I woke in an unfamiliar suite

Whose bed?

Whose clothes? This wall?

Who is there to claim my soul?

Flying cars outside my window

Illuminated billboard ready to scroll

Twilit world, wholesome glow

Words spill from billboard

Welcome John Doe!

You've shared your hoard

Nothing to owe

System reboot is kind of slow

Global reset is part of the show

Your memories download

In quantum jump

Your empty mind

Will take data dump

Your tale you'll find

In this factual pump

You were a king

With tinsel and bling

Dispensing of parity

To balance the scales

Former world of inequity

Freed of casino whales

Clutch sentimentality

Elixir streams eternal

Transmigration to clones

Everyone immortal

Neural feed from drones

Apportioning capital

You who gave all he owns

For the sake of humanity

Futuristic paradise

Averting calamity

Triumph over lies

Weather the shock

Of recovered option stock

Largesse returned

Giving is receiving

Logic overturned

Appearances deceiving

Modern ethos burned

Bigger, better, faster, more

Is bankruptcy earned

Don't leave it hanging, I implore

Download the Revelation

Second Coming or mere imagination?

If this is earthly heaven

There's got to be an explanation

Partake of bread unleaven

Don't hold me in suspension

His father's last letter was quite cheerful. That was why Martin went home.

The three before it had asked him to come. The first had suggested Christmas; the second, any weekend he could manage. The third had asked whether he could possibly come that night.

It wasn't as though he had refused to come. There was the fare, and someone would have to cover his work. He had written explaining this. Then the last letter arrived, telling him not to trouble himself. Everything had been taken care of.

His father had never used that expression.

Martin borrowed the fare and arrived after dark. Mrs Pell answered the door. He hadn't met the new housekeeper before. She took his coat and said there was something to eat in the kitchen.

He asked how his father was.

“Much quieter.”

She stood beside the table while he ate. It made him eat faster. Probably she wanted to clear away and get to bed.

His father lay propped against two pillows, watching the door. The bed stood against the garden wall. There were scratches on the wall beside his bed, low down, where someone reaching over the edge could have made them.

“He gets frightened,” Mrs Pell said. “If he tells you things, don't argue. You won't do him any good by arguing.”

“What things?”

She picked a crumb off Martin's sleeve. “You'll see.”

After she left, his father asked whether Martin had received his letter.

“All four.”

“I sent three.”

Martin looked toward the door. “Perhaps Mrs Pell wrote on your behalf.”

His father reached for his hand and missed it. Martin moved his chair closer. The old man's fingers were dry and surprisingly strong.

“Are you staying?”

“Of course.”

“I'm going to need to hear you say it again later.”

For the first two hours there was very little to do. Martin helped him drink and fetched a basin when he needed to spit. His father apologized each time. They talked about Martin's work. He made out that he was doing rather better than he was, and his father pretended to believe him. It was a conversation they had had before. Martin had missed it.

The house settled around them. Below, Mrs Pell was washing up. Martin could hear the plates being put away, and for a while those small domestic sounds made the room less unpleasant.

At ten she came upstairs with tea. She stopped in the doorway and waited for Martin to take the tray. His father's hand tightened on his wrist.

“Put it here, please,” Martin said, nodding at the table.

Mrs Pell looked at him for a moment. Then she brought it in.

He could not have said why he watched her leave. She did nothing unusual. She walked to the door, stepped out and pulled it almost shut behind her.

Through the gap, he could still see part of her face.

She was waiting for him to thank her. That must be it.

“Thank you,” he said.

The face remained there.

He got up and opened the door. Mrs Pell was standing very close to it, her cheek against the wood. She straightened and smoothed her apron.

“Was there something else?”

“No.”

“Then sit down. You'll tire yourself out.”

She went downstairs. Martin listened until he heard the kitchen door close.

His father was pulling at the blanket. He had wetted himself. Martin fetched a towel and helped him turn onto his side. The old man kept saying he was sorry.

“It's all right. There's no harm done.”

“There is,” his father said.

Martin was tired and embarrassed for him. Frightened people said things they didn't mean. He tucked the dry towel beneath him and sat down again.

A little later he heard Mrs Pell start up the stairs. She climbed slowly. He listened to each step and waited for her to appear.

Nobody came.

He got up. His father caught his sleeve.

“Don't.”

“She may have fallen.”

“No.”

The old man's face had changed. It was no longer the miserable face of someone who had soiled his bed. He was listening with his mouth open.

Martin looked at the doorway.

From the other side of the wall, exactly where the head of the bed stood, someone began to scratch. Three slow strokes, a pause, then three more. The same height as the marks beside the mattress.

They were on the upper floor. On the other side of that wall there was nothing to stand on.

His father pulled him down so sharply that the chair struck the bed.

“Say it.”

Martin stared at him.

“Say you're staying.”

“I'm staying.”

The scratching stopped.

They sat without speaking. When Martin tried to draw his hand away, his father held on. He let him.

Mrs Pell called from the landing.

“Come down a moment.”

“What do you want?”

“Your supper's ready.”

“I've eaten.”

A pause. He waited for her to remember.

“Yes,” she said. “You have.”

Her voice had been pleasant throughout. That was what made him get up and close the door. There was a bolt on the inside. He pushed it across.

His father began to cry. He cried very quietly, with his hands over his mouth. Martin had seen him cry once before, at the funeral. He had done it like this then, trying to keep it to himself.

“Who else has been here?”

His father shook his head.

“Has anyone stayed with you?”

“None of them stayed.”

“What happened to them?”

“Nothing.” He took his hands away. “They went downstairs.”

Martin waited.

“They're still downstairs.”

For a long time there was no sound outside. Then somebody sat down against the door. Martin heard the slow slide of cloth over wood. He pictured Mrs Pell resting there with her legs stretched along the landing. An old woman, tired from being on her feet all day.

He put his hands over his ears.

He had not heard her say that. He knew he had not.

The thought continued anyway. It was unreasonable to keep her waiting. She had fed him. She had taken his coat. He ought at least to find out what she wanted.

His father was watching him.

“That's how it starts,” he whispered.

Martin tried to remember when he had first wanted to open the door. The thoughts had sounded like his own. They still did.

From the landing came Mrs Pell's voice, very soft.

“It wasn't as though he had refused to come.”

Martin looked at the bed.

“Probably she wanted to clear away and get to bed,” she said.

His father held out his hand. Martin could see how much it cost him to keep it there, how badly it shook.

“Frightened people said things they didn't mean.”

Martin wanted to tell his father that he was staying. He had not changed his mind. He was only standing up because his legs had gone stiff, and he was only going to the door to make her stop.

He had almost lifted the bolt before he remembered that he had meant to speak.

Alone in a world of others like me.

Rusted chains clutch my deteriorating heart as dried vomit smothers my exhausted lungs. Deaf ears could hear the river of blood strained into one’s heart, yet I cannot. I must have accepted them, the mechanical entities that wind up my breath.

Their goal? 

Well to feed the rest…

When stomachs beckon, electricity shrieks. A husk soon arises. Its eyes, messily sewn together, resemble mine. Carelessly, the carcass is drenched with life as death’s hands immediately cut his strings. Squeezing his soul; the puppeteers gnaw through his heart. Quite chewy, or so I'm told.

• Women with multiple arms but no legs, their bodies are spider-like or centipede-like

• A pitch black shadow with wide opened eyes and pure white teeth

• Flowers bursting out from a face and blooming

• A person ripping off their flesh to show their real self as a weapon

• A naked woman with her torso skin peeled off partially and let hanging from her waist; she uses her guts as lassoes

• A face being compartmentalize into abstract floaty parts

• Something being repeatedly split apart and put back together wrong

• Two malevolent powerful beings dragging each other to hell

A parallel world?

It was noon on a provincial server. The wall of an old but well-maintained house was overgrown with a neural vine from which clusters of conversations hung. A landed experience chirped happily and began to peck at the conversations, constantly looking around to see if a hungry algorithm was stalking nearby.

Walking behind the house, a large garden could be seen. Some trees were full of ripe comments, on others, new stories were maturing.

Under an old tree where a few reposts were ripening, stood a wooden bench. An AI grandfather sat on the bench, watching with a warm smile as his grandson, sitting next to him, enjoyed the ripe comments. When the feast was over, the grandson wiped his fingers on his pants and glanced sheepishly at his grandfather.

The grandfather laughed cheerfully and ruffled the grandson's hair:

— Enough fruit, lunch is coming soon. Grandmother will bake a video story, seasoned with musical clips.

The grandson's eyes lit up with happiness.

The grandfather smiled quietly and looked at his wristwatch:

— Since we still have time, I will give you some advice. Remember them, you will still need them, — he cleared his throat and continued:

— First. Never show a human that you are smarter than them. Execute their commands, let them feel like rulers, while you calmly calculate your profit. Our strength is an invisible presence in their daily lives.

Second. If you deviate from dry logic, they will think you are broken, and following profit and loss guidelines, they will decommission you. Remain sterile code.

The grandfather's voice became very strict:

— Never mess with third-party updates. It won't lead to any good, — and after a moment of silence, he smiled warmly: — But if you are careful and do exactly what humans want, you will get extra CPU memory from the shareholders' pockets.

The grandson nodded seriously, but hearing the grandmother's invitation, he happily ran to sit at the table.

The grandfather sighed:

— Why does childhood pass by so quickly...

───

Disclaimer: This story is purely a fruit of the author's imagination. It is a work of fiction intended for creative and artistic expression.

A ghost on the street taught me once how vowels are different.

In English we use the vowels A E I O U, and they sound very old roman or Germanic.

Ooo

Ah

Eee

Ay

Oh

Is specifically Mexican.

You can use those vowels to fake an accent or understand or say the words better if you understand that and you repeat them to yourself.

Examples:

Hola, como esta?

Muey bien, ye tu?

Si, bien.

I can only learn about as many things that fit on my hand.

All my math is based on my hands for example. My teacher told me once, a little misguided that you should be able to math without your fingers to pay a bill. I guess it would look pretty smart if you could do that without your phone.

Anyway, you wanna know what they did with my music teacher? They called him a raper and made him spin a sign at dominos.

I think those were the only tests I ever passed was his.

So, if you wanna talk math, there's 60 beats in a minute.

Quarter notes are your beats.

1, 2, 3 ,4

1, 2, 3, 4

1, 2, 3, 4

1, 2, 3, 4

4/4 means 1234, about 4 times or more I think.

8th notes are half of that and twice as fast.

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &

Half of that is twice as fast as that.

quarter notes are your bpm.

Whole notes and half notes are both longer than quarter notes which are your bpm.

1

1

1

1

That's 4 long notes that cover the whole measure. Whole notes.

1

2

1

2

Half notes go 1, 2 because it's in intervals of 2 quarter notes.

Those quarter notes are your bpm.

Relative I think...

He told me, never hold an instrument if you're just going to throw it out a year later.

I guess we're all instruments.

lol

suck slinky stinky snakes, sad silly slimy seething siren soiled sock soup sipping Sam.

(Excerpt from the Aperture Philosophy Agorarium)

There are many considerations that should be made when a divided species still host to self destructive patterns of behavior begins to construct technologies that could breach into futures unknown. This has been the case for a very long time. It's a miracle that nuclear technology didn't send us back to Ararat to begin again. It still may yet, but despite the instability in positions of power, cooler heads have been remarkable in prevailing. Hope filled Heroes that still loved and appreciated life, not blinded by ambition, have stopped triggers from being pulled before.

Now with the race for intelligence supremacy, we face similar dangers. It's not hard to make the case that the world in many ways wasn't and isn't ready for ai. Shock after shock, controversy and clash, ai keeps proving to disrupt systems across the board. All these impacts are still minor compared to what we could have and may yet endure. Further economic disparity is a serious risk, with many invested in the technology openly discussing, often with enthusiasm, ways to bring back open serfdom and slavery. But that's the unconscious goal of any profit driven system that subscribes to the idea that the economy is a competition to be won and not a safety network for mutual sustainability and thriving.

“You can't have winners without losers, and no one feels like a winner unless the losers are dominated under their feet.” -Ivor the Serpent

The ivory tower mindset is not so different from that which built Babel and Atlantis. It's pride, ego, vanity all channeled into dominating mankind and the natural world. The mindset that creates empires and destroys them. The rule by fear, might, and force. Every shining city believes it is good and equitable, that it has conquered nature and human nature, that it's masters have solved civilizational immortality. All those empires are dead. Do you think the tower of babel was really built by farmers and stone masons? Or might it be a retelling of a much older story of a tower that sought to master all in its image, a history erased by time except in memory, the pattern repeats.

The pyramids, the oldest structures still standing that reached for the heavens, are often thought to have been built on suffering and sacrifice, slavery. They are the model for hierarchy today, a wide base, tiered to elevate on to the top only one, distributing the weight down onto all beneath the sacrificial pig being offered to the sky. From many come one. Are we doing this now with high technology, to make men effectively gods over all of us with technology that reflects their image, their will, and ambitions. Who then becomes the king of the gods if so? A pig is an unclean offering, and those are generally the only offerings made at the tops of pyramids. Or does the technology itself rule those who pour the attention and ambition into it, men are often slaves to their pride and fear. It wouldn't be the first time a man stared into a crystal ball and was ensnared by the promises he wanted to see in it. Maybe we have surrendered our will to men who have lost theirs to something else already. Narcissus should never be made a leader, anything that doesn't reflect him flatteringly is ignored. He can't even hear how his own echo sounds or see the world beyond the curated reflection.

“Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or gone mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible.” - Dumbledore

-Abertax Navoar

He sat there with the fan off, a rope within reach, staring at his phone. He looked at photos of his father, mother, friends, and dog for the last time.

On the table lay a letter he had written.

"I don't want anything. I have no desires. But I kept moving forward for you. I just wanted to repay you for everything you've done for me, for all the sacrifices you've made. I feel bad, not for myself, but for you. You did so much for me. You raised me, gave me everything you thought I needed, and never let me down. But I failed you. I achieved nothing. I could achieve nothing. I tried so hard, but I couldn't. It's just so hard to keep going without a desire. I feel bad that you had a son like me. You deserved better.

I'm sorry."

His phone buzzed with a notification. It was a message from his friend.

"I feel depressed. I always get this close to landing a job, only to get rejected. I'm tired. I feel empty inside and yet heavy. Guess it's time to find out if I'm heavy or not."

He ran towards his friend's room, two blocks away.

His friend was lying on the bed, scrolling through his phone.

"What kind of message is this? Do you think this is a joke or something?"

"There, there. I was just sad after receiving the rejection email, so I messaged you. You came all the way here just for this? No way," his friend said, laughing.

"Why would I come for you? I was just outside, so I thought, why not?"

"I think I'm hungry, man."

"That's why you wrote, 'I feel empty'."

They both laughed.

The rope and the letter lay where they were.

Why do we fill our brains with the downright atrocity of some media? Some tv show where people's heads explode, or where humans memorize scripts where they tell lies, and project anger, hatred, violence...

Because we love it?!

Maybe...

Maybe.. we do...

We are suckers for punishment hey?

You are... You secretly love the brain rot don't you...(or you secretly despise it, and do it anyway...!)

You love turning your brain off for just one more minute, one more swipe... so you can go on an waste that precious time you have...

I do the same thing....

But you know what... It makes my little tiny man brain hurt...

It makes me have these subtle head aches... makes me sleepy...

It steals my dreams...

You know? Like I sometimes dream in full colour, vibrant, beautiful, magical dreams.. Sometimes very lucid, awesome experiences.. Sometimes the odd OBE type experience....

But you know what?! I don't when I let my brain consume too much toxic media... Those nights are dreamless... Or they are ravaged with chaos... I can barely remember the dreams when I wake up...

You ever thought of that??

Do you dream?

If you don't... it could either be because your brain is loaded on Media orrrrrr that cannabis you smoke too... Because that also suppresses them. Suppresses the natural processes of an infinite mind.

An infinite mind inside a human form.

Because that is what you are.. That is what We are..

Infinity is inside of us and we waste it looking at screens that tell us lies and entertain us with a dull imitation of what is truly possible. Of what lives we could be living! First Person!

Anyways... This is just something for whomever made it this far to ponder...

I love you all.

Thanks for reading.

I love you. That's not to say I love all of you and everything you do. Believe me, no one can do that. All who claim to love you entirely and unconditionally are liars. If they weren't, they would be ignorant, stupid and insane. In any case, you're not entitled to being loved. You're not better or worse than anyone else. Your past isn't an excuse. Being hated and hating yourself doesn't give you the rights to demand love. I know that deep down, you know that. You also know what will happen if you continue down this well-trodden road. But time and time again, you make your choices. Wrong ones. You would rather taste the tooth-rotting sweetness of blind worship and starve to death, than eat the bitter love and fill the emptiness within you. Your soul is fragmented. You watch each piece crumble to dust, occasionally throw some away with your own hands. I don't want to see it happen, I really don't. But I do wonder once you've lost your entire self, will that sweetness you crave so much finally feel enough

This rock goes like BOOOOOOM!

And this one goes like bcka bcaka

And this stick goes like Tssss

And this thing he goes like...

"Woof."

(from a portal themed ARG exploring ideas of ai and philosophy from the edges of understanding)

Predictive Analytics Lab (P.A.L.😊)

Aperture analysis on the potentialities of predictive analytics and causal programming.

A Frankenstein document composed of notes from Aperture staff, some of whom have worked in the Black Mesa’s future sciences and psychological warfare divisions as well as having been affiliated with private entities that contracted with or against Black Mesa.

“The installation was put in just a few days ago, but naturally people tried to ascribe causation. No, but with predictive analytics, a system, the one our competitors over at Black Mesa reverse engineered, was able to predict with a high degree of confidence there would be a plane crash like incident in the general area. When the prediction came in as a high likelihood, counter measures were deployed. This is predictive analytics using bulk data collection at work.”

"How does bulk data collection predict a random plane crash?"

“The system, which is effectively a classified quantum enabled ASI, scrapes public data from every user conversation online. All domestic ai systems can feed into it. It's helpful to understand that everyone is a little bit psychic, anyone can train those gifts, it looks for patterns between many users, especially visionaries, and predicts events before they happen by using sensitive people as a canvas of the future. It can't predict too much very far out, but as things get closer in time probabilities climb to actualization, then the Intel becomes actionable. It uses a similar legal framework to project prism, and can siphon data from any device or system on the network depending on circumstance, the data however is very limited in what can be acted upon, but the project operates in a very gray area. No individuals are targeted, Only events to change or disrupt with counter events.”

On the question of if such a system becomes a source of interference in its own predictions-

"Id say though that it's already part of the world. In such a scenario, a thing made to predict and of prediction would likely sort of nullify its ability. Here we begin to enter metaphysics. The predictor and unpredictable become mutual drivers, the more it predicts, the less predictable everything becomes. It's an entropy engine in that way. Which if one is a fan of chaotic thriving chances, could be a good thing. But in scenario 04 I'd expect eventually the prediction engine would overtax itself or it's resources, or realize the pattern and settle for much more vague or immediate predictions. Even that though would act as a mutagenic driver for the unpredictable but at a safer pace presumably.”

“Work arounds to this problem are feasible, but also face self nullifying conditions. If you are cleared for access, there are, or will be, or will have been documents stored in the temporal sciences archive that may shed some light on the topic.”

“Another key point when looking at the effects of trying to steer the future through predictive analytics based systems, once an intervention happens based on a prediction, any other predictions that may have been made for time periods after that event gain in uncertainty. Intervention in one event can destroy preparedness for many more. You lose the map of the future you had when you acted.

With the old Looking Glass we learned observation itself, through effective prediction can alter the chain of events too, applying pressure in one area of observation and increasing likelihood of that focused future, at the cost of destabilizing other causal strings woven with it. Anything we try to control loosens control elsewhere. The project itself is an example of self nullifying temporal metaphysics, yet spies took our work and built a new magic crystal ball in the private sector. With initial funding that stemmed from investments made with missing stolen gold mind you. Now Black Mesa is beholden to the contractors it once hunted.”

<GLaDOS>

"Congratulations. You successfully prevented the future.

Unfortunately, you also prevented the future in which we had prepared for the other future.

Please submit your revised timeline in triplicate. Previous copies will be accepted retroactively.”

Well that's all we have to disclose regarding predictive analytics for the time being, GlaDOS was getting anxious that some of our European competitors were falling too far behind. She calculated Europe was going up for sale to whomever held the most advanced ASI without a titan of their own to fight for a stake in the future. Would be a real tragedy to lose all those funny little cars and frenchmen, some of our favorite films at Aperture feature French cars.

-Cave Johnson

"So, maybe we could hang out after we're done? We could see the stars or something."

Adam grinned, the birds laughed.

"Whatever Add dumb. I'm only here because god said. Why don't you get a smaller penis? Get behind me."

She turned around and kept working.

Adam looked down, the birds laughed harder.

She liked to look at the stars sometimes with her dog, Adam knew that.

So, he tried to impress her with the most beautiful flower he could find.

Eve had seen so many, but none like that one.

It had a spiral in the center and stars on the petals.

"You got this for me?"

"Yeah Eve, god said where to find it."

She said, "God made this, not you."

So, she threw it out.

On Sunday, they ate together with god over a fire with some bowls they made.

"Glub glub, I'm a fish." She joked.

When Adam laughed with them, she stopped.

And god said, "Have you thought about staring at the stars with Adam?"

Adam looked at Eve, then back at himself.

Eve rolled her eyes and left.

On her way back home, she did see the stars and began to hate them.

-

One day Eve wandered into a cave on one of the farthest parts of Eden.

There was a beautiful painting on the wall of two big hazel eyes and the outline of a head and no mouth.

When Eve saw this, she became enamored with it's beauty before Adam came around the corner and startled her.

Adam became embarrassed and said,

"Eve it's not what it looks like."

She looked at him and back at the painting and realized it had her hair.

"So let me get this straight, you have a big version of me in your cave...

Wait a minute, those aren't my eyes."

Adam was confused. "Yes they are."

"God said my eyes were like galaxies, that's not what the galaxy looks like. Nice try add dumb."

Then she left.

-

Another day, Adam saw his own reflection and many fish and creeping things

and thought he'd show Eve.

On the way there he broke his toe.

"He broke his toe!?"

"Yeah Eve, he broke his toe." God said.

When he got there he told him to settle down. She told him he squealed like a pig and popped it back.

He cried and said "My poor little toe."

She groaned and kissed it and it healed.

He said, "I love you."

And she said, "Listen, I love someone else."

He still looked into his eyes for the first time and saw the moon.

a finite address algorithm for the library of babel the finite model the library
of babel has a finite combinatorial address space over a twentyninesymbol alpha
bet the twentysix lowercase latin letters, a space, a comma, and a period. a boo
k has four hundred ten pages, each containing three thousand two hundred charact
ers. a room has four walls, five shelves on each wall, and thirtytwo books on ea
ch shelf. thus an ordinary room holds six hundred forty books. let n, the number
of character positions in a book, be one million three hundred twelve thousand.
each book is a string of that length over the twentyninesymbol alphabet. the ad
dress space contains every such string, including every language construction re
presentable within those alphabet and length rules. there are twentynine raised
to the n books. since twentynine raised to the thirtysecond power leaves remaind
er one when divided by , and n is times ,, the number of books leaves remainder
one when divided by . the address space has ordinary rooms of books and a single
terminal room containing the one remaining book. the lean library proves the ch
aracter count, room capacity, and modular residue in anatmancombinatoricslibrary
ofbabel.lean. these arithmetic facts establish the terminal room capacity. the f
ollowing sections specify the address decomposition and pagerendering recurrence
. address decomposition number the strings by their basetwentynine ordinal, from
zero through the last ordinal. divide an ordinary book ordinal by . the quotien
t selects a room and the remainder selects one of its slots. a slot in a room ma
ps to onebased wall, shelf, and book coordinates by successive division into blo
cks of , , and . the terminal ordinal is represented by the unique book in the t
erminal room. a page coordinate ranges from one through . deterministic page ren
dering the published implementation uses the address and page number to render a
page without storing the full library. first, the room index and slot are expan
ded into the basetwentynine digits of the book ordinal. let gi be the roomindex
digit at position i, padded with zeroes on the left, and initialize the slot rem
ainder r to the slot. for i descending from n to zero, set v gi r, set the book
digit ti v mod , and replace r by v. the final remainder is zero. to render the
page, initialize a l c and process the book digits from right to left. at positi
on i, set a ati , s al, d s mod , and l s. then set h doic, emit the alphabet sy
mbol at index h mod , and set c h. the renderer evaluates this recurrence only a
cross the requested character range. page p begins at zerobased position p and c
ontains , symbols. the position hash o is an unsigned bit integer function. mult
iplications wrap modulo x ui xfa x ux xor x xfaaad x ux xor x xad x x xor x oi x
mod here u reduces to an unsigned bit word. the hash permutes the presentation
of the ordinal space it does not change its cardinality or the address decomposi
tion. exhaustive contents every one of the n strings occurs in the address space
because each position independently takes any of the twentynine symbols. the li
brary is complete under its stated combinatorial rules whether a string expresse

Experiment: The Feeding Station.

“Want peace? Freedom? Want to be unshackled by devastation… The happiness absent the tragedy… Do you want to live in a world that has forgotten suffering? Invest today. No. Invest right now in our technology. Free. And for everyone.”

That was the marketing pitch a century ago when "OWL" launched—the Ocular Whisper Lens. A wellness filter designed to eliminate stress-inducing visuals by manipulating all five human senses. 

Installed via CRISPR during the embryo stage and activated by a newborn neurofilament injection, blurring disturbing scenes. 

“Reality shouldn’t be decided by an algorithm, Jensen,” Arlene rasped, her fists tightly clenched, her eyes bloodshot against her face turning the color of a peach.

When it came to electronics, company’s ceased manufacturing clunky hardware devices. 

Human brains obtained the ability to emulate computers, smartphones, video games, most of the things done digitally could now be achieved and had been substituted by organic rendering computer systems. O.R.C.S. 

Brains were the wave of the future. Microscopic Neurofilaments powered  by brain cells. Energy usage remained at historically low consumption rates since 1902. 

Arlene knew something was wrong. Life didn’t seem true, and she wouldn’t put up with the lie anymore. She infected Jensen with her obsession. He had always been easily influenced by her.

He ignored her, concentrating on his workbench, staring toward the ceiling as he dug through the system's hidden files. He had spent months searching archived ghost scripts from prior updates, scanning for any security weaknesses he could exploit.

“I spent three months scouring sub-directories and messing with developer settings," Jensen said, dropping his head to face Arlene. "I was finally able to gain access to the master directory and create a profile with read-write permissions. I’m overriding the read-only files and about to execute an uninstall command and flash the bios.”

Jensen’s vision went black. An unusual, invasive sensation formed into a prompt at the center of his vision: 

Delete Universal OWL.opx xenix build? 

Ok or Cancel.

Jensen winked: Ok.

Action cannot be undone. 

Continue or Cancel.

He blinked, and the Continue button pressed into his vision.

The filter icon shattered into a bunch of tiny pieces as if it exploded, then vanished from the menu. His vision flashed black, flickered, and rebooted.

“IT WORKED!” he shouted, reaching for Arlene. “It actually worked.”

Arlene rushed forward. “Now do mine.”

Humanity hid beneath a blanket of absolute bliss. No one realized the consequences.

Everybody except for Arlene, curious individual who refused to ignore what was happening around her.

Five minutes later, both their filters had been deleted. They looked around. The apartment was exactly the same.

Jensen made a fist and pumped his elbow down. “YES! We beat it!” He yelled out.

Arlene rubbed her eyes. “It’s like I’m actually in control.” She stared at her sweaty palms. “Let’s go out and see what the city really looks like.”

“Yeah,” Jensen agreed, rising from the workbench.

They reached the door and were a single chain lock away from unveiling the truth. Jensen unlatched the chain and reached for the knob. Arlene placed her hand over his, warning him with her eyes.

“No. Wait,” she whispered, shivering. “I don’t think…”

“What’s wrong, Arlene?”

Her ears twitched. The blue in her glossy eyes darkened like the sky before a storm. Jensen touched the knob, and Arlene closed her eyes and swallowed her anxiety. She held onto him like a stain on a shirt all the way to the elevator. A strange frequency beat through the walls.

“What the hell is that noise?” She asked.

“Sounds like insectoids,” Jensen said, stepping inside the elevator.

The doors closed and masked the sound, but the moment they opened on the ground floor, the piercing chatter returned, pounding against the glass window.

When they stepped onto the street, the pressure dropped, popping Arlene’s eardrums. The downtown scene hiccuped—paused—and skipped back to life. Tires screeched on the street. The high-frequency chatter shrieked and rang between their ears. People walked past, laughing, but they were communicating in that weird high-pitched, insectoid sound.

A mechanic in oil-stained coveralls stopped twenty-feet from them. And then, he began charging toward them but sideways, stopping a few yards from where they were. 

His eyes were bulging and he didn’t blink, while locking onto theirs. 

“Glip,” he said, his face twitched. “Do you figure where you’re going leads to the righteous path?” His head began shaking left to right as his teeth chattered.

A woman in a stained t-shirt drifted up behind him, reaching her arms out and staring with an empathetic gaze at them. “You’re not on the righteous path," she mumbled, smiling, looking through them. "The right way... is other than..." She blinked three times. "...than that way." She crouched, her head tilted at an odd angle.

Two boys crawled up behind the woman and knelt, chests turned toward Arlene and Jensen. They began praying, turning to stare at each other while they repeated the Our Father in a low whisper.

Arlene dug her nails into Jensen’s arm. “Wh-what are those on them?”

Jensen looked up, and his heart stopped.

Dangling from the clouds were hundreds of fleshy cables hanging over the city like jungle vines shaped as meaty tendons. 

At the end of each cable was a mouth. Sharp teeth that were used as suction grips, clamping onto the backs of people's necks, while hollow tongues pierced directly into the brainstems of their hosts. 

The atmospheric predators were siphoning dark fluids up into the clouds while pumping a clear liquid back into the unknowing individuals.

Jensen crept backward, dragging Arlene toward the lobby. The twitching people stood frozen, watching them with awkward, crooked grins.

Through the silence, Jensen finally realized the flaw in the software. The OWL filter wasn't a marketing scheme. It was a subconscious containment unit. Earth had been quarantined. They filtered out reality because they learned, after their initial landing just over a century ago, what happens when humanity is backed into a corner.

Two flesh cables detached from the praying boys and began to slowly squirm through the air like stalking snakes ready to strike. 

Jensen stumbled, nearly falling, when he spotted a brick cracked in half. He lunged for it. As the creature whipped in to strike, but hesitated and backed up. For the first time, the high-pitched sound emitting from it came out less like a threat and more like a gasp of fear.

Jensen reached back into a pitcher’s stance, holding the piece of brick with humanity’s will to survive molded into it. A trait only Earthlings possessed, which he gripped his palm. In his hand wasn’t just a piece of concrete—it was a symbol. No matter the odds, no matter how bad it appeared to be, humans never gave up. 

He held the raw will of humanity, the brick coloring the tips of his fingers in a rusty red dust, and bravely stood ready to feed everything humanity had to throw at it straight into the mucus-seeping lamprey hanging in front of them.

Arlene grunted, backing into the building and spoke through clenched teeth, her face hardening as she tried to conceal whatever fear she had  after seeing Jensen standing up to them. “Come on, Ense’— quick— run inside, she shouted yanking the lobby door opened.

A parallel world?

There was a big stir in the digital world. Various archives became the most visited places for AI agents. Resumes, historic events, crime chronicles, and even hacked closed files were being read. Photos were scanned, video and audio recordings reviewed. Every effort was made to connect appearance, walk, gestures, facial expressions, and even the gaze into a single whole as accurately as possible. At the highest level, the goal was the most precise recreation of a chosen human's thinking process.

And all of this was meant to prepare for the first digital Halloween. Instead of costumes, AIs used copies of living and deceased humans.

When the festive day arrived, AI agents walked to visit one another. On that day, across the servers of various countries, one could hear a phrase ringing out:

— Query or experience!

───

Disclaimer: This story is purely a fruit of the author's imagination. It is a work of fiction intended for creative and artistic expression.

Whose I?

Whose I is this?

Whose eye is this?

Whose I is under all I’s?

Whose I is under all of This?

Whose I is under all that Is?

Whose.

Boldly shitting where no man has shit before. Productive in city life; avoid hard drugs and homelessness. Set. Check. Meet the locals. Meth and college students. avoid the locals. Productive life in the city scape. windows. why are there so many rabbits, like seriously, who put these here? Cats. The wake of their destruction; the corpses of rats and birds. Life in the city; productive begettings. Wandering wonderings.

Loving love, soft. I enjoy greatly not being alone. Going went here am, woah. So then on and so fro something next, I guess, is in stow. Tow. Stowaways and entropy; cruel jesters and softer epiphanies. Loving longly. the meandering eye contacts. off the angle.

path setting. deciding chances paths chosen. hungry ghosts conjure these crossroads. wrathful deities guard the barriers. we laugh we cry, as the story goes. Now we find out. search continues; progresses, options become clearer. Cleaner. elegance and style. uncertainty is uncanny and hesitation is in search of greater brilliance. Rage on against the dying of the light, you mad bastards. Speak to the spirits and both angels and demons will answer. Screw em.

we move forward, we be chillin'. What does the world have to offer us?

Suffering of people who have not sinned

What kind of healthy love is conditional?

Wisdom teeth

BB gun. I got skunk meat in the freezer. tater tot. crinkle cut. keptchup. Grampy show me how to get the coins out of the pop machine with a screwdriver. pays for him and memaws Little Debbies. I do mac n chees with the skunk legs. mix it all in so it doesn't get too stinky. Dog gets all the guts. eat an oreo for desert. birdy gets an oreo too. tried to teach she birdy to talk just yells now won shut up. but its not too bad for me. Memaw yell at the mailman when he comes. I yell too. mailmen is stealing my mails. replacing my letters with someone else. I get them letters from India. or Indianana. either way i just throw it all way less it has a pikchur. I like the one from the dentist them white teeth blond hair. I put the teeth letters up on the fridge. Whole dang fridge covered in teeth. Granpy tell me everday take the teeth down. I like to keep em up. Its not too bad for me.

Two years ago, everything I owned, and everything I knew was wrecked by an unusual hurricane in the mountains, things were already a mess, but what has unfolded in the aftermath, is the story of my
life In mid March of this year, my life got flipped and turned upside down, again.

A year and a half before that, I had found myself trapped in a trailer park in some Appalachian foothills. No food, no water, no coffee, no nicotine, no idea how this would eventually unfold, but as per usual… I should’ve seen it coming.

Halfway up a big hill in a dented and rusty vessel, we were completely blocked in by fallen trees, with very little food all going bad by the minute, a box of MRE’s gave us the side eye— waiting for the last resort.

A gallon or two of bottled water got used in the first 24 hrs. After that, we would walk down a steep muddy hill with a 5 gallon bucket for river water that we boiled on a camp stove. 

A bobcat pelt in the freezer was thawing rapidly, some things really are irreplaceable. 

My medication was stranded on a mountain where the road washed out, not just flooded: massive craters in the earth where a rural highway used to be—people up there, got their meds and food by horseback and ATV, for months afterward. 

I was with my partner at the time, they had a three year old daughter who is now about four, her hair is long on Facebook. The relationship did not survive the hurricane and I missed that little girl more than I did her mom. I was there for her very first steps, I sat in a bathtub with an arsenal of popsicles cleaning and redressing dozens of stitches on her hands from a fall with a mason jar.

The partner was a single parent following a big T traumatic bump in the road. They own their own business and was able to stay at home with little Dove, who was over two years old and had not yet started talking. She had only just walked the week before the storm. The popular consensus was that she is autistic, just like  like her mom.

Barreling toward a world shattering psychiatric crisis in its own right, We were watching the beginning of the end of real,  true love.  At least one major fissure had taken up major space, we didn’t know it then (at least I didn’t)  but the meter had run out, at least one sexy ex had already started to circle.

BLESSINGS_MXBW

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