Room
In this house there is only one room.
In this room there are many people, objects, stories, projects, projections, connections, injections, inversions, conversions, and perversions.
Some claim the room is identical with the universe. That there is nothing outside the house. This is the doctrine of the orthodox.
(Don’t believe the official story, it’s all lies.)
Some claim the room is only a house. That somewhere, hidden beyond the apparently solid walls and floors and ceilings, there may be other rooms. These ones say there is no inherent contradiction in imagining a space outside the room. Although you must understand that most inhabitants of the house struggle to meaningfully make the distinction between the concepts of “room” and “house,” some of their most heretical philosophers have speculated that there may not only be other houses, but space between houses which is not contained within any house.
This doctrine of Inter-Domesticity was harshly suppressed by the legitimate authorities, who publicly executed the ringleaders — all executions in the room take place publicly — and forced the lesser heretics to stand in a corner until dinnertime.
(We all know there’s a place outside of this room. They just have us lying to each other, and we all know why. They’re all damned liars who won’t see what they see.)
Some claim the room is the fantasy of a dying god, produced out of madness or desperation, or both. This doctrine, considered heterodox but falling short outright heresy, cites several apparent absurdities in the room’s structure as evidence. Two such absurdities are worth mentioning here.
They point to the fact that one of the house’s two toilets is fastened to the roof — to which the orthodox reply is that toilets are naturally-occurring objects that could as well arise in one place as in any other.
They point out that the table has only ten seats even though the room contains more than fifty occupants — to which the reply is that this is a fortuitous coincidence, because no more than ten people are ever seated to eat at the same time.
(Tell ’em all fifty of us might eat at the same time if there were fifty chairs and they’ll send you straight to the corner, or worse.)
Life in the room is an orderly thing. The inhabitants are well aware that there are no physical walls separating them from one another, but they have a set of carefully-enforced taboos regarding which acts may be deemed publicly noteworthy at which times. Coition, for example, is strictly forbidden at all times — but when the room’s lights are dimmed during the time of sleep, sounds such as the smacking of lips, the slap of a hand against smooth skin, and moans of either a pained or pleasurable nature are universally ignored. In this way, the inhabitants of the house, who naturally live out the course of their lives and die now and again, perpetuate themselves throughout the generations by both licit and illicit means.
To clarify: in the eyes of the legitimate authorities, there exists a set of explicit rules which are universally valid at all times and for all house-dwellers. But beneath this theoretical absolutism there exists a set of tacit exceptions to the explicit rules, and without these exceptions life within the house would be not only theoretically but also practically impossible.
(Don’t you see what’s happening here? The food, dammit, don’t you see where it comes from? Don’t you realize what you’re eating?)
There exists an ultra-heretical party within the Inter-Domestics that believes the other houses, or even the impossible space between houses, may not only exist but actually be accessible to human beings.
(It is! It must be! Don’t you see what’s going on here? Do you think this world can last forever? WHERE DO YOU THINK WE GO WHEN WE DIE?)
One such individual — with any luck, the only holder of these absurd beliefs, the mere existence of which is an intolerable threat to decency and public order — was possessed with the insane conception that the toilets of the house are not simply points where excrescences are deposited and afterwards disappear.
She believed (and we must apologize for the absolute absurdity of these ideas, the very articulation of which ought to be a logical impossibility) the toilets were attached to certain channels through which water and other materials were forced into the utterly absurd space between houses. And during the time of sleep, slapping herself and moaning with simulated pleasure in order to cover the sound of her efforts, she attempted to escape the room via the toilet fastened to the roof.
Obviously, her attempt was unsuccessful and she was summarily executed that very night.
Speculation arose as to the reasons the execution did not take place publicly during the time of light. But such wild rumors — hinting, perhaps, at the less-than-absolute power of the legitimate authorities — were successfully suppressed.
(You’ll never eat me, you bastards! I’ll be back. And when I do, I’m taking the rest with me before you eat them all.)
Life in the room proceeds happily and normally. There is no unrest. There is no dissension. There is no questioning of the legitimate authorities — aside from the permitted questioning, of course.
All is well.