands of years. And seeing beyond that. Something in this brief and very Pearl-esque explanation made me see cats' zoomies with new eyes.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I had heard about simulation theory before. It provides a simple explanation for why we have déjà vu and stuff. But Winston's attitude seemed overly Stoic. He thinks we have to live with it because there is no other option. If you want to be stress-free, feel free to think this way. For me, it's not working. It just bothers me.

  Now that I have had time to analyze the matter while writing, this is how I see it: our universe is located on a thin sheet. These sheets fill the multiverse, and sometimes they come within touching distance of each other. In practical terms, we are talking about branes related to string theory.

  I didn't come to think of this theory on my own. As I walked back to my dwelling, Cook joined me. It could have been just skillful guidance, or perhaps Cook was somehow continuing to open my mind. Breaking down the doorways through the wall inside my head that I wrote about earlier. Cook knows how to do these things. He is skilled at refining me toward the purpose of my being here.

  Be that as it may, it was a strange day overall. Whether we are in a simulation or randomly traveling on the edge of the brane, the sensations are genuine in any case. I just don't know how to interpret them correctly. Pearl knows something, I'm sure of that. But no one can figure out this mysterious cat with any certainty. Maybe a good night's sleep will clear my head and tomorrow will bring back the normal universe. Whatever the concept of tomorrow or normality is here.

  Till next time.

  

  
• Johnny