Allegory of the Cave

What is the meaning of the Allegory of the Cave? There is much more to the Allegory of the Cave than just an old caveman story. The main ideas of the Allegory of the Cave are, ignorance to change and…

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An Unintentional Barter

This… makes no sense.

He looked around in surprise. Who on earth had said that? In the quiet gallery, full of students taking their exams, moving his head won him the suspicious look of the closest invigilator. Eddie, without any ado, returned his attention to the exam paper before him.

His eyes fell on the first question and his vision wavered. He could not, for the life of him, get himself to focus on the words!

What’s happening here? What is this exam? Introduction to Physics… what the heck! What kind of a weird dream is it?! Why am I not waking up!

Much to the horror of Eddie, his fingers dropped the pen and his hand slid closer to the other one. He squealed out the moment those fingers pinched at the inner arm.

One of the invigilators rapped hard on the desk and called out, “Silence!” Some of the students turned distracted eyes in his direction. His ears blushed deeper while he picked up the pen once more and bent his head as low as he could.

This feels too real. Scary! Maybe I just have to finish this test to get out?

Oh, how much Eddie wanted to ask the voice what they meant, but he could not form the words in his head, much less speak them out loud. He could not even express his frustration in his mind! As if it was not his mind at all! Or, did he lose his voice?

Hmmm… I can choose random options in the multiple choice, but the long answers… how do those work? Can I put in Art History there? I suppose it would not matter either way…

And just like that, his pen began to hover over the lines of the question. Now his eyes were focussed on the words. The paper was no longer a blur of black and greyish splotch on a white sheet.

The only problem was, his hands moved as per the will of the strange voice in his head. He had no control over it.

Trey had been dozing off, but he woke up with a rush of breath. His eyes focussed on the familiar low ceiling of his room. His mind, though…

…it would suffice to say that his mind had launched into a series of exclamations that were in no way family-friendly.

Surprised, his body reacted and he sat up straight on the cot. In an instant, a bout of coughs wracked his whole being and he slumped back into the covers, curling up like a ball.

Whoa, this body is bony as hell. Is this guy sick? That cough sounded deadly!

Trey had a fitting reply for the comment, but his mouth would not move. His throat itched too much and he coughed again. He knew the voice. All too well.

Who are you?

Funny that he did not recognize him — oh wait, he could not see the face in the mind space, could he?

Why am I here?

Not a question an invader of the mind should pose.

Is this a weird dream?

As if on cue, his body moved and rolled to its back. It laboured itself out of the messy bed and stood up, hitched breaths rendering it breathless.

Ugh, even a puppet would be easy to manipulate! Why was it so hard with this weird weak body?

Trey wanted to snort in reply. He wanted to tell the weirdo in his head that his body would not fight off the sleep for too long, even though he was conscious at the moment.

For conscious he surely was.

His cot, sunken in the middle, had the same worn out mattress on it with the white sheet bunched away from the foot of the bed and crumpled around the sunken area. That sheet and the grayish green covers, which looked like they had been wrung, reeked of his sweat, strongly so.

His second-hand books were trashed around the room, pages torn out of it and crinkled and left beside their original homes.

An Art student? Heh, you really think that’s a viable career choice?

His table was essentially empty, save for a piece of paper and a pen. And an empty pill bottle.

Even in the most vivid of dreams, he could not imagine such details. His mind, however, was not bothered about him being awake or not.

What is this? A letter?

He picked up the paper and ran his eyes over it.

Hell no!

The voice was too loud in his head. His brain surged with a sudden pain and he collapsed to his knees, clutching his head.

What is wrong with you, man? Why would you do that?! Does this mean — no! NO!

Eddie had run out of the exam soon as he had handed in his paper, avoiding eye contact and conversation with anyone and everyone along the way. Not by his own will, no.

The sole will that seemed to be in control of him was that of the voice in his head.

Then again, it could not just be a voice if it controlled every bit of his movement. And yet Eddie could neither ask nor wonder about it. It was as if he were disconnected, as if he were a shell with the power to think.

…but if his thoughts did not reach his mind, where was this power even coming from? Would it count as an illusion?

I really, really need to know…

His hands patted the pockets of his jacket, his shirt underneath and then the pockets of his trousers till he located a wallet. Opening the flap, he pulled out the student ID and nearly dropped it in surprise.

You… you… You… you… YOU! How did I miss your name from the exam sheet? No… I didn’t think… oh, I still don’t think… but it’s so weird!

Eddie waited with bated breath.

A loud laughter rang out in his mind, sending a ripple of pulses through his head until it throbbed with an unbelievable pain.

I don’t… I don’t know what happened!

The voice snorted and sniffled between words, adding pauses into its speech.

Ah, you… you probably don’t… remember me. How could you? You’ve never heard me… heard me talk!

Huh? What did it mean? The voice knew him? How?

Weird, right? I’m surprised too. I’m very much surprised.

He turned his wrist over to look at the bulky face of his watch and nodded his head. Well, it made him do it.

I guess my body is gone by now. No way it could survive past ten. May I rest in peace.

His eyelids dropped over his eyes and his head bent forward. His hands folded over each other in a solemn manner, he remained still for a whole minute. When his eyes opened next, the last shred of Eddie’s subconscious was gone.

Trey did not know how he now possessed the body of the person who had bullied and harassed him for three years straight. Not that Eddie and he ever knew each other on any personal level. They were in different departments in the same university and none of their schedules overlapped.

No, it had been just that he had happened to cross Eddie’s path on a very ill-fated day, and things had spiralled from there. He could not count the number of bruises and scars his actual body had, and he never knew why it even began or why it grew this rough.

He had been broken inside and out in all senses. Even breathing had been an arduous task for him. He had nobody to care for him, born and brought up through the mercy of strangers and his own wilfulness.

Whereas Eddie, had it as privileged as it came, running smoothly on a scholarship he had no need for and projecting a clean image at every step of the way. Trey, however, had the misfortune of becoming a collateral damage in his secret excessive life, simply for being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

And now — he could not help it. He did not care who stopped by, who shot him ridiculous looks. Trey laughed. Maniacal though he sounded, he laughed louder and louder.

Allegory of the Cave

An Unintentional Barter

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