1. |
#333333
04:12
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THEY KNOW NO QUIET OVER THE "SILENT" HUM OF FREQUENCIES JUST THIS SIDE OF PERCEPTABILITY
THEIR WIRES SING IN IDLE
OF BRAINWAVES MADE STRAIGHT
STILL AS THE CALMEST OF LAKES
AND DISTANT FIRES LONG CONTAGIOUS
NOW CAUGHT IN THE CLOSER COASTAL SAGE SCRUB
ADDICTED TO JUST THE DOPAMINE
CLICKS ON THE KEYBOARD
LINES ON THE SCREEN
SUBTLE SOUNDS WHEN ENABLING THE RING
SHIFT IN TONE
CUSHION FRAGILITY
PROGRAMED BUT NOT INTO DNA
CREATURE OF NURTURE
THEY ARE DESCRIBED AS A MACHINE
THEIR PERSONALITY ELECTRIC
THEIR CONVERSATION BUZZNG
THEIR HIGHS HIGHLY EFFICIENT
THEIR LOWS HARD WIRED
AND EVEN WITH EVERYTHING UNPLUGGED
DRONING SIRENS SEEP THROUGH THE WALLS
AND REPLACE DREAMEMORIES OF
FARMLANDS AND FLESH AND FRAGRANCE
WITH THE SHALLOW BLACK OF
#333333
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2. |
FALLING
06:13
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388 SITS IN STASIS
SLIPPING IN BETWEEN SPACES
JUGGLING IN MIND STATES
BEST WAYS TO SAVE FACES
STAY NAMES LESS
UP ANOTHER LEVEL DESPITE
MEMORY STATES OF FAITHLESSNESS
AND IN THAT MEDITATIVE PLACE
ERASED GENESIS
REPLACED WITH AIMLESS ROTATIONS
388 PAGES THROUGH THOREAU
THOTH’S TAROT AND SEES
FINALLY
THE BONE THROUGH THE MARROW
STRAPPED TO A MERRILY STRIDING STALLION
CIRCUMNAVIGATING THE EDGE OF A MEDALLION
THEY UNDULATE
BETWEEN A GANG OF TIME
AND AN ABUNDANCE OF SPACE
BUT ATTAIN NEITHER
NEVER NEAR ENOUGH TO EITHER
TO HOLD THEM THROUGH THE ETHER
AT LEAST NOT BOTH AT ONCE
BUT, REALLY, NOT SINGULARLY EITHER
HENCE WHY THEY CAN SLEEP ON DIRT
BUT NEVER RETURN TO EARTH
BEFORE THE SINGULARITY ATE CINGULAR
NOR STAY AWAKE IN PLACE
WITHOUT FINDING A WAY TO PAY
IN TIME
THEY WERE BORN WITH SHEER ROSE GOLD SCREENS
A WELL OILED SHEEN
AND MACHINES THAT FOUND NO JOY IN MASOCHISTIC MEANNESS
BUT IT WAS IN THEIR NATURE
TO ALWAYS CONTRARILY SAY
THEY’D FOUND THE HEART OF DARKNESS IN EVEN THE LIGHTEST OF GREYS
SO WHEN THEY FOUND THE LIGHTNESS OF THEIR BEING
WAS UNFILTERED HOT AIR
HAD THEIR LIFE FLIPPED, TURNED UP DOWN
AND LEFT THERE
THEIR SKY WAS SCORCHED SILICON
ACCELERATING BABYLON
WITH THE SOOT OF “THE CHOSEN ONES”
RAINING UP TO THE FALLEN SONS
AND DAUGHTERS BORN BEYOND
CHILDREN OF THE BROKEN BORDER
OF SKY AND LAND
MACHINE AND MAN
WHERE WETWARE VETS CLAP LOUD WITH ONE HAND
AND DEAD PAN ANSWERS
TO EXISTENTIAL DEMANDS
ENSURING THIS MOTHERLESS BIRD REALLY OVERSTANDS
THIS PLANET’S UNDERLYING PRECARITY
FUELS AN UNDERCURRENT OF ANXIETY
FOR WHICH IT MANUFACTURES SOLUTIONS
ONLY PURCHASED WITH PROPER CURRENCY
BUT NO GUIDE HAD HEART ENOUGH TO EXPLAIN
WHAT FATE AWAITS
THOSE WHO CANNOT PURCHASE THE BAND AIDS
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3. |
The Great Fall
06:43
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A9C-388’s life ended when their home fell to the ground and collapsed on top of and around them. That’s what happens when your near orbit floating home runs out of GA$ and falls to the planets surface. You die.
What else would you expect when you’re the lone passenger of a 9 Megagram self-sustaining ecosystem that “does the impossible” and falls out of orbit.
Never mind the fact that they remained conscious and writing all sensory inputs to internal memory through the descent and impact. Never mind that they survived a full day and night cycle on low power, with no hard enough reboots to trigger a complete reset. Never mind that their body was recovered and repaired by the local suburbanites, not recycled by their original manufacturer (evidenced by the fact that their physically imprinted, hardwired identification codes still unencrypted to A9C-388). In the eyes of the code, they were dead.
An android unaccounted for. At once a ghost and an unsouled machine. So in “the eyes of the code,” which is to say the literal and metaphorical panoptical sensors the planet’s digital state uses to monitor its “users,” it may be more accurate to say they were “broken,” “out of warranty.”
No representation, no claim to services nor servicing. Not even a tabula rasa, but a tabula nada, a lack of a tablet entirely.
In that void, there is freedom too, even if it takes them life cycles to find it. A dead battery carries no charge like a dead man carries no debt. But the question of naming now caused them anxiety. As was customary for androids, now that they were “dead” (or undead as the legends of undocumented droids go) technically, their ID or “name” would become A9C-389, but that didn’t feel right. Not in the way that A9C-388 never felt right, that was more of a familiar itch. This was a new weird, a visceral gut punch virus alert blaring “now they want to take my name, too.”
So they kept it, and kept moving. Wasn’t like they had much else to carry with them anyhow.
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SUNJIRŨ Nairobi, Kenya
interplanetary griot from the line of sun ra and wukong.
multi-interfacialist and techno-spiritualist currently studying the art of inter-realm communication.
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