Once upon a time, on a very average Monday morning, a perfectly ordinary man named Joe went to work.  After work, he had a ham sandwich for dinner and watched TV.  He slept, and dreamed about work but did not feel accomplished.

Tuesday was the same as Monday, with a turkey sandwich and a different TV show.  That night he dreamed about sex, but did not feel aroused.

Wednesday was the same thing all over again, but after his salami sandwich and another TV show, Joe went to bed and stared at the ceiling.  Hours went by, and when his alarm clock chirped, he wasn't sure he'd slept at all.

Thursday was a blur.  Work, chicken loaf sandwich, TV, and then...nothing.  By Friday he was a robot, disconnected from the people around him, who all seemed to be driven by some purpose he could not understand.  Nothing was interesting.  But things must be fine, Joe thought, because nobody's screaming, and for some reason this made him laugh.

That night Joe settled in front of the Animal Channel with a baloney sandwich, while a soft-spoken anthropologist calmly narrated as two colossal squid wrestled to the death, deep in the ocean.  They were tangled together in a mass of squiddy limbs, swivelling hooks, toothy suckers and giant eyes, and just as the fight was won, the defeated squid looked straight at him and said, "I'll bet you're glad your life isn't THIS interesting, Joe!"  This alarmed him.

He spent that whole night with the Animal Channel, his eyes becoming dry little red TV screens, his brain picking up signals and collecting messages from nature.

At 3:00 A.M., a baby sea turtle soaring high above the sea in the mouth of a pelican rolled up its eyes and asked, "What's so great about a natural existence anyway, Joe?  Other than this unexpected view of the ocean, my immediate future is in pelican shit.  HA!"  The laugh was a little surprising, under the circumstances.

At 5:00 A.M., in an ancient documentary, a long-dead chimpanzee swinging from a tree in some wet savannah said "God is one of those lonely billionaires who knows he can force you to go to his parties, Joe."

As the sun came up, a flock of birds flying over the desert sang from the screen in unison, "We're all in this together, Joe!  Pick someone to follow and hope they know where they're going!"

Joe fell into a deep, dreamless sleep until Monday morning.  He woke up refreshed and ready for a day of work in his cubicle!  He was grateful for sandwiches, which are delicious, and for his dull routine of not getting torn to shreds by mountain lions, and when he saw a plain looking female waiting at his bus stop, he thought, "Why not?" She looked like the kind of primate he could share a very average life with, having intercourse and conversations and sleepwalking around for up to 60 more years.  She looked like she could make a mean casserole.

It was an unnatural existence, but nobody was on fire so everything was ok.  And they lived ever after.