YABiPM (Yet Another BiP Metaphor)

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

An exercise in combining a couple metaphors that I have, to this point, been uncomfortable using.
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Three loud bleats from the siren and Bob knew it was time for lunch. He heard the other prisoners stirring in their cells and the loud metallic clunking sound as their guards opened the hall door and entered with trays of food. The routine was well known and comfortable, like a pair of old shoes.

Later, the siren bleated twice and the guard called out, as he did every evening, "Lights Out!"... and the fillaments went dark. Bob crawled under the blankets and, like every night since he could remember, fell asleep in his cell.

The siren bleated five times and Bob immediately woke up. The siren never bleated five times... occasionally, when there were inspections it would bleat four times... but five? He looked around, the room was dark and still. No one else was awake. Bob laid back, assuming that the siren call had been in his head. But, then, once again, the siren called out: "Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!" and Bob was immediately awake again. This time the room was lit and someone was over near the back wall messing with something.

"Excuse me, " Bob ventured, assuming that the person was a prison employee, "why are you in my cell?"

The man turned around and looked at him for a moment, "Cell? What the heck are you talking about?" He then refocused on his odd task of fiddling with the wall.

"Cell," Bob said, "my prison cell... you are in my prison cell and I would like to know why."

The fellow scratched his head, looked at Bob curiously and sighed. "That's really the best you can do, eh? I mean I've met some fruitcakes... but a prison was really the best you could come up with?" Noting the confused look on Bob's face, he sighed, walked over and sat on a chair, which Bob was sure hadn't been there a moment ago. The man leaned back and studied Bob closely for a moment then said, "Well, look... you're not in a prison. You have never been in a prison. This whole thing, the prison, the guards, the other inmates, the food and even that annoying siren are all in your head."

Bob, at this point, decided someone was trying to make a fool of him. He stood up and walked to the cell door. "If this is in my head," he said, "then I should be able to walk right through it." Saying this, Bob stepped into the door and smacked his head on the bars.He staggered back, shook his noggin and then looked at the man. "See," he said, "they are real bars and this is a real prison."

The man rolled his eyes, stood up and walked right through the wall. He looked back through the bars and smiled, "No, its your bars and your prison. You made it, you maintain it, you keep yourself inside it."

Bob was taken aback slightly, mostly because the stranger had walked through a solid wall. "Lookit", the man continued, "can you tell me what crime you committed that got you put behind bars? Can you tell me how long you're here for, or how long you've been here?" Bob strained to recall the conviction, the trial, the sentencing... but there was nothing there. He tried to remember how long he had been here, but that too seemed so far distant in his memory, that no valuable information was forthcoming.

"I don't understand" Bob said, his voice shaking a little, "If I'm not in prison, then where am I and why do I think I'm in jail?"

The man smiled, "Good questions, and to answer simply. This is the model you chose for yourself. This is how you decided to see the universe... one big jail and yourself as just another lonely prisoner. Its a useful model for some things, but you, Bob, have trapped yourself here."

"I'd like to get out," Bob said wistfully.

"There is no 'OUT'", the man shook his head, "because you aren't really 'IN'."

As he spoke, Bob thought that maybe the Universe wasn't a prison after all, maybe it was simply an inescapable tarpit, holding anyone within its grasp, slowly dragging them further and further into a black abyss. The prison walls shifted, the bars were suddenly vines, the bricks faded into the trunks of trees and the floor, OH GODS, the floor had become a steaming, bubbling, stinking pool of thick tar; tar that had a strong hold on his feet, his ankles and to his horror, it was slowly sucking him down.

The man was standing on top of the tar, looking at him quizzically. "Well, I'm not sure I've seen anyone go from bad to worse, quite that quickly." he said with a smile.

"Help me, for God's Sake!" Bob screamed, "I'm being sucked in, I'll die!!"

"We'll all die, you dummy... but the only thing sucking you down right now is... well you."

Bob tried to clear his head as the tar touched his knees. He concentrated, "not a prison, not a tar pit... DAMNIT!" The tar had his knees now and the heat was beginning to make his balls sweat. "not a prison", he thought, "not a tar pit... Of Course! Reality is a train, set upon its course, steaming its way through time in a direction that could never be altered by the helpless passengers." The jungle scene resolved in a beautiful crossfade and the compartment of a passenger car began to materialize.

The stranger rolled his eyes and said "Enough! I don't like trains and honestly, you're still trapping yourself." He snapped his fingers and Bob suddenly found that both he and the stranger were sitting in a small pub with two pints in front of them. He looked at the stranger, who smiled, lifted his first pint and said "To your health."

Bob, suddenly got it. He suddenly realized what the Stranger had been trying to tell him. He leaped to his feet with the magical and mystical intonation "Aha!" forming on his lips. Bob grabbed the barstool he had been sitting on by its legs and in one fell move had slammed his head into the seat. The resounding "CRACK" caused the other patrons to look up quickly from their drinks, then returned to their libations with the knowing look that says "Ah, bet he won't be having that fifth pint...".

Bob, now upset, confused and sporting a quickly growing lump on his head, looked at the stranger, "I don't understand." he finally whispered "If my reality is what I choose it to be, if I can walk through the walls of my Prison... " he trailed off, not sure how to ask what he wanted to ask.

"Well, Bob," the man finished his pint, then sighed,"that wasn't your reality. It was a barstool."

Suddenly Bob was enlightened.

[LMNO]

Not bad... I still have problems with the way you see the BIP, but we've already been through all that.

I'll give it 7/10.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Not bad... I still have problems with the way you see the BIP, but we've already been through all that.

I'll give it 7/10.

Well, with the conclusion, I was hoping to admit that there are still "bars" ie our physical limitations. Maybe I need to rethink the way I lay it out.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

I like it.  It gives perspective. 

[barumunk]

i quite like it i can safely say that its one of the first metaphors that i actually wish were longer. which is quite  strange, cus normally i find my self thinking the opposite about alot of the stuff i read.

but in the beginning after the sirens and before the head bang on the bars, i felt i was reading something akin to 1984 when the dude is in the ministry of love (or whatever).

i kinda thought you jumped into the metaphor way quick as apposed to letting the reader realize it themselves (possibly a little slower)

BUT i liked it. esp the barstool/bar in the end.

:mittenz:

[Payne]

I didn't like it.

It seems to lack some definition, like BIP-lite. And I don't think the BIP should be any "lighter" than it is, or it becomes meaningless.