Chapter four

It was a few weeks later, as I lay with my head lethargically on Simon’s stomach as we lazed in a grassy expanse under an oak that he explained his philosophical theories more fully.
“My dear Abigail,” he began, petting my hair unconsciously, “That sky hanging above you is recognised as blue. Although it can’t be proven that it is blue. I personally think it is red.”
“What?” I asked, trying quite hard to actually grasp his meaning. Another of his vibrating chuckles followed.
“I see that the sky,” he replied, raising an elegant, pale hand to point above us, “is red. You would argue that it is blue, no doubt, but effectively you cannot prove me to be wrong.”
“But it’s blue! Just look at it.” Now I laughed, with bewilderment and the blank confusion only achievable by those who truly want to understand. He returned to petting my loose, wild hair.
“Ah! But Abigail that is not proof is it? I call that colour red. The point is that we are taught to call the sky blue, to recognise it in the same way but we cannot tell whether we all perceive the same colour. Simply, we all call the sky what we were told to call it. Perception is not something that can be proven. Perception itself dictates reality so… Reality is not a constant or substantial thing. For all I know you are a mere figment of a drug induced state.” He smiled in a melancholy way that I caught in the corner of my eye. By that time he had explained his various demons to me.
“There are people who hallucinate so severely they cannot tell the imagined from the real world. Unfortunately you have to acknowledge that that may be the case for all of us. Who is to say what reality is? Perhaps the world is simply one big dream.”
I meditated quietly on his vocalised musings, glancing to his face every few minutes having noticed his change in mood. I though to myself I would rather a world with a red sky; a world where my mother was as real as anyone else, a world with magic to sedate the sharp edges of a detailed and sordid reality.
“I think I agree.” I told him, pushing myself up to a sitting position, now able to see a border collie sprint after a ball about fifteen yards beyond us.
“With what exactly?” he smiled languidly, almost dozing in the sunshine’s warmth.
“The sky being red. You’re right. It is red.”