That Lonely Bastard

That lonely bastard struck the match to get the spark to start the flame for his joint. It hissed and caught the tip of his rolled up fag and he sucked up the jubilation of the euphoria in a single continuous gulp. When his lungs were filled to the max he exhaled the smoke out to the world to protest his insignificant existence for a good measure.
"The world is not what it seems," he said like a latent infection.
"Why do you say that?" Joan asked.
"We all live in a matrix, like the movie The Matrix. It's all real. But not like this." He circled his eyes around the disorderly vicinity with clothes, papers, trash and every inconceivable items strewn everywhere. "All this is an illusion."
Joan scanned her eyes all around and saw nothing but irresponsibility and inconsiderateness written at every corner of the house.
"Just as I am a lonely bastard, I'm conditioned to be this way. Made to feel this way." He exposed his unkempt teeth through a labored smile. "I can't do anything about it even if I wanted to. It's all a part of the strategy of the Beings."
"Beings?"
"Yeah, they're all around us. They who rule us and make us think the way they want us to." He leaned closer to Joan and whispered. "You think they can't hear or see us now?" Joan spied the surrounding once more just to be sure.
"They've fucked us up so that we stay stupid. So that we stay idiots to our own belief system. From religion to politics, wealth to poverty, intelligence and to sheer dumbass fuckers, we're doomed either way. They have everything covered and that's how it has been for centuries."
"So what you're saying is that we're living in th-this unreal world governed by these Beings?"
"Of course. We just don't have the blue pill or the red pill to wake us up. It's all in here." He tapped on his bald head to emphasize on the brain that was sitting inside. "You wake up or you don't."
"So, you have woken up then?" She trembled when she asked him for confirmation.
"Of course," he paused. "But I can't get out of this doldrums. They've got me locked down. Everytime I try to break out of this incaceration," he dipped his cigarette into the mug and continued, "I get pulled back in."
"You mean the addiction."
"Yeah, part of it. But this is worst than just any kind of addiction. It's an obsession." He showed her his forearm. "I tried to open myself up to see what was inside once."
She saw the long scar strecthing from his wrist to his elbow.
"And you know what I saw inside?"
She shook her head nervously.
"Energy, that was what was inside. That's all. Pure energy." He lit another cigeratte while she tried to make sense of her own presence with this strange man. "I almost died. But they didn't want me to."