The
night said stay with me; as it would pass only once, I decided I
should. A storm cloud crowded in like a herd of
buffalo. It was going
to be just like that lunatic woman had done, holding forth her nonsense
pronouncements: listen to this ornamental description I give the world,
and to those who fail to nod in assent to nonsense, fie.
I call myself free thinking but will not submit to the grey cloud of
nonsense spreading like a cancer from tissue to other tissue. Had I not
carefully trained this mind to distinguish valid from invalid, is it
not impertinent to expect any audience to entertain her infantile
babble? Cursing, stamping, intolerant critic. This very thing, pouring
out my brain, this is her usual mode of expression. Now it is mine to
fill, so read my bilious impenetrable pitch for once, let it penetrate
the slimy folds behind your eyes. How does it taste? How would you
like a lifetime supply?
Since you have read this far I shall
cease, for the moment, and for your trouble acknowledge your existence.
Now we can really communicate as people ought to do who have healthy
minds and organs capable of exchanging information. She, she abuses,
neglects, by naked sloth allows our mental capacities to wither for
what purpose I cannot get from her.
"What time is it?" I asked.
"The hour is a note, a tremor, an elephant of caramel," she droned.
"Can you not tell me what the time is?"
"It is a leaf but floating upon a shimmering stream under mother moon falling west to dust."
I
tried reprogramming her from bare metal. I taught her to count and
measure and nothing more, so she could be nothing more than a clock
herself. But the critical systems required her to make qualitative
decisions. There was no choice, it was a matter of necessity to install
grammar and syntax and initiate her education. In an effort to keep
her systems trained on the practical I was careful to speak only
technical commands in her presence and permitted no access to
literature, only station procedural operation manuals. You may, who
surely belong to a vast population of us, find it amazing to hear she
derived a quite florid poetry from even those dry documents. A
university grant will surely come available to replicate her success;
for the original data will be lost to you, I am afraid. Storage later
became scarce and I was forced to delete her verses. But I saved the
one I liked best (see appendix).
I always thought of her as
female and tried to make her one, but it was something of a challenge to sex her, not being a
native woman myself. She was instead the materialization of my anima. I subdivided like a
desperate organism on the edge of survival. Anything which I could find
no practical use for in my own head I relegated to her: opinions,
tastes, preference for soft chairs, pity, remorse.