Panel 1: In
the title panel of this Sunday-style colour comic, we see a replication
of Plato's cave. Rahim sits in front of a fire, watching Barbara hold
up the words "West of Bathurst." A low wall separates Barbara and
Marie, the latter of whom has a shackle around her ankle. Marie is
gazing at another wall, onto which the shadow of the words is being
projected.
Panel 2: Marie, Barbara, and Rahim are having dinner in a restaurant.
Marie: Oh, hey: the end of the world was supposed to happen last weekend.
Barbara: Didn't it?
Panel 3:
Marie: Uh...
Barbara: How can we be sure it didn't? Maybe this conversation is an illusion.
Panel 4: Rahim plucks a dill pickle off his plate.
Barbara: Maybe we've never existed at all.
Rahim: In which case this pickle is especially cruel.
Panel 5:
Rahim: I love pickles. What if I'm actually not eating a pickle that isn't real because the world not only didn't end last Saturday but was never here in the first place?
Barbara: In which case your disappointment is also illusory.
Panel 6:
Barbara: It's possible this is all happening entirely inside Marie's head.
Rahim: If her head exists, which I doubt.
Panel 7:
Barbara: You ate the pickle! That's philosophically problematic.
Rahim: Albeit tasty.
Marie: I think you should know that I plan never to introduce a topic of conversation again.
Alt-Text:
Sometimes, you toss what you think is a casual observation into what
has so far been a harmlessly ordinary conversation, only for it, and
you, to be engulfed in the Black Hole of Nonsense. It's fun when that
happens, if slightly disconcerting.
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