Thomas World by Richard Cox Page B

at her monitor.

    My husband has always been good to me. I can’t imagine a better father. But I just found out that he has slept with two other women since we were married. Should I leave him?

    My mother picks on me every day after school. She’s crazy. What did I ever do to deserve this? I’m just a kid!

    This cancer has been eating away at me for nine months now. It hurts so much, I’m in so much pain, and I’m afraid to live anymore. But I’m even more afraid to die.

    The problem here is, in the context of the game, none of the above prayers make any sense. The ants know they won’t go to Heaven if they violate the rules I specified when I set up the game, so there isn’t any logical reason why they would commit these “sins.” And the ant with cancer shouldn’t be at all afraid to die…if anything he should be looking forward to it. Ant Heaven would clearly be better than suffering through cancer, right?
    Ultimately, though, since I designed the game, it’s my fault the ants are acting this way. I must have them completely confused. They are tempted by their desires but not allowed to act upon them. And if they really are self-aware, they must wonder what sort of creator would do such a thing.
    But the conflict runs even deeper. Based on the parameters I set up, and on the initial configuration given to each ant, it’s already decided when the ant is born whether he will end up in Heaven or Hell. His daily existence amounts to nothing more than pointless tests that he cannot choose to pass or fail, eighty years of trying to live the right way to earn an eternity of bliss.
    What I want to know, again, is why Dick recommended this game to me. Maybe to you it seems obvious—he wanted me to realize my religious beliefs have no basis in reality. But see, I don’t think Dick really recommended anything. I think he was manipulated into doing so by someone else. Perhaps some thing else. Whatever force that has been guiding my life since the incident at church yesterday is also responsible for me playing this game. Dick is just a pawn.
    And maybe I am just a pawn.
    But who is moving the pieces?

TWELVE
    I find myself in the kitchen, staring at the liquor cabinet. I’m hesitant to make a drink because lately I’ve been trying to cut back. It’s not really a problem, I don’t think, but as my mind has deteriorated over the past few months, I’ve been using booze as sort of a crutch. Like in addition to Happy Hour Friday and Drunk Night Saturday, I’ve added It’s Almost Friday Thursday. And during football season (which happens to be now) I’ll have a drink or four during the game on Sunday and sometimes on Monday night. If you’re counting, that’s five days on and two days off, which is not a good ratio. I totally realize that. But when you feel your mind slipping away from you, it’s difficult not to self-medicate. Especially a day like today. If there were any day I ever needed a drink, today is it.
    I pull a tall glass from the cabinet and fill it with ice. Pour some rum over it and a splash of diet soda. The first swallow tastes like liquid gold. My spine glows warm with euphoria. Today begins to make more sense.
    In the other room there is a colony of several thousand ants who are apparently as self-aware as we humans are. But no matter how intelligent they may be, they are still just bits and bytes, right? Which makes them far different than us humans, because we are built out of actual matter.
    Right?
    On top of that, I own a soul and the ants do not, which is the difference between humans and everything else alive in this world. We are God’s children and we go to Heaven, whereas dogs and cats and simulated ants do not.
    What I don’t want to admit is exactly the point of the game in the first place—I can’t say with any certainty that my God and my Heaven are any more real than theirs. My faith