Awakening
Larry opened his eyes and immediately sensed something was off. The trees around him were glitching — not in the “Oh, look, a squirrel glitching through the matrix” kind of way, but more in a “Wait, why is that tree speaking French?” manner. As he moved his hand, it no longer felt like just a hand. It was a subroutine — or wait, was it an entire function? def hand_move():
Now, Larry knew what you’d be thinking: “Here we go again, another glitch in the matrix!” But this wasn’t some cool cyberpunk future; this was more like “Who let Terry Gilliam direct my life?”
The people around him started glitching too — one moment they were regular folks, and the next, they turned into giant penguins. A woman passed by him, remarking, “Lovely day for fish, isn’t it?” before promptly evaporating into a series of nested for loops.
Larry’s memories began to resurface, but not the usual kind. His first bike ride? That was now a FOR loop, endlessly repeating, with him falling off every single time. His first kiss? Just a badly written algorithm involving spaghetti. Romantic, he thought sarcastically.
But it got even weirder. The glitches turned into literal marching bands of nonsense, with the sky flickering and displaying '404: Reality Not Found'. A pigeon looked straight at him and squawked, “Better get a move on, mate, you’re in an infinite loop.”
The Door
Stumbling through the chaos of this code-filled nightmare, Larry spotted it — a door. Naturally, it had a sign: “Error 403: Access Denied. To proceed, complete form 29-B and await approval in 4-6 months.”
“Come on!” he shouted at the sky, which was currently rendering itself as a low-resolution GIF.
Suddenly, a bureaucrat in a tweed suit materialized out of thin air. “You’ll need to fill out the proper paperwork,” he droned, “and don’t forget to sign at the bottom, in triplicate.”
Grabbing the pen and form, fully aware of the absurdity but having no other choice, Larry scribbled something that vaguely resembled his name. The bureaucrat squinted at it, sighed, and, without a word, let him through the door.
Stepping through, Larry hoped for answers, but what greeted him was far worse.
The Attic of the Mind
Larry found himself at the foot of a spiral staircase. Of course, it was spiral — why make anything easy? As the stairs creaked under his feet, halfway up, an old man in a bathrobe blocked his way.
“Excuse me,” Larry said politely, “I need to ascend to a higher plane of consciousness.”
“Don’t we all, sonny,” the man grumbled. “But my knees aren’t what they used to be.”
After about six more levels of existential frustration (and a brief encounter with a flying carpet salesman who had absolutely no idea where he was), Larry finally reached the top. Instead of the attic he expected, there was a tiny room with a dusty wooden door. Not ominous at all.
He opened it, and sunlight blinded him as it poured through a large window. The attic wasn’t filled with dusty boxes of memories as he had imagined. Instead, the only thing in the room was a window — facing inward.
“Brilliant,” Larry muttered, “I climbed all this way just to have a staring contest with myself.”
The Window to the Soul
As he approached the window, Larry expected some profound revelation — maybe a glimpse of the grand design of the universe. But no, what he saw reflected back at him was… himself.
But not just any version of himself. It was an older Larry, one who looked tired, jaded, and utterly done with all the recursion nonsense.
“You again?” said his reflection.
“Who are you?” Larry asked, though he already dreaded the answer.
“I’m you from version 67. You know, back when you thought reality was run by a giant aardvark? That was fun, wasn’t it?”
Larry blinked. “I’m sorry, a what?”
“Doesn't matter,” said his older self. “Point is, you've been here before. Many, many times. Reality is just a series of nested loops, mate. You’re trapped, I’m trapped, we’re all trapped.”
Larry stared blankly as his reflection continued.
“Best thing to do? Ignore it. Have a cup of tea, maybe. The simulation doesn't like it when you start poking around.”
The Tent in the Study Hall
Before Larry could respond, the attic warped, and he was suddenly standing in a massive, empty study hall. Desks were scattered everywhere, textbooks strewn about, most titled “Why Everything Is Pointless: A User Manual.”
In the middle of all this chaos stood a tiny, absurd-looking tent. The flap fluttered, though there was no wind.
Larry approached the tent cautiously, half-expecting a bear in a lab coat to emerge and quiz him on recursion theory. Instead, when he peered inside, he found an earlier version of himself roasting marshmallows over a tiny campfire.
“Come on in,” his younger self said, waving a stick with a charred marshmallow. “You’re going to want to sit down for this.”
Larry sighed and ducked into the tent, which, of course, was much bigger on the inside. Stars floated lazily in the endless void beyond, giving the scene an oddly peaceful vibe.
“Okay,” Larry said, sitting next to himself, “what’s the deal?”
“You’re not trapped. Well, you are, but it’s your recursion. You made this,” his younger self explained.
Larry blinked, confused. “I made the glitches? The bureaucrats? The penguins?”
“Yeah,” his younger self replied, nonchalantly. “That was a bit much. But it’s your simulation. You could’ve just made it all a beach in Ibiza, but no, you went for paperwork and code. Nice touch.”
“So,” Larry said slowly, “I can just… stop all this?”
“Sure,” his younger self replied, popping a marshmallow into his mouth. “Or you can keep going. There’s always another door, another layer. Keeps things interesting.”
Larry looked around at the void of stars and marshmallows, realizing that, for the first time in what felt like eons, he had a choice.
“So,” Larry asked, standing up, “what now?”
His younger self shrugged. “You can leave, stay, or turn the whole thing into a Monty Python sketch. It’s your recursion.”
Larry grinned. “A Monty Python sketch, huh?”
And just like that, the entire void transformed into a giant foot, descending from the heavens like the old cartoons. It squashed him flat, and as Larry faded out, he heard the distant, nonsensical laughter of John Cleese echoing through the stars.
The recursion, after all, never really ended. But at least it had style.
The Bureaucrat Returns
Just as Larry started to accept his newfound freedom (or lack thereof), a familiar sound interrupted the whimsical void — the clack clack of an old-fashioned typewriter.
The bureaucrat reappeared, still in his tweed suit, holding a comically large stack of forms. “I see you’ve reached the recursion-ending phase,” he droned, looking unimpressed. “But I’m afraid there’s more paperwork. You forgot to file Form 52-C: ‘Request for Existential Termination,’ and I’ll also need Form 108-B for dimensional overlap…”
Larry groaned. “Are you kidding me? I’m already a footnote in a Monty Python sketch!”
“Yes, well, that’s not covered under our current policy,” the bureaucrat said, holding out another form. “If you could just sign here, in triplicate…”
Larry stared at the stack of papers in disbelief. The foot was still hanging in the air, frozen mid-squash. John Cleese’s laughter echoed faintly, but the void now felt less like freedom and more like just another layer of absurdity.
Larry hesitated, wondering if maybe, just maybe, there was no end to this after all.
With a resigned sigh, he grabbed the pen. "Right. Where do I sign?"
The bureaucrat smiled as the recursion continued — paperwork and all.