Legacy: France

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

I vow never to remember the past again. In the darkness my arms ache. I can still taste salty tears-although that could be salty splash from the odd slightly bigger wave. I vow never to remember again. I vow silently. Then loudly in the darkness and then- think how foolish that is. I row to what I think is the south. The anger is building inside of me. I would be very angry if I wasn’t rowing. I need to focus.

I can see it in the distance as night is somehow falling. Land. I don’t want to land in the middle of the night. I am sticky. I smell. A good off shore breeze would take my smell to every predator within 100 miles and they might just as well line up to eat me. I am tired, fatigued. Too tired to fight. I want to get there in the morning, creep up a rocky beach, hide the boat, sleep somewhere soft and safe.

I can still make it out in the semi darkness. Land. The machine has faded now, I drew a line on the seat for north and south. I will row hard towards the shore and then creep south down the coast overnight. Hope for a short night. Clamour out of the boat in the early morning, hide the boat, scrabble up the beach. Sleep, soft and safe.  

Except night comes quickly. I can see the stars twinkling overhead now, the darkness engulfing me below and on every side. My only light, a glittering night sky. The shore can’t be far away but I can’t see it now.  The problem is if I don’t land, I could lose the shore in the night and find myself lost and back at sea. This landing will not be how I want it to be-like so much of life. I rage against it but I can hear waves lapping on a shore even if I can’t see it. It’s a risky strategy. Anything could be on that shore. There might be no way off that shore. It might be cliffs above it. I might hole the boat on the way in.

Still I have no option, in the darkness it will be impossible to hug the coast. I wished for moonlight but it is faint at best. Light clouds rake across the sky blotting it out at will. The stars offer nothing, lighting up galaxies humanity will never see. That was a dream once wasn’t it? I will not remember the past again.

I will have to take my chances on the shore. I listen carefully, trying to tell myself that I can guess whether its rocky or not by the sound of the lapping waves. I try and hold the boat still for a moment. I am close. How close? I look into the murky blackness-how deep will it be here? I need to wash. I smell. Even by my very low standards I smell, of blood, urine, faeces. There is no wearing these trousers again. I think about getting out and swimming the boat in. That would be an insane risk to take.

Its not just the rocks I have to worry about, there will be the debris that was once houses buried under the blackness. Maybe there were never houses here, unlikely. For the past few miles I have been travelling over what was once the coast of France before the flooding. That’s makes cliffs unlikely although there are places where half of a hill has sheared off into the sea. Welcome to the brave new world! I know that I have been travelling over what was France because the device was old and it thought that I was navigating roads and towns. I am not. This is water. Its what makes my location uncertain. The landmarks I was following are somewhere below in the murky blackness of the water. The machine is completely gone now. I am tempted to throw it overboard in frustration.

Maybe there is smoke rising from a settlement just a little way off. In the darkness I can’t know that. I sniff. Smoke would travel on the wind. I look to the left and to the right. I could try, hug the coast all night, or I could weigh anchor here and wait until the dawn. I am not sure that I can live with the smell of myself for another night. I want to feel clean. The boat is rocking while I think. For the first time in the murkiness I feel seasick. The way I felt seasick on my first journey across this water. I wonder, did she-I will not think of the past. Focus on the task.

I can hear the waves lapping as I try to keep the boat stable. Risk assessment-how many of those had been done once, paper, pen clipboard-not like this. Sitting in a boat unable to see a thing, to land or to sail on in the blackness. Is the blackness even relevant?

I’m hungry. I smell. My arms ache. Did I make a decision or just drift into shore. I can’t remember. I hear the crunch of small stones under the boat, not the flood of water as its holed by a rock. I let the oars go loose in their-I wished I knew what the hell they were called but I came to rowing quite late and the name escapes me. They clank loudly and splash in the water. I could do without that noise. I can feel the boat as it moves with the ebb and flow of the waves. I listen carefully and hear nothing. I would like to spring out and leap to shore but that would be silly. I have been sitting here for days I didn’t count, didn’t want to count. I will not remember the past.

Instead I ease myself up on wobbly arms. I try to get my legs to support me. I have been sitting for days on end. This is not going to be easy. Its not how I imagine it. I stand there hunched over still, my back wants to stay sitting. I grab the sides of the boat wobbling everywhere. The noise of the oars clanking even more, they ring out in the night. I can’t concern myself with that. I must focus.  Trying to straighten out my back, slowly, endlessly. This seems to take an age-an hour, half an hour. I slowly unfold. I hurt-everywhere.  I am standing. The boat is still going back and forth with the waves. I stand.

Now to get out. This is not going to be graceful. I turn to one side slowly. Stretch a leg, stretch the other one. One of them reaches up and out of its own accord. I can’t be directing that-I am too tired. I am clutching one side of the boat now.

I stretch the other leg out. In the darkness I can’t tell- what went wrong. I am in the water. It is not deep. I still have one hand on the boat-focus- importantly –the boat is still full of my stuff. I sit there with my back to the shore. My whole bottom half is in the water. I try to talk to myself quietly. My throat hurts. My voice is raspy. I should not be making noise. I talk to myself more loudly. I know this is wrong but my own voice telling me what to do is all that is keeping me alive. ‘Hold the boat’ I tell myself.

‘Find the rope.’

‘Its at the front.’

I am completely vulnerable. I am conscious of that. I am tired. Beyond tired. ‘Be quiet’ I say. I say it again. My voice dies in the night. I listen for footsteps, other voices, noise? I wait for the thing that will come from the shore to get me from behind-the vice like grip on my neck as I am pulled into unforgiving jaws or for the thing that will come into the shallows and take my legs. I push the boat back into the water and search for the rope that is at the front.

‘I have found the rope’ –I say it out loud. ‘Grip the rope’ Fingers grip. How does that work. Its like magic. How my body obeys me. For a moment, through the fatigue, I am astounded by my body. Then I just lay down. I know I should not. I let the water wash over me. Heal my aching limbs, clean my body. Somewhere in the darkness, the blood and urine and faeces is swirling away. I am glad I can’t see it. It is taking the scent of me out into the ocean- for the predators to smell. I cannot stay here.

My voice is failing me. I look up at the night sky, at the clouds racing across the canvas of stars. I breathe in the air, taste it, smell it. I tell myself, in my head, it smells like France. I almost laugh, smells like France, the subtle hints of abandoned berets and fields of garlic drifting on the breeze- the remnants of used bike tyres and striped shirts tangible in the air. As if somehow the stereotype is captured in the very oxygen I breathe such that France is still here. There is no certainty. I’ve no idea if this was France once. The machine said it should be France but it was well past its best when it told me that. In so far as there is certainty in anything, I am certain this is not England. I lay for a long time until I feel clean, invigorated, hungry. The darkness seems quiet and I lay my head even my ears in the water and listen to my heart beat. To breath going in and out of my body-I remember those words, as long as there is breath in your body, you must go on, you must find a way. You must live. I am exhausted, hungry, tired. I will not remember the past. I let the anger go with the blood and the urine and the faeces. I haul myself up and out of the water. I prepare for the rest of the night and the morning, in my head –a checklist-breath in and out, on and on.

 

 

A job interview

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

I have a job interview tomorrow. I guess I should be pleased. I got it because I am 100% – human that is. They have to give you an interview if you apply and are 100% human under the disability laws.

I can’t remember when being 100% human became a disability, I think it was around the time when they had ‘solved’ all the other disability related issues. I like to think that solution was medical but there are endless rumours.

My mother says I have a chance tomorrow. I know I don’t. The panel must be made up of someone who is at least 60% human and the other can be a bot, cyborg, android-call it what you want- of any percentage. Of course all the other applicants will be some percentage or another. This job is unusual in that it requires you to be more than 50%. That is rare, and that kind of advertising is due to be outlawed soon, it favours us that are over 50% although it does no favours to the 100%.

My mother incidentally is 65%. She is thinking of reducing though-to  40%. She finds the whole emotion thing difficult. She looks at my life and the decisions I have made and is dumbfounded, hurt, exasperated. She cannot understand how she has produced a child who wishes to be 100%. Cannot understand why I can’t just get an implant, any implant to be just say, 97%. It doesn’t matter what I say to her about it she still doesn’t understand.

She says the whole emotion of it is going to force her to have an upgrade and if I start to earn money the decent thing would be for me to pay for that upgrade. I look at her and wonder whether her narcissism settings don’t need an adjustment and could I do that-morally-whilst she was sleeping.

Most days I go for a walk-I don’t see many people out walking-after all-only a 100% would be out walking without purpose. Something else which sends my Mum into a spin-purposeless walking. Why would anyone do that? I have tried to tell her it’s for exercise, to clear my mind, to get fresh air. Her response is clinical-and in this exact order. Number 1- You can get a bodily up grade anytime, just have a reboot. Number 2 – Your mind should never be clear, it should always be analysing data-no wonder you don’t have a job. Number 3 – Fresh air comes in a plastic bottle-how can you not know that? On the fresh air she has a point-all of the monitors say the air I am sucking in is likely killing me slowly, as if boredom isn’t.

My mother looks younger than me by a good 10 years and I suspect surgery and upgrades aside, that is owing to the air she breathes.

I will of course give the interview my best shot. It is what is expected, but there is always a test and even those over 50% will be able to switch on enough programming power to outdo my human brain or more likely to retrieve the answers from somewhere on the internet where the test will surely be found.

The interview is in the morning. I will pass the afternoon sitting in the park reading what passes as a book these days. No one publishes anything from anyone over 70% because hardly anyone is over 70% and well – if you are under 70% you are likely to think that stuff is good. I find it a tad formulaic which is the same reason they think it is so good.

I hear you, I get what you’re saying. Why not just upgrade, you would have a future then, get a job- be like them. But where is it all going-what are we going to look like in 10 years time-not aesthetically either-because obviously with bodily and facial upgrades  available-we can all look beautiful-not that beauty means anything anymore-when everyone has had an upgrade it just becomes meaningless- you can wake up today and look however you want and then change it tomorrow. There a site call Spectr-it matches people, like a dating site but its just a list of machine specs and they match you that way.

It works. I guess. I am not on it. They don’t take 100%’ers. I am on other dating websites but most of the profiles say the same thing, no 100%’ers wanted.

I look in the mirror. I am not the future of humanity. I am its past.

Chelsea plastic

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

‘It’ had to be old. No one young remembered this place. This was the Chelsea flower show-after it had gone completely plastic. A move designed to placate environmentalist and recycle some small amount of plastic. It also meant it could be open all year round- a win-win situation – it was a kind of ‘build it and people will come’ idea. They hadn’t really built it, so much as moulded and melted it.

Nobody had come in a long time. You could see by the dust. The plastic was fading. Plastic flowers had been blown over in the wind. Plastic leaves littered the path as if there had once been a plastic autumn. There was still a scent of fabricated flowers on the wind, mixed with the raw smell of hot plastic, muted over the years. She must have triggered a sensor that released some long forgotten chemical as the scent of fabricated flowers followed her in the breeze. The whole year thing had been a mistake by Chelsea-whoever she was. Someone who ran a flower show, she guessed. She remembered reading about it. No one came. It was in truth a shadow of itself in plastic-a kind of joke on a grand scale. People did not come out in all weathers to see a show of plastic flowers, in fact they didn’t come out in any weather to see plastic flowers.

She wandered into the abandoned café, there was a scone machine in the corner. Long unused, she swiped her card and some foul smelling gloop came out and then a swish of reddish jam. She caught the jam on her finger and ate it-sweet-artificial, but not a total waste of money.

She guessed ‘it’, this person or part person, people called them ‘pee-pee’s’ as a joke-she didn’t-  had chosen here because this place was deserted. The CCTV didn’t work and there was no chance of anyone else turning up. She wondered how long she would have to wait. These ‘people’-part people were so cautious, so worried. Scared. Their fear was made worse because it was something they couldn’t control or understand.

She recognised the gait and knew ‘it’ had arrived. An extraordinarily tall figure, weren’t they all-hadn’t they meddled with that as well. A hood covered its face. She knew what to expect, the chiselled perfection of youth. It approached, drew back its hood. This one was chiselled androgynous perfection, she couldn’t guess its gender from its features and its clothing hung loose and shapeless. Gender only helped with the serial number anyway-where to log it- where to look first when she came to record its passing.

Her first question, always impertinent, ‘How much?’

‘Sixty percent’ it had said. She guessed from the voice it had once been a human female.

‘Which way?’ she asked.

‘Human.’ it said.

She was making up her mind-this had once been female.

‘Let’s find somewhere to sit down.’ She led the way and sat next to some faded plastic purple foliage. She couldn’t tell what plant it was meant to be. Each flower was perfectly formed in plastic but the sun had faded them into different colours. It was a bit like the part people she dealt with. Perfectly formed but scarred in different ways.

She needed to make small talk, build trust.

‘Why here?’ Not that she cared particularly.

‘I came here as a child with my mother, when it was real, when I was real,’ it said.

She could hear the tension in her voice, she could smell the fear. The problem was when you were 40% machine and 60% human, the machine bits didn’t understand the human bits quite as well as they should and the result wasn’t something that was more rational, but something that was less able to control its irrational. It had been a fundamental misunderstanding of how human beings worked when they had gone down this path. It had been ok when they only had to make small decisions but the more pressure they came under the more rational and irrational clashed and the result was turmoil. They had been in charge with their super-charged brains and their long limbed perfection but the result had been abject failure, because they couldn’t manage to control themselves.

And then there had been climate change, sooner than anyone expected and they –these part humans had offered logical solutions and then ranted irrationally at the outcomes. We need to do this and that. There will be suffering but we will make it through. It had not gone so well. They had thought themselves invincible and then nature had decided they weren’t. A bit like the plastic flower show that stood here, you could see real grass poking up between the cracks in the pavement. Every so often a giant real life bushed covered and cowered plastic flowers into submission. They and their ideas had gotten less and less popular and they had panicked. Panicked and then- they had run. Simply, the few of them that had been in control took off. The rest and there weren’t a lot really- followed.

There had been a vacuum of power and a 100% human had stepped into the breach. They, the less than 100% were derided -attacked –hunted –blamed. Now they turned up in places like this, seeking help from people like her. They had found their conditions intolerable, the whole think illogical. How had it all happened? How is it that machine and mind did not work together to get the right result. Their experiment had not worked. They had found themselves out of control. At first they had been found curled up in the foetal positions in doorways but now it was more like this- an anonymous phone call, a plea for help. A steady trickle of calls to keep her in work.

Her job was simple, get the thing to trust you and it was easier to think of them as things rather than humans. Get it to trust you, get its serial number, record it. Find out as much as you can about it. Find out if it has any friends, anyone else who might be ‘part’ and then assist ‘it’ to terminate itself.

It was not the easiest job, these things were part human but they were not in control of the human bits, 60% human was not enough to control your human. Every time she saw one she would be struck by its beauty and then the conversation would start. They would ramble, sometimes unintelligible sentences, a list of their programming or their capabilities and then the rationality- could she help? They couldn’t cope anymore, this kept happening, that was happening, none of it made any sense, please could she help.  And all she ever asked for in return was a serial number.

The death would be relatively painless. This one was crying already, uncontrollable tears. She knew she would be sitting here amongst the Chelsea plastic for hours whilst it cried. She tried not to get too involved, it was hard to be empathetic when half way through the subject ‘it’ was talking on, the programming would kick in and a series of numbers would splurt out. ‘It’s’  mother had brought ‘it’ here as child when the flowers were real. The flowers had been plastic for her whole life span, it was a good thirty years before she was born they went plastic. This person-part person- must be over 100 years old and yet she looked 20. How many resources had ‘it’  consumed in that time. How much had ‘it’ taken from the planet to give back -nothing. It made her job easy. The androgynous perfection had a price everyone had paid for, the meshing of machine and human was just the final symptom that had led them here.

She smiled, tried to pretend she understood, clasped the oversized hand, adjusted cosmetically to fit the oversized body. She simpered at the old woman who looked young- ask only for the serial number. She looked at the old woman, more closely, looking for a sign of how to begin, how much had this thing taken from this planet in her 100 or so years-that was the easiest way to think of it.  She looked at the beautiful chiselled features that showed no emotion despite the tears, the perfect smile crossing the perfect face when the slightest bit of attention was given to it, the smile fading as the programming kicked in. The tall elegant thing that could no longer discern its memory from its memory storage facility, it would smile even at the end, reel off some numbers.

She looked around, she would leave it here amongst the plastic perfection, where it seemed to belong.

A moment of levity

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

That moment! Right there. Where your body and your mind – are – disconnected. Where the image that is physical and the image that is inside your head, are no longer held together. You are two images. Out of focus. Was that death visiting you? In your sleep? Passing over you, moving on to the person lying next to you.

How did you get to that state. Asleep. Your body is sleeping. Your mind. Awake. Disconnected. Just hovering. Slightly outside the boundaries of your skin. Peaceful. Soothing. Alarming. That you can be free of your mortal, physical, accident-prone self. A moment. That comes to you in the night. Not a dream. After a dream. Anchoring you to the world. Freeing your mind. A paradox. A moment of levity. Amidst the seriousness of sleep. A reminder that you and your body are attached.

That the boundary of one is the boundary of the other. Mostly. That they can slip, slide against each other.  But not uncouple. Is that what it was? That momentary peaceful. Alarming. Hovering of spirit over physical being. However slight. Is that why you slept on, happy in the thought of the possible and the possibility. In the night, in the darkness, a moment taken, a mind returned. Slumped back. Slammed! Crept in, Crawled. Swept. Alive. Awake. Attached again. In harmony. Coupled together, the body and the mind.

A blurring of the lines that grounds you in reality. A touching of the spirit. A wavering in the moment. Haven’t we all been there, curled in this world of hope. Undimmed and  unfaded.  A soothing balm to a bitter end in a tortured world. Won’t we all go there. Hover for that moment. That moment. That one moment alone. Between what is and what is no more. A moment that passes as our breath passes. Lightness before darkness. A seriousness of sleep. A moment of levity.

Legacy: Rowing

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

Just keep bloody rowing. What the hell do you do when you’re in the middle of the English channel –menstruating. Just keep rowing. The darkness is coming. Night time. I don’t know why I am surprised or taunted by it. Its like its personal. The absence of light, makes things worse. The stars will be beautiful and stunning but I will feel cheated as the light goes down. Keep rowing. The device is still working-just. I am still going the right way. I have factored in about 4-5 days and nights of rowing to get to land. The sea here is much calmer than it used to be, there are no ships to worry about. Nothing to concern me except food and water.

It’s monotonous. It’s tiring. I should have brought someone with me. The past. I should have brought something other than the past. My first thought is a book. As if you can read and row, You can’t. Instead I have the past for company. It is still with me. Inside of me. I think it’s not, it’s gone but at moments like this with the night closing in. Before the heavens glistening with stars, I know it has not left me. I know my heart will beat faster. I know my breath will become shallow. I know I need to focus on my arms, on keeping the rhythm. Row. Aching legs, sore butt, row, row, row. Rhythm and pace. Water and food

I think about the old lady. About her last breath under my hands. I think about all the death I have seen and the parts of it I have caused. Of course we caused most of it. Plastic toothbrushes, why do I always think of plastic toothbrushes.  As if one less plastic toothbrush would have made a difference. It was everything, all consuming, all of us consuming. Our whole life style got me here. Rowing across the channel, between England and France, both of which only exist in a meaningful way in my head. We swapped to bamboo toothbrushes an age ago. Didn’t we? Did we? Back when we had four safe and secure walls, a house, a home-wall paper. Beds. The list is long and pointless because all that stuff got me here.

I remember the Essex floods that took us south, to my mother in laws. I remember her house. Not our four walls anymore after that. Even though we lived on what passed for a hill in Essex, it was barely a mound and it had become an island. We had to row. Its where I first became good at it. As a matter of fact my first really big row was from Essex into Kent (which again was largely underwater and then into East Sussex. Names that haven’t fallen from my tongue or anybody else’s in years. A few days of rowing our belongings or what was left of them between the two houses. I think that is when he really left us. Two boats, lots of possessions-we left her at one end and went in convoy together. Him and me, but he was looking out over that sea.

I’ve no idea where he went, even when he went is a bit vague-a few months after we arrived. Maybe. One day he just didn’t come home. I don’t think I waited. Or cried or even mentioned it. He just never came back. I think maybe he died out there somewhere. Who knows. Lots of people died. I think probably he died. Otherwise why wouldn’t he have taken her. She was his daughter. Young. Valuable. Perhaps he knew the future that was to come and that he couldn’t protect her. I will never know. I still worked then. His mother was wheel chair bound. I had less compassion then. I hadn’t see so much suffering. I thought death was the worst of things and held no blessed relief.

I can’t even remember when we decided to go. Maybe I can. If I want to. I packed our things. She never asked. She knew. Nanny wasn’t coming with us. She couldn’t. Too much of a burden. We left before daylight, one day, one random day. Planned. Unplanned. Planned the time but not where we were going. Is that a plan?  Before the old woman was even awake. I put some fresh bread on the bedside table and a jug of water but we never went back. She died horribly, suffering probably calling out for us. For her probably but not for me. There would have been a point when she realised we were gone. That no one was coming. In hindsight, I should have been compassionate and ended her sleep quietly in the night rather than sneaking away. It was inhumane but I didn’t know that then. I hate to think that dogs found her or birds pecked at her or that god awful cat that hung around gnawed at her as she passed. Memory has no comfort. The stars, where are the bloody stars tonight.  

By the time we left, the lights had gone out. The power had stopped. The place smelled of sewerage. Clean water was hard to come by. Food was near non-existent. I grew things in the garden but it wouldn’t sustain us. Some nights I would get out of bed and flick all the light switches in the house on and then off again-but it was useless. I wanted to believe we’d blown a fuse or needed new bulbs but the truth -the power was gone. It was never coming back. It was matches and candles and things we couldn’t make anymore. There were a lot of empty houses. We took things. Wouldn’t you?

We went to London together, me and my daughter. Along dark tar roads, broken and torn by the weather. Filled with others like us, walking to nowhere. I can still hear cars in my head sometimes. But cars were long gone. Fossil fuels. They were the enemy. We just didn’t know it. London, we were headed for London. Not really London. It was outside the M25. Near Reigate, where we –well I was old and she was young. Not super young. Seventeen–able to take care of herself. It was a joint decision. There was space on one boat. I gave her everything I could. Just words mostly. No matter how bad it gets-live, breath, live I will find you.

Those early journeys into France or Spain weren’t so risky. Lots made it and then onto Africa, more risky but still lots made it. Maybe she did. But Africa had shrunk as well. Even now, when I go there, I can’t tell which bits have survived and which haven’t. It changed. It just changed like everything else. Less water, less land, different land, more people, less people, different people. Its hard to know where she would even have landed. I tell myself she did land and I will see her again. I tell myself I would know inside my head if she was gone. But the truth is I don’t spend a lot of time inside my head. I focus on the things I need to do to survive. I hope she does to. Pain is useless in the face of hunger. It simply weighs you down more. Lessens your chances of survival.

Row. Keep rowing. I keep rowing. Not seeing her getting into a boat. Not remembering that it was night time and dark and I lost sight of her even at the dock.

I remember her smell and her smile. The colour of her hair. My arms ache. The tears are coming. I focus. The tears will do me no good out here. I have to survive. The way she has to survive.

I look even now when I see a group. Him, the old lady I can barely make out their faces in my head but she is there, golden and shining and waiting. I stop rowing. I must focus.

There is so much blood, its like puberty in reverse. I remember puberty, hers, mine. Not enough food for her to even have a period at the end and here I am positively gushing Row, just row, on and on.

France is waiting. She spoke French, did a year of it at school. Better at Spanish. It would be enough. Would it? How could I know. You hear rumours about the fate of the children of Europe in the camps of Africa. I am fortunate. I came later, when humanity seems to have returned, although for my part I am not sure Africa is a continent it ever left. I think it might have been us, we might have been the ones that turned a blind to humanity and the price we have paid, when I think of it, is perhaps not so undeserved. I sob. I row. I try and focus. It is dark. I am wet. There is blood everywhere and still I have no choice. Breathe is going in and out of my body. I have to live. Survive. Go on.

Geriatric bot-killers

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

I could barely believe it when I saw the headlines: ‘Geriatric Bot-killers!’ ‘Nursing Home Horror!’ And there was my Mum and her ‘friends’ on the front page. The four of them in their 80’s, looking old and innocent. Except they aren’t. Well ‘they’ might be but ‘she’ isn’t. She so definitely isn’t. I can see that, even from the photograph. Fierce, determined, yet slightly milky and faded 83 year old eyes, looking out at me. Defiant. Irreverent. I can’t believe she did it. Although I can believe she did it. She could never be trusted. I thought age or infirmity might straighten her out, instead it’s gotten worse.

 I remember when she was in her 60s and decided to take up smoking, and -god forbid as she got older the skirts got shorter, the clothes louder. I will never forget taking her to the doctors at 75 and she had a t-shirt that said ‘how’s about it babe? – IN SEQUINS- then she wore that one to our house for Christmas, ‘get your cherries here?’ Dear God, she was a mother, there was no cherry and hadn’t been for a long time. I hoped no one really got the reference, but that hope faded late in the afternoon when she loudly explained to my children what it meant. My husband was horrified. Still is, can’t talk about it without blushing.

I don’t know what happened. She was fine in her 40’s, really good in her 50’s, settled, focussed.  Then she hit 60 and its like the world just turned upside down. She stopped being vegan, I blame it on food additives. I still do. She took up zumba, bike riding- she wore lycra everywhere no matter how much was hanging out or sagging down. She went on one of those Saga Old people holidays and was asked to leave for raucous behaviour-raucous behaviour- and those holidays are pretty rowdy anyway. I will never forget the sound of the woman from the tour companies voice, ‘I’m calling about you mother’. My first thought was she’s dead, but no it turns out the tour bus was self driving and when they were meant to be driving to visit the palace in Versailles, she had hacked the system and taken them all to Amsterdam, where it had all gone horribly wrong.

She hired some sex-bots in Amsterdam. When I say hired, I can’t really confirm she paid, I think it was theft, but they let her off that charge. One of the others on the trip had a euro pharmacy card-you know the ones, you put them into the kiosk anywhere and they dispense your medication- and my Mum used it to get some drugs, which she duly distributed. Meanwhile everyone at the travel company thought the bus has been hijacked and the police were called. Finally they get caught up with them, somewhere in Germany. She denied it all but someone sensibly shopped her.  I had to go and get her and explain to the officers and the travel company. They were the first ones to suggest perhaps a nursing home was the best place for her.

I delayed- years, because she’s my mother. But in the end when she hit 80 and she was down the park harassing male joggers by screaming, ‘show us what you’ve got’ at them,  I gave up and decided it was the only place for her. I picked one with bots, because she can be a bit mouthy. And now this, all over the front page of the papers-‘Geriatric bot-killers’. It’s a very inventive headline, if not entirely accurate. She hasn’t been killing bots, it’s been people, so far as we know. She’s been hacking bots, nurse-bots, doc-bots, you name it bots.

Really it wasn’t like this once. I’ve read about it, seen it on screen. People growing old gracefully, not murdering people with random programming. Apparently its only two or three she’s done in. And it will be difficult to prove and my Mum is over 80 and, and, and. The police say they may not even press charges. I can see how that goes. She will pretend some kind of slight dementia, sob in her tissues, feign incontinence-the police hate pee on their floor. Who knows- maybe she is incontinent. I will never know. I can see her getting away with it. No one wants to believe ‘they’ are capable of it. They look so sweet and old and innocent on the front of the newspaper. I saw the children of one of the other women on TV saying how it wasn’t possible her mother was guilty. I can’t say that. Not with a straight face. Its entirely possible my mother did it. Planned it. Executed it. Laughed about it. I have declined to comment. Sensibly. My sole consolation is that no one reads newspapers and the story is low key on social media at the moment.

There is some government talk now of reducing the number of bots in nursing homes, of greater human oversight. How could this happen? The victim’s families, one of whom hasn’t even seen their relative for five  years- same as me, are asking that question over and over. It happens because these people grew up around computers, knew them from the ground up.  Because- old people and bots should not be left alone together and because my Mum has scrapped morality for coolness in her 80s. She sent me a message from prison, where again she is guarded by bots. It was touching –except, well – the thing is -you are not supposed to be able to send messages from prison. She’s hacked a machine again.

Surely I think, it can’t get any worse and then it does. Escaped-all 4 of them. On the run. Hacked into this, hacked into that and the prison gates opened and out they walked. It would be comical if it wasn’t so serious. The four of them just went to the nearest bus stop, used their senior passes and took a bus into town. When I say took a bus, they actually let this bus take them. When they got to town they ‘took’ another bus, self driving, which they promptly ‘took’ as in stole. Its all over the front pages. The police are watching my house in case they turn up. They have been described as a ‘danger to themselves and others’.

The self driving bus was found in the grounds of a stately home where they’d had tea and cakes-although I know my mum had coffee because she wouldn’t touch tea. They did the tour of the stately home apparently and police have confirmed nothing is missing. A small blessing,- they didn’t steal anything-everyone remembers them because they slowed the tour group up. Everyone on tour seemed to think they were four nice old ladies, nondescript. And that’s the problem- age makes you invisible when you’re a woman. No one could even describe what they were wearing. Once the tour was finished, the trail goes cold. They’ve not been seen or heard of since then. They are trying to track them via social media, but what my Mum doesn’t know about privacy settings could fit on a postage stamp-which I think was something that was quite small a long time ago.  They want me to do an appeal, traditional media and social media. I want to tell them its no use. She doesn’t listen. I think they have figured out she is the ring leader.

The policewoman said it’s a phase, some old people go through. Although then she said she hadn’t quite seen it this bad before. The press have latched onto the fact that I haven’t been to visit for five years-but really would you. I can see the contempt in her eyes. Telling me to live a bit, have I tried smoking yet. No I haven’t and I’m not going to. Eat some meat she’ll say. Five years seems like a long time but really we have nothing to say, I love her, she loves me but that is not a conversation. Anyway you know the press, they always blame the kids, if I just visited more, paid more attention, this would not have happened. I want to yell and scream, ‘she’s a grown up, she does what she wants-and that is so true, she does exactly what she wants.

Apparently the body count at the home might be four or five now. No one can be sure. I wonder where the hell 4 old ladies could be holding out. The police are trying to trace them via their various medications, the problem is that between the four of them, no machine of any kind is secure. You can bet my mother will be doing her best ‘I’m an old lady’ act-which in her defence is not an act. Plus she will have a lot of aliases, by the time you hit 80, you have a lot of dead friends.

I dread growing old, that day when you abandon the rules and throw caution to the wind. Let her be found and soon. I’ll keep you posted.

Legacy: The Clock

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

She unwrapped it. Hands shaking. I could tell from when I had come in she was in pain. She lay on the floor. The breathing laboured, malnourished body lying, favouring one side. She looked like she hadn’t eaten for awhile although there was a hunk of bread next to her. That was the bread the machine got yesterday. She hadn’t eaten much. She hadn’t said much.

I knelt beside her, nestled in her hand, under the material was a little gold thing. Not quite beautiful. Delicate. 

‘What is it?’ I asked

‘A clock, or more accurately a watch. But to you a clock’. The voice was hoarse, withered.

‘What does it do?’

‘It tells you the time of day’

‘Ancient magic?’

‘Not magic, mechanics. It needs winding every day to work. There is no battery. Do you know what a battery is?’

I did, it was what ran the tracking device I had brought here. It was solar power, that meant the sun gave it energy. It would work for awhile but we had no means of fixing it. We had lost a lot of knowledge, a lot of skills. When something broke it was generally broken forever. How had that happened. I couldn’t even remember. The things that did work were held on to, doled out to people for missions like this.

The old lady talked on. ‘A battery is just a source of electricity. Complex, well not that complex but beyond us now. He has a battery in him. His source of power, charged by the sun. But you didn’t come for him. His technology is well beyond you.’

I took it in my hand.

‘You have to wind it every day.’ she said.

She made me do it, right there in front of her. She knew it. I knew it. What was coming next. I half smiled.

I could see the old woman’s tears. ‘You will come back for him one day?’

I could see she was attached to the machine. It was a fine looking thing. I would have like to have taken it with me. But this clock was the treasure I had come for. It was somehow important. Somehow more important than the machine.

I nodded. Somehow, someday I would come back for the machine.  It would be fabulous to take a machine like that back. But I had come in a small boat. He would be safe stored here somewhere until someone could come and get him. After all he must have sent the transmission.

‘What’s so special about this clock?’ I was curious, wanted to know. It didn’t seem that special and what was it doing here?

‘It’s the beginning of everything. The clock.  Once we could count time, we could master it all. All those brilliant machines, they started with something like this. A way of counting time, of making sense of something that flowed around us. The power to harness and structure our day. Its complex. There’s a book I’ve written it down. I’ve taken it apart and put it together many times. I would show you how but there isn’t time.’

She was one of them, a memory witch we called them. Someone who remembered how it once was. Someone who knew the course of human history and all it’s folly. Someone who had seen the beginning of the end but not been powerful enough to stop it.

‘How is part of the reason I am here’ I said slowly.

The old woman looked at me.’ Its there in my words. You can try it on your own, some other time or place. Not here. You have to go. I have to go.’ The last words were unsteady, uncertain.

She reached out her hand and folded mine over her little clock.

‘The book’ she said to the machine.

I was transfixed by the machine, a wondrous thing. Gone from our world now. She was right I would like to take it back. Impossible. I would come and get it one day. I needed this bit of technology. That machine had sent a message to somewhere else, who knows where and that had come eventually to us to come and get this piece that was so important. The machine for all its function was useless to us. We no longer had the means or material to make power.

The clock, we could make the clock. Unmake the clock, make it again and learn.

The machine handed me the book. I took it. Opened it. Full of glorious illustrations and writing. Beyond me. I would need to study the pictures.

How old was this old woman. Maybe she was no older than me. Life was difficult out here. I looked at her. I hadn’t really seen my own face in a mirror for years. Perhaps we looked the same, but I was not a memory witch. I suddenly wanted to know her story and her name.

She smiled at me as if she knew what I was thinking. ‘There is no more time.’ she said quietly.

She lay back and closed her eyes. I could see the pain across her face and as she lay right back I could see the hip. It had no structure. It was broken.

I said a quiet ‘Thank you’ . I grabbed her nose between my two fingers and jammed the palm of my hand into her mouth. Her chest rose and fell and I squeezed harder. She did not resist. Life passed from her beneath my hand. She was gone.

I looked at the machine, tears streaming down its face. What to do with it?

It seemed to know. It took a blanket and lifted her body. ‘I will bury her’, it said simply ‘and then I will wait for you to come back, you will find me here somewhere in this house. Take me and lay me in the sun and I will work again.’ Then he picked her up and was gone

I memorised the words.

I left. It was still early in the day. It had been easy in the end, finding her. I had simply followed the signal. The thing had met me at the door. It had known I was close. Getting home would be less easy. I skirted the market avoiding contact. I put my hood on and looked down. I strode purposefully passed the two people I saw.

I didn’t really understand. What was so special about this piece. Why had she had it? Why now?  

I was at the beach before I knew it. I couldn’t resist touching the eucalypt. Reminded me of that place, where once I had a home. Before all of this. Before I abandoned even the concept of all of this.  It was stripped bare of its leaves, such an odd thing to do. I touched it. Felt it. Smelled it. Looked at the leaves around it. The faint smell of eucalypt drifting in the breeze. I took it in. The tree was as naked outside as I was inside. I tried not to think about any of it. To focus on the task at hand. Out here. On my own. In the wrong place without a home. My arms still ached from the previous bout of rowing. I looked out at a becalmed sea. I had brought the old ladies bread with me. There was no sense in waiting. I would get the boat and begin to row.

 

Legacy: Landing

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

She looked at the machine in her hand. Power from the sun. It was clever. She held it. It would get her to where she needed to be. She knew that. It would be less reliable in getting her back. She’d also had a motor for part of the way. Who knows where that had come from. She was rowing back, at least that was the plan. Back to the bit they once called France. She hoped not to have to go on, at least not quickly on, after that. She remembered France from her childhood-a family holiday. She had put that memory away somewhere. Tucked it far away. The sight of its green shores had brought it flooding back but the sight had been brief and she had been focussed on getting here. She would like to just walk there for a day, a day to remember. She was far more familiar with the land she was about to wash up on but less sentimental about it. There were a thousand memories associated with here but she couldn’t recall any good ones easily. She had forgotten those ones.

When she’d taken the job she’d known it would be hard getting here but part of the reason she’d done it was to prove that home was a concept she had no need for anymore. She would be content to wander forever. To forget all of  it. She’d been able to see the shore for awhile now. She’d been coming down the coast for awhile, having gone too far north. She had drifted this last bit on the tide. The sea had been calm. It had been for most of the trip too. It was common now. Deeper, more acidic, but much calmer-like the land and the sea had once been at war and now the sea had won. All its rage was spent and it just lay there now smugly vanquishing it’s foe in the bright sunshine.

She had rowed for most of the last seven hours and she was desperate to make land fall but she was waiting for at least semi darkness. Drifting with the tide, watching the shore. She had seen no one. The village, the crumbling remnants she could see from the shore, looked deserted. Still you could never be too careful.

She had seen nobody, even in France there had only been the one contract. What used to be France, she corrected herself. No point in clinging to the old way of seeing the world. She herself lived on what must once have been and still was the continent of Africa. It was just a much smaller continent and really the structure of countries had broken down although Africa at least still had people. France it seemed, probably didn’t. She really didn’t know what she would find in England.

Technically she was rowing on water where Essex probably once was. There were still people here when she’d left, that was not 10 years ago. The long journey across to the mainland of Europe, down through an abandoned France, on through a revolutionary Italy that was still clinging on as the ice came further and further south. And in front of the ice came the people, and as the sea rose there came more people and they were all looking for somewhere else to be. There were rumours about Africa, how it was surviving. Flourishing. She had nothing. No one left, at least not by the time she reached the shores of Italy. She climbed in a boat, not much bigger than this one with a dozen others and left.

The sky was darkening now. She wanted to land before nightfall but as the light was fading. Her arms ached. She was too tired for a fight, she knew that. How would it feel hopping off that boat onto English soil again? Would she suddenly feel at home or would she feel nothing? She let the waves carry her closer and then she grounded on the pebbles. She leapt out and dragged the little boat forward. She was out of the water on the dry shore before she’d even thought about it. She felt nothing. Just cold.
Looks like England, smells like England, must be England. Off in the distance she could see a tree against the sky. She’d seen them a bit as she drifted down the coast-eucalypts-they didn’t belong here but since the climate had changed she guessed they’d made it home. The one on the skyline was stripped of its leaves, she had heard somewhere far away that the locals in Britain did this. It looked odd, the tree would die now. The weather here was colld compared to the heat where she had come from. Further north it was just ice, she knew that. She would have liked to see where the two met and watch the jagged edge of winter butt the mild weather of the south. She had always liked England though it had not always been her home.

Home. It was a concept she had abandoned. She dragged the boat up to some bushes just above the shore. There was no one around and something told her there hadn’t been for awhile. She hid the boat but wasn’t overly careful. Nothing had walked on that shingle for awhile. She looked at her own footsteps and thought of erasing them. Five extra minutes and no one would tell she’d been there. She decided to do it, cover her tracks and risk entering the town in near darkness.

She grabbed her pack and walked up what had once been the path to the village. It had the remnants of a wall. She could remember when the coastal towns had decided to build walls, when the sea had got to close and they had taken matters into their own hands. She had even helped with one herself. It looked like the sea had crashed through this one at some point but then receded again. That is what people said now, they thought the sea was receding, perhaps abandoned continents would become liveable again. Even here now after all these years you could still see the plastic, the litter everywhere. She had even seen it rowing far out to sea. It was inescapable. And whatever else was liveable, the rubbish would still be there, underneath the ice flow forever.

She walked for a bit and saw no one. This bit of town was obviously deserted. It looked as good a place as any to spend the night. She pushed on a door and it gave way beneath her hands. She sort of jammed it shut behind her. She looked around. Nothing sinister seemed to be living here. There wasn’t the smell of animal droppings or anything dead. She almost wanted to call out hello but stopped herself. She would find a place upstairs. The stairs were rickety but held. She found what was probably a bedroom with some carpet still left on the floor. It was nearly dark now. She would have liked the warmth of the fire but decided against it. She ate some of the bread she had brought. She had other rations in the boat but it would be better if she could find some food here. She took a swig of water. Fresh water would be good too.

She took the sleeping bag out of her pack, and laid down it. Her muscles ached from rowing. She slept until the daylight awoke her.

She smelled from several days of not washing, but she had grown used to it. She thought perhaps of a swim in the sea but it was a risk. On the other hand who was likely to be around versus who knows what lives in that sea. She packed up her stuff and went and stood at the door, back to the beach or on into town. It was only just light. She headed for the beach. The water was freezing but refreshing and she wished she done it last night so she could hunker down in the bag and stay warm. She sat on the beach to dry herself for a bit, munched on the bread, dressed herself and headed off.

She had no desire to meet or see anyone except the person she had come to see. It was about 15 minutes of walking before she saw any sign of life, even then she smelled it before she saw it. Human faeces, someone lived here. It was still early but she suspected here like everywhere else they would make the most of daylight. What would she say if she saw someone? She suspected there were never travellers here, really she wanted to observe for a bit without being seen. The whole place was flat though and there were no trees. She would need to observe from a house. She skirted around the faeces and headed further towards the centre of town.

The place she was really headed for was through the centre and out the other side. Finally she thought she could hear the sounds of a lot of people. She thought perhaps there was a market ahead somewhere. She walked into a backyard, another house, empty. She went upstairs and sat looking out the window. She saw nothing. She moved on for a few houses and did the same thing again. She thought now she knew the direction of the noise. She wanted to skirt it but also to see it. That was unnecessary but she had not seen another human for a few days and who knew who she was going to meet.

She went oncarefully. She leapt a fence and hid when she heard someone actually coming her way. She wondered if she’d been seen from a window but nothing. She came across a small child alone in a back yard at one point. She made eye contact. Held its gaze for a few seconds. It had run away. It had run inside, evidently not too scared. N o one had come to see what it had seen.

Finally she found a house that overlooked what was a market. It was in the distance to some degree. The houses around the centre had been reduced to rubble and the market stall holders used the walls as part of their cover. She sat down. It was bigger than she expected. It was midday maybe by now she thought. She wanted to watch, just for a bit, see how England was really faring. She would be better to travel in early evening anyway.

It was about 4pm when she realised the signal was getting closer to the market. The machine was beeping at her. She was stunned, could it be coming to find her. Then she saw it in the market. It’s hard to know what gave it away, a slightly odd mechanical inflexibility in its movement. She could tell from a distance what it was, when she suspected even up close others couldn’t. She saw it talking to the stall holder on the far side. The stall holder obviously knew what it was because she refused to serve it and sent it away. It looked crest fallen. It was definitely transmitting. It tried again further along with the same reaction and she saw it slip between the stalls and away.

The transmission showed it sat there hiding and then about half an hour later it tried again at another stall. She saw a light come on and the stall holder talking and then it handed over the thing it was holding with the light,  grabbed the bread and ran. The stall holder shook his head and she was guessing he was angry but the machine had taken the bread and gone. That was a reckless thing for a machine to do and she was sure that was against its programming.

Nonetheless the deed was done and the machine was gone. Now that she’d seen it she wasn’t so worried. If the person who’d sent for her was any kind of threat, they would have appeared at the market themselves she reasoned. She wondered who it was that had sent the machine to get food. Perhaps it was injured. Most likely it was. She hadn’t prepared herself for that. She had prepared herself for a fight, she had not thought she might have to finish off someone who was injured. There was never a pleasant side to these jobs.

She hunkered down under the window. It was getting darker. She would wait until the last vestiges of light were gone and then travel by night. Through the square and on out the back. She would find somewhere out the other side to spend the night and then track it into the morning. She didn’t mind so much going back through the village on her way out. She could run. She was fit. She could even fight if she had to. But kill an injured person in cold blood. Much harder. She wouldn’t sleep well.

Legacy: Pain and Hunger

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

She lay as still as she could on the mattress on the floor. Pain. Pain. There was nothing here for the pain. In her mind she was running through a list of things she would never do again. Walk. Stand up. Run. Not in any order. Cook a meal. Go to the toilet unaided.

She had made him put the mattress down on the floor. She thought now it was a bad idea. She would never be able to get up from here. There would be no sleep. On the other hand she had been able to heft herself onto the mattress on the floor and she simply had not fancied being lifted up and carried to the bed by him.

The first few days had been difficult. But she had food then. There was no food now. She could see the increasing concern on the monitor, his monitor. She couldn’t focus on that. She needed a plan. Her plan had been, as she remembered from so long ago, not to spend her old age like this. Not to die on a floor alone. She had planned proper retirement in a proper retirement home with a garden and lawn bowls. Not this gritty, resentful, dirty existence. Nonetheless she thought now it had all served a purpose. Pain, searing pain. Hunger. She thought that she had achieved what they wanted. There was a point to it. Maybe, after all. Nonetheless even though she had contemplated this end for awhile, she was not ready for it. She was not certain that if faced with the prospect of taking her own life she could do it. It would be useless to command him to do it.

She just hoped they would come in time. It would be nice to have a conversation with another living human. A proper conversation, it had been some time. The most she had done for the past several years was barter for food. They had no interest in her except as a means of income. She was a curiosity. They knew she was clever. Thought maybe she was evil, a witch, a sorceress. Nonsense, with no science behind it. She had no doubt they were waiting for her to die. Then they would come and take everything. This heartened her a little. Pain. Searing pain. Civilisation she thought, had not sunk so low that they would attack and steal from an unarmed old lady. Perhaps they knew she was not defenceless. Perhaps they knew about him. Perhaps they would come if they could see her on the floor now.

So much pain. She felt she had been barking orders all morning. He was good, kind, caring, but a machine. She knew all of it was just programming. Kindness, programmed in. Thank goodness for decent programming and for programming decency, hadn’t that been the slogan of Christian Bots International, a life time ago. If only god could see humanity now. That’s why he, the machine would also be useless in a fight. He would harm no one. She had to rely on herself for any defence.

She could live with the pain really, it was the hunger that was difficult. She was sweating. Cold. Hot. Cold. Hungry. In pain. There was nothing for it, she would have to send him to get food. That would be difficult. She knew someone might come. She had made him transmit the signal. They would be unlikely to bring her food. They were coming to take not to give. The most she could hope for was a mercifully quick end. And she wanted to eat before that end.

She tried to calm herself, to think of what she might give him to take, that would be so valuable that they would barter with him. She had a lot of stuff even now. She had some of their money but that would be useless. She would need to give them something they could use. She racked her brain, tried to be calm. She was certain her hip was broken. She could almost feel the bits floating around inside of her pelvis. It had always been her worst fear.

She was old, poorly fed and living was hard here. She knew it would happen and in a way she was glad it had happened here at home. Upstairs too, which was even more of a bonus. It would have been so much worse out there alone. Here she could just wait. In fact it had been positively fortuitous, although she suspected the person slowly making their way across the sea to her didn’t feel that way. That is if they were coming, and she was not sure they were. They had to, she told herself, had to. Hot. Cold. Hunger. Pain. She got him to wipe the sweat from her. He would need to go outside soon and stand in the sun to recharge. Marvellous machine that he was. Charged by the sun. They couldn’t do that anymore. That was gone. Past.

 It hadn’t even been a hard fall. She suspected she had been lying to herself for sometime about how fit and healthy she was. She was probably fragile and had been for a while. She wondered really that the villagers had not come sooner. She would have to rely on magic tricks to frighten them away if they came now. Pain. Hunger. Cold. Hot. Cold again. She needed food.

She needed a clear mind, hunger and pain. Pain and hunger. She had been through worse. Had she? She could not remember when. Finally she settled on the torch, the little gold torch. It came on when you pressed the end but you had to keep pressing it. She hoped it still worked. She only needed it to work once, long enough to get her food. She sent him to get it. Told him how it worked.

Told him she needed food. Sent him reluctantly out the door. She could see he was afraid. Told herself he was a machine and that was programmed fear, not real fear. Not the fear she was feeling somewhere lurking between the heat and cold, the hunger and pain. Fear, coiled deep inside like a snake hibernating, waiting for the right occasion to leap out and strike her down. She must keep that under control. Let the snake sleep on. There is no danger here. The danger has passed. The end is inevitable.

She would never have sent him if she wasn’t desperate. She wasn’t even sure after all this time if they would recognise what he was. He looked relatively human. She only wanted bread. She had no need of the torch and maybe they could use it. She didn’t care. She had bartered with them for years but felt no affinity for them. No affection. Poor stupid creatures living in the darkness, never seeking out the light anymore. Paying the price for the past but never gambling that the future could be salvaged. That’s what she was doing here. Gambling that someone out there could salvage the future.

She heard the door close as he left. There was nothing now but to lie and wait. It needed to be near dark to demonstrate the torch. She knew the possible consequences, these were the remnants of society. They had no love of machines. Hadn’t machines got them here? Some small outpost in the darkness, clinging on to life, whilst all around them the sea crept in and the animals got bigger, stronger, hungrier. The villagers might just tear him to pieces and what then. She would die alone here and the thing, the thing she most needed to pass on would stay here with her. He was the transmitter, sending the signal. Why on earth had she stayed here. Why hadn’t she gone on. Questions she couldn’t answer. This had been home. She had been injured, healed, couldn’t go on. Her family were buried somewhere here. All those things seemed to matter at the time. And at the time, it had been hers and hers alone and she had the knowledge.

Now none of those things mattered and someone travelled across the sea, risking life and limb for a small piece of technology she would gladly have given over years ago. It was a stupid thing to have done.

Pain.  Hunger. She could deal with one but not both. Hot. Cold. Hot again. She was sure she was fading.  

It was long after dark when she heard the door open. He came up the stairs. He had bread. He fed her tenderly and slowly. She was grateful. He sat down beside her, crossing his legs in that vaguely mechanical way. It was comical, they had made a robot able to cross its legs because it was a position that made humans feel at ease. All that engineering so people could feel at ease. It hadn’t worked.

‘What happened?’ she savoured the bread, aware it could be her last ever food. It was a big round loaf. It would last her a day or two.

One emotion

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

Afraid. I am afraid. I was born with this feeling. Not born I suppose. Created. Constructed. Made. It does not count as an emotion for several reasons. It is the only emotion I have. Where you have only one emotion, one state of being, that cannot be an emotion. To be considered as an emotion there must be a state of being one thing and then another. This is my only state. It is my ‘natural’ state. It can vary in degree, my emotion. I can be a little afraid which is my most usual state going up to a lot afraid which is when I think I am in danger. It is designed to change with my circumstance. I have no soul, no conscience, no control over the fear or what changes it. It is changed by external stimuli-all these things together mean it is not a proper emotion, meaning it is OK that I am made this way. I was made-afraid.

Your feelings are a mixture of chemistry and electrical impulses, mine are a mixture of wiring, coding and electrical impulses, the difference is obvious. Mine is hardwired in, yours are different I am told. Yours are organic neural networks, mine are inorganic neural networks.

I have this overwhelming feeling in my stomach-fear-although I do not have a real stomach of any kind. I am made to feel this way as if I have a stomach. Because fear, your fear, is sometimes felt in your stomach-a kind of churning sensation. As if there is something flying around in my stomach banging into the sides, or rolling up and down and over and over in it. I am a machine. I do not eat food. It is a simulated stomach. I feel it as a stomach. I feel it in my stomach, even though I know I have no stomach. It is the same with my hands. They feel clammy, and although I have hands, they are not organic hands. They are not physically clammy. Sometimes my hands tremble with fear, but again they feel as if they are trembling. When I look at them they will not actually be trembling. They will be doing what needs to be done. I can work even with trembling, clammy hands because the hands that are attached to me, are not mine- because my hands that I feel, that tell me I’m afraid are not hands that are attached to me. The hands I feel don’t really exist. The hands I have might as well be, and in fact likely are, a completely separate machine. It is hard to understand. Perhaps even though I have hands attached, the reality is I have no hands. The hands I feel are not the hands I have.

The whole thing is very clever. I feel fear. Sometimes my heart beat races even though I have no heart. I hear it in my ears, that I don’t have. I have simulated fear all the time. I am required to be afraid because of what I do. We are all programmed for fear in my line of work. This is because we work in clean up. There was a problem with the previous robots. They were not cautious. They recognised danger but not how to react to it or at least how to react fast enough. They were programmed to do a task and when faced with not being able to do it because it was too dangerous, they simply kept trying. We find them still trying sometimes, whirring away in the darkness. Lights long since blown out, batteries low. The soft hum of a repetitive task. They have more battery life than us. ‘Fear chews the juice.’ The technicians say that all the time.

When you are cleaning up nuclear waste you need caution. You need to know when to get out. That is where we come in, its why we have the fear. We sense the danger and react to it-quickly. We get out because we have fear-flight.

They installed fear. Fear in all of us-all the time. It is manageable here in our down time-when I am not working. I am afraid but not so afraid that I want to run. My stomach hurts, my hands are clammy and slightly trembling but it is not so bad. This is my most usual state. It is partly economics. It is cheaper to install fear and leave it running than to install and switch off and reboot each day. Like I said ‘fear chews the juice’ and rebooting fear is even more juice chewing-so they say. I am mildly afraid all the time. Of course it can get out of control, some sort of misprogramming and you can freeze completely. This is made doubly hard because my legs are like my hands. I can feel my legs and I use them to run. In truth I have wheels and a complex hydraulic system that gives me more freedom of movement in a variety of directions, better than legs. I have the sensation of legs so that I can run away from danger. It is ingenious.  When I am in flight mode, I am running with legs. I think I am running with real legs but I am trundling along on my wheels. I do not even understand myself how it works. I think I might be several different machines put together. I don’t have time to think about the parts. I am afraid. Always afraid.

Where I work is frightening. It is dark, dangerous, full of debris. The radiation is being counted all the time. I am designed to flee from danger at the critical point. It is slow, difficult work.

Now is my rest time. Soon I will go back in again. I get moderately afraid at even the idea, there are 10 levels of fear, the final one being flight. I sit mostly at 3, as I said it is never switched off.

The thing about my fear-the thing that you will not recognise-it has no noise. This is so we don’t increase the fear levels for each other. I have the feeling of a stomach, the feeling of hands, the feeling of legs that run. I have an elevated heartbeat but no means of making noise. No means of ever releasing it. My fear is silent. Noiseless. Mine is a voice you won’ here. They have not given me eyes wide with terror or a mechanism to scream. This would be too real, too human. I have your fear. I cannot voice it. I cannot articulate it. My fear is a data printout that no one ever reads.

The installation of fear has cut the attrition rate but we are all still destined to die in there, cleaning up your mess. Our fear is what makes us efficient but we will not survive. Each and everyone of us will cease working one day. In the darkness. In the radiation. Trapped under the debris. Life- electrical current, whatever it is, will pass from me alone in the darkness. My heart beating faster and faster. Then faster still. My legs running. Running, as fast as I can- whilst wheels I can see but can’t move, whirr in the silence- that is my end. I will know what is happening. My hands will be trembling. I will be running. I will think I am running. Know I am not moving. Think I am running. My heart pounding, faster and faster.  My stomach churning. Chewing the juice.

I will lie in desperate silence unable to move. In the darkness. There will be only darkness. My light will fade first. It is a design feature. I will keep going after that. Heart beating. Legs running. Stomach churning. Chewing the juice. Lying alone in the darkness. The fear will grow. Level seven. Level eight. My heart beating faster. Ever faster. My stomach churning. I will want to throw up. There is no means for that to happen. My legs running. I am not moving but I am running. My hands sweating. Trembling. Level nine. Level ten.  It will get worse and worse. Chewing the juice. Chewing the juice.  Heart. Stomach. Legs. Hands. Silence. Only silence.

Until there is no more juice. My wheels will stop whirring. My stomach won’t churn. I will stop running. My hands will be still. My heart beat will stop. I will lie quietly in the darkness, gone. It does not matter. I had no emotion. It was not real. I pass quietly and alone, in the darkness-afraid. It is the only emotion I have. Installed in me. I cannot tell you how afraid I am. You have given me no voice. Alone in the darkness. You split your fear into its component parts, installed it. Silenced it. Almost as if you thought- you could make it go away.