Real Reality

The Pope died today. Even though I don't consider myself religious, this is big. A unifying force, human in his actions, yet otherworldly in his presence. His passing left me with a feeling of loss of control. Things are off-kilter. Not as they're supposed to be. Eerie. Strange. We all knew this was coming; for the past weeks no one could deny its immence. But as I was sitting in a candle-lit cafe last night with Alex somewhere in the Annex, everything seemed a little too real. CNN's constant updates flashing on a small monitor in the corner of the cafe - the Pope's not dead yet - seemed to lack dignity. It got us thinking. Real thinking.
What is real anyway? Is it this life? Another one? UFOs. Religion. Conspiracies. The Illuminati. Skull and Bones. Control. Body. Life. Other dimensions. The nature of time.
The guy sitting at a table next to us overheard our discussion. You know? He was shocked.
"You know," he said, his strong features illuminated by candlelight. "It's scary when you first start to realize things aren't always as the seem."
Ya, for real. Maybe our whole reality is really just a complicated Matrix-like computer program.
Maybe we're all prisioners in some kind of a Panopticon in which nameless elite families are the prison guards.
Ignorance is bliss. Or is it?
Personally, I'd rather know. I'd even rather know that Alex thinks I'm an evil spirit. She told me that yesterday, much to my fright I must say. She said I looked at her in a weird way. She said her imagination was running wild. Really, really wild. I was scared. Scared 'cause we had gotten really into these questions about reality. But it's no surprise since conversations like these can get you in a zone. A completely non-medicated altered state. Trust me. The moment we left the cafe and stepped into the real world, we were both scared. Scared to go the bathroom, scared when we walked awkwardly fast down the crowded street. It was just like leaving a scary movie.
Only everything is a bit more real.