Up

They sat in the restaurant counting little cakes and watching themselves in the reflection of the spoons. 

"This is oppulent," gushed Basil. 

"Do you mean opulent?" She asked.

"YES," came his enthusiastic reply.

It was too much. The delicacies, the clanging dishes of the servers, the gold ceiling, chandeliers, people.

"Are these people gold?" She asked, aghast.

"They only look that way because we are dreaming," Basil explained.

She was certain they weren't dreaming. In fact, she was writing this down, word by word and bird by bird.

"Birds?" He exclaimed.

She tried to distract him. 

"A lot has changed since you were here before," she said. "There is freedom now."

He looked around at the pale, round people hunched over their food and strange rectangles, staring into nothing, eating with great noise but otherwise silent. He glanced out the window for a long moment at their modes of transportation, giant squares and strange shapes rushing in all directions, their bleak, by his standards, buildings, and counted the number of them alone on their journey. 

He replied with a sigh, "They are not free. The whole world is chained to itself and nothing else."

They sat in the restaurant counting cakes. Basil also counted the people. 

"What are we doing here?" He finally asked. "We should be outside speaking the simple words to everyone we meet."

"The simple words?" She wondered aloud.

"Look up," he responded, incredulous that she didn't know.

"Can we just tell the people in here to look up?"

"No," he leaned in, "They will look up and see a gold ceiling and think all is well. They will be distracted by what holds them in. It is very deceptive."

"How do you know this?" She asked him.

"I am a fool," he explained.

Basil, Fool for Christ: 

https://storiesofsimcha.blogspot.com/2018/12/st-basils-cathedral.html