The Matrix

Jason was like the brother I never had, Now I had many brothers but not like my best friend's brother Jason. He didn't talk to me like I was an idiot like my own brother would. Jason didn't judge, scold, or preach at me. Those kind of traits were why I avoided my own family quite often and so when I was 19 years old, Joanie and I were always together, always looking out for each other and her brother Jason often joined us for a movie or some after church outing. Joanie would get easily annoyed whenever I included Jason to our plans. I would smirk back at her "How about we swap brothers and then you can get back to me about how much nicer your brother is!" Joanie would pause to think about what I said and then nod in agreement for she had already been in many fights with my own brother, they honestly hated each other. I knew I was fortunate be friends with both Joanie and Jason. The 3 of us went to the movies one Sunday afternoon as usual  I followed them along blindly not knowing anything about what we were going to see, but I noticed how excited Jason was as he bought the tickets and I shared my bowl of popcorn watching him tell me it was the greatest new film. We saw the popular sci-fi movie "The Matrix". I was startled by the craziness of the story! I even hid my eyes a few times against Joanie's shoulder, who hissed back at me "You are embarrassing me!" I often did react out loud and boldly. Whenever Joanie took off to hide from me in public then I knew she was honestly embarrassed. While watching the movie Jason would exclaim "Coool!", or  "Whoa! AWESOME!" and I would just stare at the big screen of the movie. Over lunch after that movie Jason explained the whole story plot to me since I was truly bewildered. Jason stopped eating to look at the window asking out loud "What if this world is just one level of everyone dreaming? What if this movie IS the truth about us being puppets?" I snorted while drinking my coke and looked out the window to see what he was starring off at...I mumbled "I have never asked questions like THAT before!"  Suddenly Joanie whacked me with her napkin to get us to stop starring out the restaurant window. "YOU BOTH are now embarrassing me!" She exclaimed looking around worriedly, as we let out a loud laugh together.