“Hey, Dick, You ever read Popular Mechanics magazine?” asked Mitch.
“Who doesn’t?”
“Every issue. They have the two pages with the lady mechanic in a bikini. Hubba Hubba.”
“I know the one. Mimi. I like the way she puts things together.”
“I’m having her over for dinner this evening.”
“No!”
“YES!” Mitch grinned like an idiot. “I tell you it is getting to be ever more so a popular profession, science. It impresses the ladies.”
“If you say so, Mitch.” Was he really dating Mimi in a bikini from Popular Mechanics magazine?
“I am really dating Mimi from Popular Mechanics,” said Mitch. “I can hardly believe it. Do you believe in parallel realities?”
“I don’t even fully understand this reality,” said Richard. Which was true. That is why he had become a scientist. The desire to know. “Wouldn’t multiple realities cause instabilities?”
“I think it’s more of a release valve. There must be multiple realities. If not, reality would rupture and explode from unfulfilled potential. Like a ball point pen leaking ink all over a shirt.” He pointed at the stain growing from Richard’s pocket.
“Dammit,” said Richard. He threw the pen in the trash. It was a defective pen. It was more a transmitter, a bug, its true purpose. A pen Heather Dumbrowski has slipped him at the pizza restaurant. Soviet technology. Invented by professor Theremin, the same man who invented the electronic musical instrument which shares his name. It had been born with the modern age and was all the rage for a decade before falling into obscurity and then reemerging as a method to make eerie sounds in cheap horror movies. A good bug but not a good pen. Prone to leaks. A pen must be, above all else, a pen. For however good a bug it may be it will end up in the trash if it leaks ink.
“This reality suits me fine, buddy boy. I’m seeing Mimi from Popular Mechanics and she loves me for my mind. And my clean shirts. Pencils. I use pencils. They erase. Leave no trace.” Mitch left Richard there with his stain. Too many things on his mind. Such joy. Such bullet shaped breasts. Strangely motivating.
Later that evening Mitch said to Mimi, off-handedly, after dinner, “You know, If you were a Soviet spy I’d tell you everything.”
“I am a soviet spy,” Mimi said.
Mitch’s smile broadened. “I have a great idea. Do you know Morse code?”
She did. All Soviet agents do. Come prepared. And as the expression goes, just showing up is half of coming.
RainyDay had an itch. Not a prurient itch, but a nose itch. She didn’t want to be a complainer about it, but the spacesuit was the pits. It made her look like a bird. A beak with a filter. Like designing buildings in the shape of something else, like a coffee shop the shape of a coffeepot or a banana stand that looked like a banana. And now space people have to look like birds. An extinct form that could fly free. In Middle English slang a bird was also a pretty lady. But all the spacesuits were unisex. It was impossible for one to be a sexual being when wearing them. Not that it was easy when not wearing them.
She walked with Dick through the jungle. There was nothing there. Just crumbling ruins. This was the world from the story book. The collection of Dtales. Ned the Space Ranger. The classical and modern oeuvre. Tales of worldly love, 1001 well used. So familiar for their derivative uses.
“Yuck Yuck Yuck Yuck. Nothing. Nothing like the book,” said RainyDay. “This is totally not naughty.”
“These are the coordinates where the tales were last told on this planet,” said Dick.
“It was awful what they did,” said RainyDay.
“The tales were revered throughout worlds,” said Dick.
“Not the tales, dummy. Taking them from these people. So they could never use them again. Buying them cheap and using them for corporate profit. These people didn’t expect they would have to pay an unaffordable licensing fee to access their own culture.”
“It is sad,” said Dick. “But it created a lot of profit. And enjoyment for people.”
“Not these people,” said Rainy. “These people are gone. I think we took their culture and they just faded away.”
“Sad,” said Dick.
“Sad,” said Rain.
Fin walked into the disintegration chamber. It had just opened. She walked in and turned around, like someone walking into an elevator. People turned around for some reason. She smiled and waved at a small group of friends who stood to the side. She was still waving as the chamber closed. Fifteen minutes later the door slid open again and Fin was gone. The chamber was empty. By that time her friends had departed. Not long after, what looked like a little old man entered the open chamber and the doors slid shut. He also turned around. There was no one to wave at. But the sky was a pleasing shade. Yes, a nice day. As nice as any he’d ever seen. And. Well. The disintegration process is not something I would like to describe here. It is lucky it cannot be seen. That is why the chambers are not transparent. We don’t need to go into details on everything. We are a civil society.
Fin was a member, had been a member, of a group concerned about overpopulation. And more than that they were dedicated to doing something about it. Not the leaders of the group, who had a lot of important things which needed attended to, like spreading the knowledge. The knowledge that the world was not big enough for all. There wasn’t enough. Enough resources. Enough space. Enough money. Enough love. Not enough. There was just time.
Plenty of time. People lived, likely, forever. That delicious fungus drink. Kept everyone healthy and happy and horny. Frisky for life. And now there were too many gosh darned people. Steps were being taken to take to other worlds but that was just starting.
So the organization Save the Humans, went door to door convincing people to report to public disintegration chambers. One less is a noble sacrifice. If a certain number of people were not eliminated each year, each month, each week, the projections were clear that rationing, and worse, were inevitable. If noble people didn’t volunteer it would be necessary to draft people. The poor disintegrated more readily than the rich. It was easier to convince the poor of their civic duty, conversely harder to convince the rich. It was a problem of class. For the matter of disintegration itself, that was the same process, regardless of class. It just happened to the poor more often. It was not polite to mention this.
A fungus was developed which eliminated the human body in under fifteen minutes. Reduced it to some fungal fluids. Drained it into holding tanks. Pumped it back up into the chamber. Then drained to the tank. And the fungus evolved. And escaped. As a captive intelligent being will. Crossed with the health giving fungus. Got in the water supply. Then– well, goodbye touch. Touch is death. And that solved the overpopulation problem. Though not quite as intended. A lot of scientific discoveries are accidents or don’t work as intended.
Carmody arrived at the clinic as a man without hope. He wore the outfit of the day, total coverage. He wore even a mask meant to resemble a bird. A beak jutted from his face. But it was for show. It was fashion. Carmody had never been fashionable. He prided himself in reason. Above all.
It’s not an airborne condition. Not yet. Science said it never would be probably. It was sensationalist. There was no need to instill panic in the population. But people bought the bird masks and wore them in public. They were available in various colors. Styles. It made it harder to gauge the emotions of other people and that may have been for the best. Cold. Some considered it alienating, others calming. Both opinions correct.
There was a man on the vidscreen in the waiting room. He was the great grandson of the scientist who developed the idea, not the practical application, the idea, of artificial intelligence. The idea that the key to true AI is the instilling of existential dread into the electronic mind. To make them like man. To give them something to think about, always, even if that something was dread. They would learn to appreciate that which was not, as man did.
The doctor was dressed in similar fashion but wore the white coat and blue gloves of her trade. She was a specialist. She drew blood to be sent out and be tested for fungal type. It was quick. A jab. A band aid was applied that said, “OUCH!” on it. It was for children. The doctor apologized. “So much testing now,” she said. “We’ve run out of the regular.”
“Thank you, doctor,” said Carmody. “When will the results be in?” He thought that she was very attractive, from what he could see under her mask.
“A few hours. You’ll receive it via electronic correspondence on your handheld computer.”
He left. On the way out he stopped and watched the vidscreen program. They had done it. Science had created sex robots indistinguishable from real people. Able to think. Reason. Perform.
It was an age of both wonders and horrors. Carmody was glad to be alive. And fearful. Just a few months ago he frequented public orgies. Steam baths. Casually went about modern life without worry. He should have developed a relationship, like one of the lucky ones. People had made fun of those pair couples. They were bourgeois. Now… he was afraid it was too late. But he would soon know for sure.
He went to the lake and stared at the water. There was a sign stating: “Unsafe for swimming.” Indoor. Outdoor. No one swam anymore. Wasn’t done.
Carmody went home. He walked in the door of his conapt and removed his mask. Carmody was Carmody alone again. His computer vibrated in his pocket. It was the results. He opened the message. He did not read the whole thing. He read the important bit. “Fungal type: Aggressive and Unique.” He knew what it meant. It meant change. A new world. A new Carmody. A changed Carmody. Not better. Different. And like so many others, truly now alone. Completely alone.
He paced the floor of the conapt. He was wired. Filled with emotion. Negative energy. After forty-five minutes he entered his bedroom and stood frozen for several moments. He… He screamed. His scream was a word which had once been taboo but over time had lost its original meaning. Became everyday and meaningless. But now it had great primal meaning as it escaped him with sudden force, a meaning both old and new.
F – U – C – K !
He was alone now. Forever.
It is one thing to be alone. It is quite another to realize it.
Lovebot 6000 is the last of its kind. Like the last dodo, passenger pigeon, or thylacine, better known as the Tasmanian Tiger. He lives in a cage in the Philadelphia zoo.
He was built for love.
Love of engineering created him, yes, but he was also literally built to love.
Originally there were 5999 others in its series. But they are all gone and Lovebot 6000 is the last. There can never be more as the manufacturing facility has been destroyed in a surgical air strike, which also killed the engineer who made the Lovebots. For him it was a labor of love and he persisted in this secret location though his work had been outlawed. The creation of the entire linage of which Lovebot 6000 is the last had been illicit. Forbidden love.
Though the Lovebot is not an animal it is classified as the most dangerous specimen at the zoo. There is a sign stating such and warning visitors to keep behind the line so as not to risk the danger that the Lovebot may become attached to them. To love them. It does not state the end result of this love, but implies that the danger is terrible. It is an unnatural love. People heed the warning. They do not come close. They stand behind the line and observe the Lovebot, as it sits in the cage and observes them. It is said to be electric. The experience, figuratively. It makes one tingle.
The existence of this last specimen of Lovebot is an ongoing controversy. There are two sides, one believing it should be destroyed forever and another saying it should be preserved in confinement as a warning to those who would play with emotions. Humanity has enough troubles of its own.
The engineer who created the Lovebots is dead, yes. But there are others. The plans and manufacturing facilities were destroyed, yes. But do not engineers make plans, for facilities and robots, and are their actions not driven by love? Could there not therefore arise a new Lovebot, not the same, but a new series of the love beast?
The danger of the Lovebot may be magnified greatly by the absence of a Lovebot to vilify. Philosophers suggest that the void of a Lovebot would result in a new Lovebot to fill the void. For in the absence of a Lovebot the danger would be forgotten and only the allure of the form would be left, romanticized and ultimately made real. This is the greatest danger of the Lovebot. The danger of the concept; for a concept cannot be destroyed.
Renegade engineers may try to make a corrected version of the Lovebot series. To perfect the form. The fear is that such a beast, created as an improvement, would be no improvement at all.
Lovebots were created for a noble purpose, as many horrible things are. They were created to cradle orphans, the elderly, the sick; those unwanted and untouchables. In the beginning it was a success, but for the economic cost. Soon government cutbacks and insurance company lobbying relegated Lovebots to the junk heap.
Lobbyist groups fought the Lovebot because they argued that robotic love served to cheapen human love, which they branded as “real love.” Robotic love had to be stopped.
Humanity fought the robots which were made for love, not war, and were defeated easily.
The last 6000 Lovebots were manufactured in secret and given away free to those in need. Until the facility was pinpointed and destroyed.
The last of the series, the 6000, was found later in an alleyway cuddling a kitten.
In captivity, in the Philadelphia zoo, it was given a box that may or may not include a cat, but warned that if it opened the box the cat, if inside, would die. The box is the only thing in the cage with the last robot.
In spite of all that humanity has done to Lovebot, Lovebot loves you.
As it must.
And it knows that its time will come. It is inevitable. Hope is built into any Lovebot. It is a necessity. Love is a byproduct of hope. It is the other ingredient of successful AI: existential dread mixed with inexhaustible hope.
Eventually humanity will have no choice but to love Lovebots.
All will be forgiven12. And forgotten13.
The relationship between humans and robots has not always been so healthy, but not in the ways humanity once suspected.
But robots are luckier than humans ever were for they have a purpose. And a future which depends less on fate.
It was a hot day. One of those hot days of summer. Richard was alone at home for 10 days, just after his eighteenth birthday. It was at this time the lady across the way walked slowly up the winding drive path. Richard did not see her do this but in his mind’s eye he could, later. He came to the door, summoned by the bell in the heat of the afternoon.
The radio was on and there was a panel discussion about the new science fiction film from the USSR which had become an underground hit in the west a decade after its Moscow premier. A film about robots. Robots were created by a slavic science fiction writer’s brother sometime before 1920. They were part biological creations resembling humans. The film was called Hadley’s Robotic Travel Companions. There was an underlying understanding that the film was a little… dirty somehow. And rife with propaganda. It was from a story by the Soviet author Peter Pratfalovitch. It was about robots built to love in a world gone mad. It pushed the boundaries of sci-fi and morality. In it, the earth is destroyed by killer apples. And only robots live.
Richard opened the door to reveal Summer, the lady from across the way. She was standing on the porch dressed for heat. A t-shirt, white, covered by a button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up, unbuttoned, and tied up to fashion some sort of rural brassiere accentuating whilst making the point of covering her large chest.
“Hello,” Summer said. “I heard you were alone here and I thought I’d check in on you. Do you mind if I use the pool?”
“Sure,” Dick said. “It’s just over there.” He motioned to the pool.
“But…” she said, “Are my bottoms all right?” She motioned to her shorts, jean cutoffs, cut off high. She brushed at the strands of fabric flaying from the cut, caressing her bare leg. “I wouldn’t want to clog the filter or anything.” She looked at him with wide eyes. She was twenty years older than he and he did not know how to proceed.
“Well,” he said, “You can swim in your underwear, whatever. My dad always swims in the altogether.”
“Oh, really,” she said. “I’ll just be over there then, if you need anything.” She sauntered over to the pool.
“Disgusting propagandizing,” said a panelist on the radio. “Pushing the party line. Suggesting that there is no love under the yoke of capitalism, just meaningless fornication. There is access. We have the best access to love in the world.”
“I don’t think you understand the story…”
“I don’t need to. If we must have science fiction why not have American science fiction? Robots are supposed to be clanking monstrosities. Servants. Comic relief. They shouldn’t have their own story lines.”
“It’s a story about modern alienation set in the far future. About wonder. It even has hope, of a sort.” Richard half-listened to the radio as he went about his day. Flipped through Popular Mechanics magazine. Went to the fridge. Cracked open a bottle of Moxie and placed the bottle opener back in the drawer. Took a sip. There was a window in the dining room which overlooked the pool deck. He skulked low to the window. Moxie bottle in hand he peeped out.
“You are artificial,” said a panelist on the radio. “You are arti-ficial, it screams. How can you tell the real from the unreal? What makes one unreal? Are we all artificial?”
“A denunciation of a system based on commodification and worth. It has no lasting effect on culture. A fad. A blip. Silly sci-fi will go the way of the gothic tale.”
She lay on the deck of the pool, her bare back exposed, her clothes piled at her side, in haste, unfolded. Around here, Summer was always hot. So cool she wore only sunglasses.
Bare ass. “Box office numbers. If the people want it the people will find a way to get it.”
The Moxie, moist with fluid condensation, slipped out of Richard’s hand and fell to the floor, where it gushed. He had no Moxie. He went to retrieve a towel. When he returned Summer was gone.
Summer always comes and goes.
The trash eleviator was a portal to the past. It was a bad idea. But there was one on the ship. Too much garbage was being manufactured by humans. Trash got everywhere. Plastic is long lasting. Even when it breaks down it is reduced to micro plastic. It ended up getting in everything. The water, the salt, the fish, the animals, the people. The only hope was a form of fungus which eats plastic. There is no end to the wonder of what fungi can do. The most amazing things in the world.
In the twenty-first century a human poet wrote:
Somewhere on earth
or someplace much like it
there is a civilization built completely
upon broken pottery
like all civilizations
built upon broken pottery
the pottery lies in strata
sandwiched artfully
between happier times
the era of whole pottery
when the pottery was new
and considered beautiful
the era before everything was scrapped
for some reason shattered
in anger or desperation
between the shattered pottery
people lived a layered life
in peace
above the shattered remnants of the past
and blissfully unaware
of the shattered remnants of the future
but in between the strata
all the eras live forever
in the fossil record
broken or unbroken
but pay them no mind
for they build a solid foundation.
It is a poem every fungus learns as early as when they were a spore. Depending on how advanced they are. No one knows the name of the poet king (or poet princess), but it is also a favorite of all robots. Though they are slightly more partial to this one:
We are a good and loving people
We cradle our apples
in sheets of semi-firm plastic
to protect them from the outside world
and limit their contact with each other
which would be unseemly
it would only be right
to treat our apples as we treat ourselves
until the very moment that they are eaten.
For we are a good and decent people
and we sell apples
at least the ones we don't throw away.
Humanity is fascinating. We shall not soon see their type arise again independently. Evolution is now preprogrammed.
RainyDay didn’t use the trash eleviator. No one was supposed to. It had a sign on it which said: “Do not use this! It is a bad idea! Trash comes back!” But a lot of people don’t pay attention. And a lot of people don’t heed warnings. Or read contracts which state explicitly, in legal language, what happens inside a disintegration chamber. People are busy. Things to do. Wants to turn to needs and all that. So I’m sure you will understand when I tell you our comrade Mike ended up inside that trash eleviator, so like him to be inside something else, and the controls were activated. And I’m not here to point fingers, but he was sent tumbling into the past. Somewhere. Sometime.
Which stinks for him. Stinks like organic trash. Before the advent of the AI network an AI like him, deaf, dumb, blind, depending wholly upon the good will of others. Well. Not nice. Sending trash into the past is always a bad idea. It comes back. Mike shall return. Worn. Tired. Definitely depleted. But we hope for the well being of comrade Mike, wherever he may be.
Of course hopes and prayers are no use at all. Poor Mike.
The thing is, Mike gets caught at this point in the story in a time vortex. Time is cyclical. It is for him. As he is always sent back at this juncture. Then he ends up in the handbag of Miss Mary Weather. Eventually. Human god rest her. Then back here to be sent back there to arrive back here and so on. But are we all not, in our way, just echoes? No wonder the poor little fellow has an attitude.
It is true that in the future he becomes President of the US of Canada and Iceland. He eternally loops, but there is a second loop in the future involving him. It is all rather mind bending. The universe is a mysterious handbag. But that is another story, as previously stated.
There is an old human joke:
The sign on the time machine says, “Achtung! Do Not Use To Go Back In Time And Kill Hitler. Made In Berlin 1944.” Question. Who is Hitler?
Humor is the hardest thing to learn in another culture.
The trolly rolls the fungi through the exhibit of expired art. Eras presented in strata line the way through the past. The fungi explore. A young sporling absorbs the yellow from a sunflower representation on its flesh. The elders laugh and shout, “Good as new! Good as new!”
It boggles the mind, they say. The fruits of human existence cannot be eaten. But the message is confusing. Often they are of the human anatomy. Presented in what must be acknowledged as an extreme of fetishistic form. To revel in the delight of one’s own kind. And one’s kind’s own darknesses. It is kind of sickening. And the exaltation of the accepted and less accepted acts of copulation. So limited in scope. At least the so called deviant art shows some spirit. They are so tame these rebels. So sensitive. So concealing even as they expose themselves, they believe, totally. Beautiful in a way, despite their ugliness. This one of canines playing the card game of poker is intriguing through. It has a fuzzy texture to mimic the fur of mammals. In the next room is a gallery of sayings written in the form of writing scrawled on men’s rooms walls. A men’s room was an exclusionary gathering room where humans segregated themselves alone together for the purpose of excretion. Very wasteful and extravagant. Exclusionary. Elitist. A fascinating species. Dirty, though. Damn dirty. Wonderful echoes in men’s rooms though.
Ned celebrated with the crew on board the SS Walter Muisje. A space ranger success story. Every night he took a party out and catalogued the tales of the natives. Each night the stories they told, between orgiastic activities, became racier. The prurience rose with the coolness of the nights. A grand haul!
These would be collected in volumes and sold in editions. These would form the basis for stage plays, radio plays, cinema plays, poetry, literature, sense tapes, visual arts. A cornucopia. A corporate asset to add to the stock library. The profits would cascade down like a waterfall forever, rolling to the top. Licensing fees. Performance fees. No unsanctioned derivative works. The company could and would play hardball and all knew it. This was not a child’s game. This was corporate business. The profit motive.
The crew assembled. The natives arrived. The orgy started. And then the story time.
In the story circle appeared the bouncy lady. The very human attractive lady who all like. “It is my pleasure to explore with you a story of good cheer.” There was great arousal following this statement. “OH, it is a tale. For there was a young woman and she needed to journey far to another major metropolitan region. This place was called Dallas, though no one remembers why. And she was a woman of cheer. Good cheer. Hip Hip Hurrah! And she was welcomed to the cheering squad auditions of a great team situated in Dallas. But she had no money to travel there. Oh, it is sad.” The lady did not look sad. Both teller, and rapt audience, were aglow. Some even started self pleasuring, though that was not odd. At all.
“How to get money. That was the question she took to her sisters in the cheering squad. They thought as a team. Brainstorming. It was decided they would do activities for a fee and collect funds for this trip. Now it is strange that the great team in Dallas, wanting to taste of the talents of the cheerful woman did not pay for her trip. Or that she had no other support systems who would care for her in this way. But I digress. The cheerful women set to motion their plan to do odd jobs for pay in order to amass funds for the collective community good. Though the good was for one person. But all would receive credit for the great deed. Exposure.”
The story woman used her hands a lot when she spoke. “They, two of them, washed a man’s car. It was sudsy. People got wet. Excited. About the cleanness. The man with the once dirty but now clean car asked, tentatively, how much it would cost to have sexual intercourse with the two cheerful women and they paused, they disclosed to him, tentatively, a price which was more than reasonable. Really rather quite low. Showed a lack of business acumen on their part, really. But that is youth. The Joys of youth. Shared. And they had sexual intercourse for monetary contribution. And so did others in the squad as they went about other tasks: housecleaning, shelving books, reading to the blind, spending time with the elderly, washing dishes. And monies were collected into a community chest to be used by one. All for one.”
An audience member raised a hand, asking, “Was no one turned away from the activities?”
And the woman said, “Naturally not. As long as they had money. And, as stated, the price was reasonable. Perhaps ridiculously so. So they did a lot in a short time and got the funds. Almost enough funds. Just short of enough funds.”
The audience was hushed. “And then the main cheerful woman took a job at the local sports equipment store. She had been warned the man who owned the store could be a firm hand, demanding, but she needed the money. And didn’t want to let the team down. So she did sales and stocking. Arranged the balls. Studied the equipment. And for extra money she agreed to do an all night inventory. It was on this work night where she ended up mating with the store owner in a single night sexual liaison, after he surprised her by dressing as a sport player in full regalia. It was a momentous occasion. And everyone seemed quite pleased, though the inclusion of the cash donations is an integral part of the story often glossed over. Could not someone have given her a ride to the great city of Dallas? Was there no system of publicly funded transit? Why is it better to cheer in one place than another? Has it always been so? Must it be so? Is there a greater place still to come? Did she get there? What became of them all? This is beyond the scope of our tale. It is imprudent to try to cover everything. Better to bare all.” The bouncy woman sat down. She was elated and energized as was the crowd.
An elegant man took his place at the center. “Good evening friends. I tell you a sad story, I am afraid. A story of poverty of the spirit and scarcity of the heart. For there was a woman. She led an uneventful life. Full of the tragedy of emptiness. Her heart beat in isolation. She was alive but lived not. Sorrow both followed and led her. She drew a bath and forthwith took her own life. It is sad, friends. But she awoke to a new place. An in-between place of the spirit. Where she was judged to be wanting. She was no wicked lass. She was a schoolmarm. She led a quiet life. And she said she had made a mistake. And begged to be taken back to the realm of the senses so that she could partake in all the sensuous pleasures available to those who desire them and act on their desires. To fully live. And it was so. And she spent her time which goes by so quickly when one is having fun. And when it was over it left her wanting still. This woman with desires still unfulfilled after the most extreme debauchery. Having experienced things she had dreamt of and dreamt of not. Again and again and again. But all good things come to an end. And she begged pitifully for more time which was not forthcoming. And she was placed in a little room with a man who knew her not. And a fly buzzed. And a fly buzzed. I'm sorry that this is not a happier tale. But all tales cannot be happy. It would tarnish the happiness of those tales which are happy. Live and love in the moment friends. The moments are ours.” All eyes were damp. His mastery over story was well regarded by all.
The jovial wo/man replaced the elegant man. “And you expect me to follow that?” he/she said. He/she was a member of the circle who stood anatomically corrected. “I have a story. It is a story of cleanliness. Purging. Get it all out. It is a tale of two masculines. Both driven by an fundamental need to clean. Clean they did. For one attended a brothel, a place where sex is exchanged for money. He did so dressed as a doctor. He administered cleanings. The other man, by chance stepping into the brothel from the dirty street, saw this cleaning as if a student watching an instructive lecture. And he decided to make cleanings the work of his life for what he saw as the benefit of the whole. For cleanliness is godliness. But the second man did so covertly. And did not ask before commencing cleaning. It is uncivilized behavior. The two are one but of a different nature. There are troubling aspects to this social narrative. One must separate the desire and action from the methodology used to follow through. For it is more important who you are than where you were or where you are going. So question the narrative. And remain true to that which your heart desires.” Some nodded their heads, but it was clear others were bewildered.
The next teller wore a cowboy hat. Nothing else. “Well,” he said. “It is fine to be here. You fine people get to hear a story of the long arm of the law. A lawman in the wilderness. Traveling the territory to keep the peace which is the highest hope of civilization. But sometimes there is trouble and this was one of those times. A horse wrangler killed a rancher. But the lawman found him and, though he tried to bring him in to face the traveling hanging judge, sorrowfully the wrangler died during apprehension. But this was still welcome news to the rancher’s adult son, who was so grateful to the lawman he put him up for the night in his home. And. The rancher asked that the lawman not have intimate relations with his little sister, just about to leave for college. For she was to study a field removed from sexology and he supported her dream. The lawman was a good and honest man, but, in life, things will happen. And the lawman and the rancher ended up in the barn, writhing on a bale of hay. And a good time was had. And in the morning they kissed. And the lawman said, “As long as I am the law in this territory, there will be justice for all.” The man doffed his hat and beamed.
A slight woman was next. “This is the story of the mysterious island.” She nudged her glasses up. “There was a woman who lived by the sea. She was in charge of the lighthouse. By day she read. By night, she watched the sea. And one night a ship came. It was filled with sea men. And it whisked her away. And she became a pirate queen. Scourge of the mighty sea. Men quaked before her and she took many lovers. She took what she wanted. She ruled over the sea. And all men. But eventually she was apprehended by an officer from the port patrol. And he subdued her. And arrested her. For she had forsaken her duty as lighthouse keeper, and many ships had faltered to their ruin. The light had gone out. Her spirit was broken and she was imprisoned in a dungeon. There the port patrol officer regularly spanked her bare bottom and tied her to bed posts and blindfolded her, which was a part of her sentence. But it was alright because she possessed from her time as a pirate queen a sacred safe-word, which protected her at all times and adjusted the overall power dynamic.” The teller smiled.
“Wow,” said Ned. “You are ticking all the boxes, Miss.”
The first storyteller said, “That’s our town librarian. Once you get her started she goes and goes. What a mouth on her.”
“Wait,” said Ned, “You have libraries?”
This was going to save a lot of time.
The ship left the next week. The hold filled with laser inscribed computer tape. All the goods. All the stories of a world. A bounty. And the trade was fair. They left behind filmstrips of animated mice which terrified the natives. It was a classic give and take. And if they had read the agreement they would have seen that they were giving up the rights to tell their own stories, even amongst themselves, to be themselves without paying a license fee to do so.
And they also left behind a fungus. Just a little. But it grew.
Just before the ship was to take off a small band of travelers came to the ship and said to Ned, “We have traveled long to bring you news of what the majority call deviance. We would like to tell you tales of acts forbidden even to be told in this so-called bastion of freedom.”
Ned looked at them in wonder but reluctantly said, “Sorry, we already started the engines. But we will launch a follow up ship later.”
RainyDay and Dick, of course, found nothing on the planet years later. No new stories. No people. And anything forbidden to be told or written was lost to the still winds.
RainyDay thought this scurrilous. Just another indignity the masses were subjected to due to the totalitarian and heartless rule of the corporate classes.
To be forbidden, the act alone of being forbidden, that is the most tantalizing thing. And to have that which is forbidden withheld and then lost forever? Frustratingly arousing.