Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (Illusions 1)

"It's fun. Sh. I'll tell you later."

"Snap out of it. Wake up. It's all illusions"

I was irked. "Donald, there's just a few minutes more and then we can talk all you want. But let he watch the movie, OK?"

He whispered intensely, dramatically. "Richard why are you here?"

"Look, I'm here because you asked me to come in here!" I turned back and tried to watch the end.

"You didn't have to come, you could have said no thank you."

"I LIKE THE MOVIE . . ." A man in front turned to look at me for a second. "I like the movie, Don; is there anything wrong with that?"

"Nothing at all," he said, and he didn't say another word till it was over and we were walking again past the used-tractor lot and out into the dark toward the field and the airplanes. It would be raining, before long.

I thought about his odd behavior in the theater. "You do everything for a reason, Don?"

"Sometimes."

"Why the movie? Why did you all of a sudden want to see Sundance ?"

"You asked a question. "

"Yes. Do you have an answer?"

"That is my answer. We went to the movie because you asked a question. The movie was the answer to your question."

He was laughing at me, I knew it.

"What was my question ?"

There was a long pained silence. "Your question, Richard, was that even in your brilliant times you have never been ab

le to figure out why we are here."

I remembered. "And the movie was my answer. "

"Yes "

"Oh "

"You don't understand," he said.

"No "

"That was a good movie," he said, "but the world's best movie is still an illusion, is it not? The picture' aren't even moving; they only appear to move. Changing light that seems to move across a flat screen set up in the dark?"

"Well, yes." I was beginning to understand.

"The other people, any people anywhere who go to any movie show, why are they there, when it is only illusions?"

"Well, it's entertainment," I said.

"Fun. That's right. One."

"Could be educational."

"Good. It is always that. Learning Two."