Escape from Reality

Onceler art by @teysifox

Michael design by @mangozic

Wanting something requires dopamine signaling, but liking something doesn’t.

If you have a mental illness/disorder that affects dopamine, you might feel that you don’t want to do the things that you like. You do still like them. You will appreciate having done them.

Let your likes guide you.

(If you want to read more, here’s one experimental paper about it. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5171207/ This theory called the incentive-sensitization theory was originally created to explain behaviors in addiction but can be applied elsewhere as well)

He returns one night to his humble apartment, which is known to have vermin, and comes across a rat, which he could easily kill or set loose on the street.

But the rat- it is special. It seems to speak to him. Promises him every little thing he desires- talent, fame, and fortune. Recognition and esteem like he has only ever seen from afar; fine company like the wealthy men and women whose scraps he picks at over the sink.

Put me on your head, the rat says. Put me on your head and think of nothing.

It is strange at first, yes. Strange to feel another take control of his life and live it better than he ever could. To see miraculous things created with his own two hands, to feel his feet move in graceful and fantastic ways with a confidence he has never had.

But the rat delivers as he had promised: he receives promotions, notoriety, admiration. He is noticed. Envied. Every day is a waking dream, rubbing elbows with beautiful women and handsome men and influential personalities who lavish him with praise. It is addictive, this lifestyle- never mind that he is only ever truly conscious of it as a passenger of in own brain.

It is when he has reached heights few can ever conceive, with all that the rat had ever promised- a beautiful wife in a beautiful house with all the world in his palm, in possession of all the wealth and success a man could ever want, that the rat says that it is leaving.

Leaving? The rat cannot leave. Everything he is, the rat has provided.

"I have delivered on our bargain", the rat says. "I have brought to you all that you have ever dreamed. What more could you desire? I must live my own life, now."

The man is furious. He is terrified. He destroys the rat, in all of the ways that a rat can be destroyed, until nothing is left of it but a fine smear of marinara sauce.

He returns to the restaurant the next day moving like the shell of something hollowed-out and brittle. He cooks well- his fingers remember the movements, his eyes recognize the patterns, his mouth knows without his asking what orders to speak and what platitudes make patrons smile pleasantly with their straight white teeth.

He retains the talents of the rat. The charm of the rat. All the worldly pleasures the rat had provided him.

Still, it seems, he is little more than a vessel for the talents of the rat.

But the rat is gone.

DATA CENTER GOTHIC

Each hall looks the same but goes in a slightly different direction

Some doors have regular locks, some have card sensors, some doors have number pads, some doors don’t even have handles or hinges. 

If the doors have signs they consist of only ambiguous letter and number combinations. Even the signs on the bathroom seem to depict slightly different vaguely humanoid forms.

Some days the hallways are longer than others and there are never the same number of doors on each one on any given day. 

You walk up one hallway and down another for hours through separate doorways only to realize you’ve gone in a circle. On occasion you can’t remember how to get back out.  You try to retrace your steps but can’t figure out where you came from.  After a while you can’t remember how long you’ve been walking or what your destination is

You pass by people who work in other rooms the same time the same place each day.  Pleasantries are exchanged, but you know nothing about eachothers’ daily duties.  Then one day you no longer pass them by, but see their coffee mug in a cabinet, coated in dust.  Another person who shares a few vague physical characteristics shows up with the same habits.  They act like they know you better than they let on.

Doors open and shut in the distance, but you never see anyone come and go from the direction of the noise.

There’s a steady hum of the same volume no matter where you go.  It might be the HVAC system, it might be an especially large server room, it might be the building itself inhaling and exhaling.

You arrive at the same entrance every day.  There are exit signs all over but you’ve never been out another actual exterior door.  Except one time there was a fire drill and when you went out that other door the entire geography of the surroundings was completely different than anywhere else in town.

I went, "What. no. she/her."

"How does that work? With she/her/hers and they/them?"

I stared at her. "What are you talking about?"

"Well you came out as-" and I said, "I'm asexual."

She replied, "Like an amoeba, I know."

"Oh. My god. No. Mom. It doesn't- it's not the asexual you learned about in biology. I didn't come out as a single celled organism."

With heavy relief, she said "Oh, it has a different meaning?"

—got confused about why I’d never been a boy scout because he forgot i was trans

—told me he was gonna get top surgery scar tattoos to match me after i get mine

—laughs at all my trans jokes, even if they’re supremely unfunny

—calls me big dog (and him little dog) even though he is about as tall as two of me

Then he said "You know, I completely forgot you weren't always this way. Femininity really suits you" and let me tell you I started tearing up

(also, she was never judgey - if my meal was a single potato chip she would simply say good job eating a potato chip today <3 )