Genre: Psychological, Philosophical, Solipsism
2 minute story | Short Stories | Quick Fiction | By: Atman Brahman and AI
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Asylum of Mirrors
The unnamed man, let’s call him John, had always thought he was perfectly sane. He observed the world around him and didn’t think that anything seemed odd or strange, in fact, to his eyes, it all seemed quite normal. He had a life that he enjoyed living and went about his days without worry or concern. Until one day, something changed.
John thought he was having a perfectly ordinary conversation with someone when they accused him of being insane. Taken aback by the accusation, he tried to explain himself but soon found that nobody was even listening — they had already deemed him as mad and nothing was going to change their minds.
The crazier thing still was when John, who thought he knew madness very little indeed, confronted people with irrational behavior which plainly observed could only be explained as a matter of narcissism — they told him he himself was being narcissistic by accusing them of this! It made no sense whatsoever and yet everyone agreed; they all said it in unison as if in some kind of chorus: “You are the one who is mad!”
John tried to push back against their accusations and claims but it was no use. He started to question himself; what if they were right and he was actually going crazy? What then? Would he be locked away in an asylum, lose his job and life, branded forever as a madman? He didn’t want any of that! But then why were so many people, strangers even, convinced that he was insane?
Was John’s fear driving him insane or was it sane for him to give in to the pressures from the snowballing conspirers? He faced a perilous journey with two pathways; both wrought with witch hunters, and both leading to the same place.
He felt like he had stepped out of Plato’s cave for a moment and seen the true nature of reality — but had anyone followed him? Was he irreversibly blinded by the light, or had he just entered a new cave? How could he know, if there was nobody else to know with him? This realization made John feel that in order to survive this world where thinking differently is seen as insanity, he might need to convince himself that what everyone else is seeing is real. It was the only sane thing left to do. So John dived deep into his own madness and convinced himself that it was him who was crazy.
And so John found himself trapped within the Asylum of Mirrors — a place where an entire group of people have come together just to convince him that he is insane when all along it has been them doubting their own sanity.
*Disclaimer: Some of this story was generated through the use of AI. All italic text was created by the AI Writer.
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