The Empire Never Ended

This picture is called "The Empire Never Ended". It was drawn on a scrap of multi-purpose copy paper then cleaned up and colored with Photoshop. I have been reading the book "VALIS" by Philip K. Dick. The book is considered science fiction but really the story is about one mans quest to grasp the nature of reality. Anyhow one of the phrases that are repeated to the main character over and over is, "The Empire Never Ended". It's all very Big Brother like and since I'm a little paranoid anyway I find it fascinating. (Put this thought aside for a moment.)

Yesterday I went to eat lunch at this funky little cafe called Dots. I like the place because it's fun to watch all the hip, neo-gothic, thirty something people that hang out there, there's a good vegetarian menu and lots of cool kitsch all over the place. I'm very tactile. I love to pick things up so I can feel them as well as look at them. So a place with lots of odd little goodies to play with is heaven for me.

I sit down and on a shelf next to me is this weird looking diary. I pick it up and open it somewhere near the center to see what, if anything, has been written there. What was there was a pyramid much like the one above and underneath the pyramid was written... "The Empire Never Ended"!

Suddenly, all them hip, neo-gothic, thirty something people seemed to be staring at me. Suddenly I lost my appetite. Suddenly I feel like I'm living in a Philip K. Dick novel. Aren't these the kinds of events that make people on the edge slip into insanity I find myself thinking? This of course makes things seem even more like a Philip K. Dick novel. Someone get me out of here! I don't want to be written this way! I want to write my own story!

Are you paranoid? Too paranoid to leave some love?