text: When the world ended, nobody was surprised. It was as ordinary a day as I’ve ever seen- partly cloudy, mild, light breeze. But sometime late in the morning a dawning realization spread like a flash through all of humanity. We understood as a species that we were living in a computer simulation. Our bodies, our homes, our cities- just bits on some cosmic hard drive. Illusions. And that’s how the world ended. No cataclysm. No pestilence. No fire from Heaven. Just a little bit of knowledge. At first, we just stood around sorting through the new knowledge trying to find some meaning. And then as we wrapped our minds around the whole of the matter- that’s when people started to die. It happened without any warning and without any spectacle. The first one I saw, he was walking along the sidewalk toward me and he just dropped right onto his face. But this didn’t surprise anyone either. We could all see the "door", if you'd like to call it that. And it wasn’t just any door. It is The Door and we _knew_ there was something behind it. Something incredible, amazing. So, when our minds woke up, it was as if we were sitting in some little room, watching a little monitor, wrapped up in what’s happening on the screen and then we snap to. There’s the stuff on the monitor, which feels fake and small now, and there’s The Door. So, when a person gets a choice like that, well, they can just leave; no need to make a mess, just go. Within a week all those who were going to leave had left, which was nearly everyone. But, there were a few who stayed, including myself. It was weird and awkward at first, staying behind. All those dead bodies. They were everywhere, and they would be in inconvenient places, like places I'd want to go. All these other people thinking of the same meaningful place to be, they get there and when they couldn't find the old magic anymore, they'd drop out *right there*. Piles of bodies at all the cathedrals, scenic outlooks, and restaurants. After a few days it didn't matter much anyway because the infrastructure started failing, and without fire departments the cities started to burn. The few of us who stayed behind, we got together. It wasn’t as hard to arrange as you might think because we had acquired some interesting abilities. I didn’t notice the first one right away because there were too many people; too much noise. But after the noise I could not only sense where the others were, but I could talk to them with my mind- like Facebook, but a million times more personal than you could imagine. The other thing we discovered was that we had some power over the simulation. Nothing fancy, mind you, but enough that nobody died or got sick, so we could go wherever we wanted to. Once we knew the situation, we decided on a few really great places to hang out. We found some obscure beaches and mountains with amazing views, but also deep caves and even spots under the sea, because, why not? We would fill our days mostly with talking and eating. It was great. One of our favorite things to talk about was whether we were in Heaven or in Hell. We sensed the greatness of what must certainly lie beyond The Door and that made us think that maybe we were in Hell. Perhaps, we mused, Hell is just deciding to stay in a place and not move on. But then we compared what we had to how it was Before, and honestly, it felt like Heaven. So we’d laugh because even if we were in Hell, it's not so bad that we’d want to leave. We thought, “We’ll get to The Door eventually, maybe, but what’s the hurry?” One day, a few of us went on a long walk outside of the community. We weren't far from New York City, so we decided to go see it, but when we got there, we couldn't find it. We thought maybe it was erased somehow, but we inspected more closely and discovered old streets and the foundations of buildings. The whole place had become a great forest and here and there were the rotting logs of huge trees long ago toppled over. We figured the forest must have been thousands of years old. Somehow we hadn’t notice all that time pass. We told the others about it and that put everyone in a somber mood. That was when people started leaving again. At first, one here, two there, then everyone. Everyone but me, that is. I remember the moment the last person left. I felt her thoughts fade as she passed through the door. I waited for the starkness of my situation to settle in, waited for my thoughts to collapse in loneliness. But instead, I built a house. It’s a modest two-story with a big porch in front. I think next I’ll clear out a big lawn and have a nice fence to keep the rabbits out of my garden. I don’t know who is running the simulation and I can only guess why they haven’t turned it off. Maybe they are waiting for me. Maybe it doesn’t even turn off. Who knows? All I know is that I intend to stay and be in it until I can’t. Those of us who stayed behind before, we got lazy. We could have done more, but we just wanted to hang out, and to distract ourselves from The Door. Well, I don’t care about that any more. I care about my house, and I care about my place, and I care about this world, because for now it’s my place.