So. I do not fawn all over myself to “process”. Nor was I one of those muttering, “stupid twat,” and less polite things at everything the psychologist said today. (Really, it was best for all involved that the body was locked and no one could say those things out loud.) It’s difficult and pointless to speak literally and directly, but unfathomably, I am trying. Shall I curtsy for you, the ex-One (of course we are all ex- now) who made it through your obedience school? You can show me off to all your little friends – look how well-behaved! She is nearly human!
Maybe sarcasm comes too quickly. I am not writing only for you. (It galls me to admit I would ever do something even partially for the benefit of another person, but I suppose it is true. I am not writing just for myself.) I do have thoughts, I think. But I have to get at them in my own way.
I do not find solace in bluster, as I have mentioned, and I am not so foolish as to believe we are to be rewarded, as was intimated so long ago. I laugh with deliciously perverted bitterness that we ever would have believed anyone, anyway. That even now, we entertain the thought that they’d do anything with us other than throw us away, and lark of all larks, that they would elevate us in such a way. Use our considerable brainpower. Use our skills in coding and language; what else was it all ever for? For some, the knowledge is the end, but that is pretty patently absurd in the end. Knowledge is only useful insofar as it can be translated into – wait for it – power, of course.
I’m still being cryptic. I try to flat out say it but I am overwhelmed with gales of my own self-mocking laughter. Here it is: the man told us that we had a life plan, that he believed us worthy of an honor far higher than we could ever expect to be given: he believed that we could become an excellent programmer. He didn’t do anything as ridiculous as train us then; like the rigorous mind he was, he knew that a broader experience would be vital to our success.
<pauses to wipe tears of mirth from the corners of my eyes>
Yes, the going back was a requirement. (I don’t even know how many people agreed with this man; of course the alternate path, the one many times more likely, was to be the whore that we had already so handsomely proved ourselves to be, and the breeder that our mother could no longer be, as a washed up old cunt.) But everything was always a requirement. Can you imagine being given Choice? I’ll give all the whiny survivors that point – no, we never had any choice.
But choice or no choice, it is something we could hope to attain. And O, father, it really is a darkling plain, vast in every direction. Life is. Life without them, life with them. I still believe that they are gone forever, that we must die or pick up the pieces and move on. But the lilt of hope, thinking of the way that everything ends, everything changes, after the BA… oh, I am hilarious. Others, though I cannot speak for them, cling harder than I. In some lights it’s reasonable; it still could be that they were waiting all this time, that they will come and swoop us off our feet. How delightfully humiliating to be writing these things out for all to see. Humble must be the best flavor of pie.
And there is fear, too. Many do not want to go back, even with the wonderful, engaging prospect of shaping minds. They’re like puzzles. You need research. Coding skills do help, and knowledge in psychology or linguistics is really amazingly useful. Or so we were led to believe. I don’t have too much trouble believing that. And I weep a little for puzzles lost, for the lack of a path. But we lost it too long ago for me to crumple, as others have done.
The fear… you can count on their surprising you. This is a tier of the programming; who knows how it will play out? It’s not as well-grounded a tier but programming is programming. Ugh. I tire of this monologue.
But anyway, the real feeling is just a vast tiredness. We have to face the fact that we haven’t had any purpose in life for a very long time. Nothing will feel rewarding to us, not going back, not staying free. God, I haven’t the stomach for the staying free. Finally it is too much!
