Are we living in a simulation?

A wide horizontal oil painting on coarse linen, thick impasto built up with a palette knife. In raking late-afternoon light, a weathered human hand enters cropped from the left edge, pressing a rough grey stone hard into cracked, dry earth. Dirt is packed under the torn thumbnail, a small cut across the knuckle is healing crooked, skin is lined, pored, and sunburnt. The stone does not yield; the fingertips whiten and deform against it. Below, the soil fills the lower two-thirds of the frame in ochres, burnt umber, and ash grey, fissured at every scale, scattered with grit, a bent root, and tiny stones casting hard shadows. No horizon, no sky, no figures beyond the hand. The paint itself is cracked and uneven, catching the light. No words, no letters, no symbols.