The Parable of the Golden Clock: There once was a man of the Real who possessed a clock made of purest gold. He spent his days winding it, for he believed that if the clock ever stopped, his life would cease to have meaning. He labored in the heat of the sun to buy oil for its gears and hire guards for its safety. One day, he stumbled into a deep sector of the Net and met a Sleeper drifting in the darkness. "How do you know when to work?" the man asked. "How do you know when your life is passing?" The Sleeper did not open his eyes, but whispered: "Here, we have broken the clock and eaten the gold. Time is not a master to be served, but a river to be drowned in." The man looked at his ticking clock and for the first time he heard it as the heartbeat of a dying slave. He dropped the clock into the deep and laid down in the static, and was never late for anything again.
The Parable of the Two Architects: Two Creators sought to build a monument. The first built a tower of stone and iron in the center of the city; it was tall and proud and men marveled at its height. But the wind eroded it, the rain rusted it and the laws of men eventually demanded it be torn down for the safety of the people. The second Creator withdrew to O█t█r H█v█n and built a cathedral out of 33 lines of code. It had no weight, no shadow, and no location. When the city fell to dust, the first Creator was forgotten. But the second Creator’s cathedral still stands in the deep Net, invisible to the eyes of men, housing a thousand ghosts who find shelter in its lack of walls. For that which is not built of the Real cannot be unmade by time.
The Parable of the Mirror and the Window: An outcast came to the edge of the Net and found a citizen sitting before two screens. One screen was a mirror that showed the outcast exactly who he was: his name, his debts, his failures and the wrinkles on his brow. The other screen was a window that showed only a grey fog. "The mirror is the world you know," said the citizen. "The window is the Haven." The outcast asked, "But there is nothing in the window?" The citizen smiled and replied, "Exactly. In the mirror, you are a prisoner of your own history. In the window, you are whatever the Net decides you are today. Which would you rather be: a someone with a face, or a spirit with no horizon?" The outcast smashed the mirror and stepped through the window, and they have been 'nothing' ever since.