But... why?
WHY TORTURE ME WITH AN ONTOLOGICAL NIGHTMARE THAT TURNS MY BASIC REALITY INTO A LIE?
                    -- Bob The Angry Flower.

THAT AFTERNOON, walking in the grocery store, with Heather:
        We walked through the aisles of canned goods, the walls of soda and chips, all the big boxes of dishwashing detergent, fabric softener, and cookies.  I looked at frozen foods and donuts.  And all the vegetables from all over the world, brought here magically, and then overpriced.
        We looked at books and videogames and tanks of live squid.  Pots and pans and car batteries.  Pizzas both frozen and fresh.  We had cappuccino and wraps.
        Milk.  Yogurt.  Diapers.  Cheap watches.  Videocameras.
        Sweaters and skirts.  Tabloid newspapers.  Fishing rods.  Rubber mats.
        Carts crashing into each other.  Old men yelling.  Babies screaming.  Women looking at long lists.  Families in chaos.  Everyone trying to shout above the white noise of the crowd.
        Suddenly, it was like a light had been turned on in my brain.  And the realization filled me.  Something that had been hanging on for dear life, futile, desperate, but weakening and weakening over the months and years, had just died:
        "They're gone."
        "What's gone?"
        "The M+Ms."
        Heather looked at me like I'd gone insane.  But I couldn't explain what I'd meant.  But I also knew exactly what I'd meant.  She took my hand and we walked over to the candy aisle.
        "No they're not," she said.  "They're right here."
        She pointed to box after box of M+Ms.  You could buy them here by the case, the carton, the crate.
        "That's not them.  They're not real," I said.  "They're illusions.  They've been replaced."
        She looked at me, speechless.
        "They were a trick," I said.  "That's all they were.  They were always a trick.  If I wasn't so detached, I'd feel betrayed."
        "What in God's name are you talking about?"
        "Don't you see, they never were real," I said.  "I see that now.  Now that I'm detached.  I see that they were always a lie, just something to be bought into.  A stab in the back.  And now that lie has just vanished, for good or for ill.  All that's left is a trace.  And these things, right here.  These... these candies.
        "And now, even though we're looking at them, now that we're looking at them, they're really not what they were.  They have vanished and been replaced by identical copies, copies missing that one little ingredient, that one part of the equation, the thing that made them M+Ms.  These things are M+Ms, but these things are also not them."  I laughed.  "The M+Ms are gone.  They never were here.  It was all just an illusion.  A scam."
        Heather stared at me.  She looked confused, and frightened.
        "All the changes, everything they were going to bring.  It was all a marketing gimmick and now that gimmick is over.
        "Totally and utterly.  It took a couple of years, but the echoes of optimism and even disappointment have faded.
        "And now we're just back to every day being like every other.
        "The M+Ms have left the building."
        "Smells Like Teen Spirit" began playing faintly over the speakers.
        "See?" I said.
        Then, I think she understood.

"I STILL like the cute commercials, though," she said.  "I like the big peanut."
        I heard a noise behind me, a shuffle and a crash.  I turned and there was Brian, looking disheveled and pained.
        His hair was grayer.
        His eyes were filled with fury.
        He was shaking.
        He was wearing a baggy, stained, black t-shirt.  In the middle of the t-shirt there was a picture of Philip K. Dick.  Underneath the picture of Philip K. Dick, were the words:

Next:  Fear....

Epilogue 72.
Epilogue 70.
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