|1-It all started as a harmless joke



                               By JIPsoft

Darryl  was my friend.  I had known him since birth.  He was exactly the
same  age  as  me,  so  naturally I was informed of his birth, and he of
mine.

I  had  always  thought  there was something very peculiar about Darryl.
Either  he  was  mad  or  I  was.   It was only later that I came to the
conclusion that we both were.  That served, of course, not only to unite
us, but also to isolate us from anybody else.

One  day, when we were pondering about the very essence of truth, things
and  stuff  like  that,  I  said  a fatal thing to him.  What I said was
(quite verbatim) "But I don't even know if you exist!"

Darryl's  reply  was  puzzling.  He said "I don't!" and vanished.  I was
unable  to see, hear, touch, taste or smell him, but somehow I was aware
of  his  constant  presence.   His thoughts entered my head.  At first I
thought  mine  must have entered his head too, but then I thought it was
false, since I knew there was no head for them to enter.

Darryl  existed  only  in my head.  I could not sense him as an external
being, and nobody else even knew there was any Darryl.

I  grew worried.  Just as vacuum craves air, a sudden discontinuation of
existence attracts existence - matter - to itself.  I could already feel
my matter slowly turning into Darryl.  He would be all right, physically
existent and all that, but what about me?

I  thought  about  Darryl.   In  my thoughts I said:  "Darryl!  Hear me!
Please  exist again, I cannot possibly survive turning into you!" And he
answered.   He  said - thought - "Why did you do this to me?" I was in a
panic.   I  replied  that  what I said about his existence back then had
only been a joke, whose point he apparently had failed to get.

"All  right",  he  said, "I will cure your problems." He thought about a
lump  of  granite  exactly  of his mass, which took the form of a square
circle.   It appeared.  It was the first time I had seen a square circle
in  my life.  It was strangely beautiful, yet I dared not look at it for
a longer time.  I knew Darryl had made it - he hadn't created it, he had
just forced it into existence.

But  the  main  thing  was  that  it  had stopped the drain of existence
Darryl's  disappearance  had  created.   I  was  no  longer turning into
Darryl.  I was glad.

But  his  thoughts  were still in my head.  He haunted me in a curiously
mad  kind  of  way.   "But hey!" I thought.  "This will do - it could be
worse!"

End