An Ostrich Told Me The World Is Fake
“An Ostrich Told Me The World Is Fake?” In the heart of a bustling city, Neil, an ordinary office worker, found himself stuck in the monotonous routine of a job he despised. His cubicle was his own little corner of despair, and he spent his days unsuccessfully trying to sell toasters over the phone. His life was a never-ending cycle of cold calls and rejection, a far cry from the dreams he once had of success and fulfillment.
One fateful day, his boss called him into his office, a place Neil tried to avoid at all costs. The stern-faced boss, with a hint of frustration in his voice, threatened Neil with termination if he couldn’t meet his sales targets. The weight of impending unemployment hung heavy over Neil’s head as he returned to his desk, wondering how he could ever escape this soul-sucking job.
As the days passed, Neil’s sense of disillusionment grew. He felt like a cog in the corporate machine, and he began to question the authenticity of his existence. It all started with a peculiar visual distortion. Neil would occasionally see the world around him flicker like an old, malfunctioning computer screen, revealing the blinking green cursor of a command prompt. He couldn’t help but wonder if this was all just an elaborate simulation.
The next phase of Neil’s descent into the surreal was even more bewildering. He began to notice that some of the objects in his coworkers’ cubicles were missing. Pens, coffee mugs, family photos – they all disappeared one by one, leaving behind empty spaces that were never filled. Neil’s coworkers, however, seemed oblivious to these strange occurrences.
One particularly long and tedious afternoon, Neil found himself struggling to keep his eyes open. He fell into a restless slumber right at his desk. When he awoke, he was met with an unimaginable sight. An ostrich stood before him, tall and enigmatic. It looked him in the eye and said, “This world is a sham, Neil. It’s time you took a closer look at your surroundings.”
Neil couldn’t believe his eyes. He followed the ostrich, who led him to a nearby storeroom. As he ventured inside, something astonishing happened. Neil stumbled through an invisible barrier and found himself in a strange new world. It was a stop-motion animation set, a meticulously crafted miniature office.
Panic and confusion swirled within Neil as he took in his surroundings. He came across a box filled with various mouths, and they all bore his likeness. The implications of this discovery sent shivers down his spine. It was as if he were just another prop in a grand play.
The following morning, Neil returned to his workplace, only to be greeted by a shocking revelation. All the office furniture had changed overnight. His coworker, Gaven, casually explained that it was a corporate decision, but Neil, recalling the words of the ostrich, couldn’t ignore the feeling that this was a sign that their reality was, in fact, counterfeit.
Driven by a newfound determination to uncover the truth, Neil returned to the storeroom. However, this time, he was taken aback to find it filled with ordinary office furniture. Desperation gnawed at him as he struggled to prove his sanity. And then, in a moment of sheer desperation, he did the unthinkable. He reached out and ripped Gaven’s mouth off.
The world around him shattered like glass, revealing the puppet strings of reality. The creator of this surreal universe intervened, but Neil managed to escape their grasp. He fell from the set, breaking into pieces as he tumbled towards an outlet. There, he lay motionless, a jumble of disconnected parts.
The creator, sitting at their computer, pulled back the curtain on the truth. Neil and all his coworkers were nothing more than figurines in a stop-motion commercial advertising upgraded office furniture, with the enigmatic ostrich as the company’s mascot. Neil’s broken form was unceremoniously thrown into a box labeled “broken bits.” In his place, a new, identical Neil figurine was put to work.
Neil awoke at his desk once more, the haunting familiarity of his surroundings weighing him down. This time, when his boss confronted him for his dismal performance, Neil had had enough. With newfound clarity, he abruptly quit his job, determined to break free from the oppressive illusion that had confined him for so long.
In a hard cut, an advertisement for the “Ostrich Office” played on the screen. Neil’s former office was transformed overnight, becoming a shiny, modern workspace. It was a surreal and disorienting journey, but Neil had finally broken free from the confinements of his fabricated reality.
As he stepped out into the world, he couldn’t help but wonder about the true nature of existence. What other illusions were out there, waiting to be uncovered? One thing was for sure: Neil’s experience had left him forever changed, and he was now determined to embrace the unpredictable and surreal nature of the world, no matter where it might lead him.
