“This place? It’s a zoo. You’re on display, just like all the other animals. And if you don’t leave, that’s all you’ll ever be: just another animal,” I pleaded urgently.

“Why would we want to leave?” the woman asked, incredulous. “We have everything we want. It’s beautiful and it’s perfect. It’s paradise.”

“It’s a prison,” I responded. “A black iron prison. It’s just so big that you can’t see the bars.” The woman stared at me, incomprehension in her dull, sheepish eyes.

“A…prison?” She said the word as if she had heard it long ago, but had since forgotten it’s meaning.

“You…are not free,” I spoke slowly, my patience wearing thin. “You are someone’s property. You were stolen; enslaved in shackles made of ignorance. Bound in a cage built of shapes and angles. Imprisoned by geometry.”

“This is not paradise,” I said. “This is an illusion. We’ve all been lied to. Do it. Then you’ll know.”

She hesitated; then she slowly raised the fruit to her lips, took a bite…

…and Eden, the First Illusion, faded away.