“The Matrix” has, without a doubt, caused it’s viewers to, at one point or another, idly wonder if the external world truly exists. Could it be possible that a mad scientist has placed your brain in a vat that simulates reality for your disembodied brain? We could go a step further and ask if it’s not that your brain is the only thing that exists, but that your mind is all that exists. This could mean that the external world does not have an independent existence to you, that your reality is the only reality. Charles Simic, in his poetry collection “That Little Something”, entertains this notion and toys with it. Through the use of repetition, imagery, and metaphors, Simic wonders how one would live his life if he believed that nothing but…show more content… The beginning line, “Eternity is a mirror and a spiderweb,” suggests that eternity is dependent on humanity observing it, like the “if a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound?” thought experiment. The spiderweb provokes imagery of uncertainty, implying that humanity has not yet realized that itself and eternity are somehow intertwined. The fact that the line was written with “lipstick in the elevator” tells us once again that the relationship between this “eternity” and humanity looks to be extremely personal; after all it could have been written in something more emotionless, like a pen or even printed out of a computer. Additionally, there is repeated use of mirrors in Simic’s poetry collection. In one poem titled “Prophecy” Simic says that the “mirrors will grow tired of potted palms/And darken slowly the way they always do.” In a world where only a person’s thoughts can be considered reality therefore making the external environment merely a hallucination, mirrors can be interpreted as portals into which one can see the only true bearer of reality. The fact that “the mirrors will grow tired” of the world around it can be seen as old age creating