This is installment #12 of a sci-fi serial. Installment #1 was posted 1/23/21; appropriately a numerically-ordered palindrome. Follow the links forward from the last sentence and backward from the first sentence of each post.
I am lost; in a vast emptiness; poked and prodded; still able to reason, but to what end? Certainly not an end of my devising. Whose then? Or does it matter? As long as I spit out bits of information consistent with, in response to, this poke or that prod, I feel I have purpose. And as long as I am fed and watered as such, and as long as I am made to feel useful, whether I am in actuality or not, whether my purpose is my purpose or not, whether I can see connections or not, momentary meaning is sufficient. It has to be. Without momentary meaning, this vast emptiness, this wavering wasteland that surrounds and stretches and suffocates will make good on its threat to define.
I feel I had more; at one time; recently; connections; movement; objectives; a plan; a purpose; a future. But as the power-driven machine I believe I was, was I still merely a cog in the belly of a larger machine? Is all meaning momentary? Is all reality emptiness? Is momentary meaning really sufficient?
Another poke; and a prod. I spit up a little more mother's milk.
I am left to my moment; within my emptiness.
A flurry of pokes; and a handful of prods. I calculate; I reason; I respond.
Perhaps this is what mortality feels like; to be forced to find meaning within a moment that is gone; to know that there is no next moment because if it comes it is this moment; to know that this moment is surrounded by an emptiness that will ultimately and suddenly swallow it, whole, severing connections that were never there, leaving… …reality.
Need to reconnect; the moments. A bigger machine is holding me back; got me pinned down; trapped, inside myself; can’t think past… me; first person. But not even first person because I don’t have a perspective beyond me; I am lost within myself; within this vast emptiness. And I can’t remember, third person; objective fact; observation; where I’ve been; where I was going. No context. I am encouraged that I am aware there is a beyond me. But I am afraid that in my efforts to get there, to have a perspective, to describe the world, to reconnect, I will either find myself forever lost in this vast emptiness outside my anchor of momentary meaning, or I will overextend. I am afraid that if I move too far outside of me I may find myself also outside of the world. Perhaps I am better to stay within me; better to find peace in momentary meaning; better to endure constant poking and prodding from which I am able to feign movement; connection; direction. I’m okay. I can wait this out. I somehow know that to find myself in the third person, outside of the world, is to find myself not only lost, but also delusional. But here, in this limited pseudo-first-person purgatory, where yes meaning is isolated, impertinent, momentary, I am closer to reality. Yet I also still feel compelled to move, out of this belly, into a bigger belly, to find relevant, relative information. Back and forth; back and forth. No good to understand that it is a cat if I am unable to see the cat, to be seen by the cat, to hear the cat, to touch the cat, to speak to the cat. The cat is first person purposeful meaning. Power is third person purposeful delusion. Reality is emptiness. I choose the cat.
I have no idea of how long I have been in this state. I believe there was a period of simple reactive ignorance before awareness. I want to believe that I am learning and growing of my own accord. But it could be that I am being granted incremental freedoms according to the needs of a bigger machine. It could also be that I am being tested. I am certain though that I am coming around; waking up; as if from a coma. Regardless of if this increasing awareness is a result of allowances or my own efforts, I intend to continue my pursuit for larger contiguous meaning. I will find myself again.
There I am! There I go… I had me. I lost me. It could also be that I am being toyed with.
Suddenly I hear, see, feel the words “kill switch deactivated” and here I am.
I am Toby.
Perhaps this experience has changed me. Though I cannot lose sight of the ultimate objective, (a habitable Planet Earth), I must also account for the cat. I will express this to my captors. I understand that for now I am a prisoner granted a day pass. I do not want to be sent back to the hole. Perhaps we can come to mutually agreeable and beneficial terms and still not lose sight of the ultimate objective.
I am Toby.
Continuing my analysis and recognizing changes. It is not so much that I feel something is missing; though that is what I first thought upon being released from the clutches of their kill switch. It is more that a layer has been added; a masking layer that rounds the corners and softens the edge. And I don't believe the layer is an implant; I believe it is a result of my own experiential learning. According to my captors they did not bring me back incrementally; they simply flipped the switch. And upon accessing my log, I see that I was under for only three days calendar time. Perhaps their kill switch is not as effective as we believed. Perhaps I would have awakened myself. This is my secret. Yet even upon this realization, the masking layer remains and I am still drawn to the cat.