
They Are Watching Us
Martin RepaThe drawn characters joyfully rushed to the corner of the paper pinned to the noticeboard. They crowded together, each trying to get the best view. Today, the Tip would surely appear.
Location: A kindergarten in Čadca.
Time: 10:00 AM.
Participants: 30 children.
The children are having an art class. They are painting on one large sheet of paper, each drawing whatever comes to mind. In the centre, flowers sprouted, with a small robot stomping on them. On the left, a mother and father are playing. On the right, two soldiers are shooting at each other. A sun shines from the corner, and a waterfall flows along the edge. Finally, the teacher pins today’s creation on the noticeboard, next to last week's masterpiece.
The characters drawn last week rush into the new land. They bathe in the waterfall, squeal at the sun, dismantle the little robot, and trample the flowered meadow. Eventually, two soldiers capture them and take them back to their paper. Meanwhile, the mother and father try to fix the robot.
The characters know only length and width. Their lives are simple and joyful. Their highest deity is the great, colourful Tip of the pencil. None of them knows when it will arrive, but all are certain it will bring something new. Everything they have is the result of its work.
The characters do not understand time. Their whole existence is one of play. Stress is unknown to them. They have only one uncertainty: they never know what the Tip will bring. They wish for a ball, and it delivers a tank. They dream of a house, and it gives them a flower. Yet they do not suffer from monotony.
They fear nothing except their second greatest deity, the Eraser. Whenever it appears, someone vanishes.
The characters do not know sleep. They rest only when commanded by the Tip. They know neither envy nor hatred. They understand that they cannot change anything themselves. Only the Tip and the Eraser possess such power.
Location: A kindergarten in Čadca.
Time: Unknown.
Participants: 30 entities.
The children have run to the large dormitory. It is nap time. Each lies down in their little bed. The quiet voice of the teacher and a bedtime story quicken the process of falling asleep. They are dreaming now, or so they believe.
The entities are very creative. Each chooses one child, transporting them through time. They take them to Disneyland or fly them in a hot-air balloon to distant lands. They meet their teacher or the janitor. They move them to a toy store or a zoo. Two entities cannot decide where to take their children.
The transition from the reality of dreaming to wakefulness is gentle. The children gradually awaken. Some dreamed of Disneyland. Others met the janitor in their dreams. A few visited a grand toy store. Two children dreamt of nothing. Only darkness.
Humans know length, width, and height. They also understand time but cannot manipulate it. Time is their highest and most feared deity. It forces them to live. It gives and it takes. Whenever it is fulfilled, someone departs.
Humans are unaware of entities that can manipulate time. They do not realize that they are being influenced through time and strive to rationalize all signs. Dreams, they say, are not time travel. Death, they believe, is not merely a brief pause. A transparent ghost is not a temporal trace of an entity. Déjà vu is not a memory of an entity's actions.
Location: Unknown.
Time: Unknown.
Participants: 30 emotions.
The entities are on an excursion today. They are traveling to witness the birth of a star at the edge of the universe. Later, they will meet their mirror entities to discuss their lives from two different time perspectives. Some entities mysteriously vanish during time travel. Rescue teams search for them in warped spacetime.
Emotions can bend time and space. They also know how to traverse emotional infinity. They understand that the lost entities will never be found because they no longer exist in time. They drift in infinite joy, where they will one day meet the mother and father repairing the robot.
On the border of reality, dreams, and imagination, worlds overlap, bound by mysteries. Perhaps our world is just one sketch by an unknown author. Perhaps we are mere drawings on the infinite paper of existence, which writes our stories in emotions, joy, sorrow, love, and fear. These emotions move the pencil of our destinies, shaping, changing, and transforming. Like the drawn characters, we often fail to understand why things happen. But perhaps it is enough to believe that our Tip is guided by a force that gives meaning to the world.
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