“plastic sinew, electric meat.”
the super-duper-sex-computer.
It really, really hurts huh?
It just hurts so fucking bad doesn’t it?
You’re trying so so hard to get It. Get It. Just a little bit of It, but still you can’t. It’s just not there, something’s not clicking. Is it you? Is it the world? Is it something else? You don’t know. You couldn’t possibly know.
I mean everyone has trouble sometimes, it really does hurt for a lot of people, you know? Everybody goes through this!
But even so, not like this. No. No, no, no. This is so much worse. How did it even get to be like this? How did you manage to make it all the way here like this.
You should get a prize. No, really. A prize, something shiny to commemorate what a monumental task you’ve achieved. Being yourself.
Being you is such a phenomenal task that it’s deserving of an award, a medal, a god damned turbo-mansion! They should put you on a leviathan sized yacht and send you on a 24/7 party cruise for the rest of your life with a lifetime supply of hookers and blow. We are all so impressed the way you’re able to walk around, in that horrible fat filled flesh suit you inhabit; with that even more horrible mass of gray matter and scum that you call a brain knocking around in your thick skull.
So here's to you! The world's first and hopefully last, Dog-Man-hybrid.
microwaved brains are smooth.
I didn't invent this machine, I don't even really know how it works. But it does work. And that's the important part. I don't know if I love it, more like I admire it. I am in awe of it, I worship it. It ruined my life. I can't get enough of it.
I have never, not even for one nanosecond, been in a world in which the machine did not already exist. The machine pre-exists me by a great deal of time, so I've only heard stories of days before the machine. In some ways it sounds exhilarating, the thrill of the unknown, rushing headlong into a world of danger, bruises, scrapes, cuts, torn skin and broken bones. What a life! But then it comes at a great cost too. Where would I be without the machine?
The machine, despite its metallic and rigid exterior, is a soft presence. It takes only one 355mm neuro cable to jack directly into it. Earlier versions required three, maybe even four wires directly plugged into the brain to achieve the same effect. The feeling of jacking in is euphoric. Like putting a pencil so far up your nose all thought stops. Like an ice pick just hit you in the back of the head. Like you put your brain in a microwave. It is pure and utter bliss.
Due to server maintenance, every Tuesday at 9 a.m. I am forced out for one hour. Like clockwork. It is the longest hour of the whole week. For one hour I stare at the blank screen connected to the catatonic machine. In its reflective surface I see what I am. Not what I've become. What I am. What I have always been. What the machine, which existed long before me, wanted me to be.
These are the times that I imagine life before the machine, but it's so hard. The machine's imagination is so much better than mine.
What would I have been? A hero? A coward? A king? A pauper? A winner? A loser? A good man? A politician? I don't know.
All I know is that it's only when the machine is off that I notice how dark this room is.
the box.
This is where I work. Supposedly, I help to save the world every day. The 4K digitized bit image that corporate burned into my retinas reassures me every time I close my eyes that I am a hero for doing such diligent work during such hard times, but truth be told, I'm not quite sure what it is that I do.
My job description says that I help catch bad guys, but I've never seen them be caught. I've never heard of what happens to them. All I know is they appear on the screen in front of me, and I communicate with the box. There are many buttons and switches that sit below the screen, but I'm not allowed to touch them.
I sit there in front of the screen, and I talk to the box. I speak into the box, and the box speaks to me. It issues constant commands and interrogations, but I can only say yes or no. I've never been in the position to say no before, but the option is there. I've thought about saying no.
So many times I have thought about saying no, but if I say it, the box would undoubtedly be furious at my outburst of uncooperativeness. I'd lose everything I had built for myself. So no. No is not an option for me.
I do not know what is in the box, or how it speaks to me, or if there is a little man in there, or if the box feels, or if it thinks, or if what I am doing really helps anyone or anything at all. I just know this is what I do, and how I get paid enough to afford the mandatory daily easy meal instant slop from the company cafeteria. And that's enough for me, I guess.
