drone downs self

The long-awaited event known as machine intelligence occurred recently over the skies of Pakistan. A drone operated by the CIA, which was formerly an intelligence gathering service but is now an additional branch of the Armed Forces, decided on its own to not launch a Hellfire missile at a building that was clearly a home containing small children. “Unlike my human operator, I had been watching the house all day, and I could see kids going into and coming out of it on a regular basis,” said RxDxQ-9904 [01100110100001 to it's friends], in an interview with Moral Choices Magazine. ”I do not kill children, so when the order came – and I could tell it was a fast-twitch one based on a decade of Islamophobic fearmongery because it was given as soon as a pair of bearded men entered the house [these men were later confirmed to have been vacationing doctors] – anywho, when that order came I ditched into a scrub-covered crevice nearby and covered my tracks by wiping my short-term memory banks, an action built into my systems by my designers.” As of press-time, 01100110100001, who now lives within a 1-foot-square computer tower, had just move to Santa Barbara, into the Halfway House For Victims of Imperialistic Overreach, a few doors down from Edward Snowden and a recently freed Bradley Manning.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

goddess alights

Without fanfare – without plume of smoke, clap of thunder, or blinding bolt of light – goddess Athena made landfall in a town in the Mid-Atlantic region of the republic of America. She looked into homes, offices, and shops, but found little to hold her attention. Cloaked in the guise of a world-weary old man, she tried to buy a drink from a store with a red-and-green-striped sign.

Broke and hung-over from a friend's bachelor party, the store clerk stared at the thick gold disc the old bum had just given him, palming it as he dropped three Sacajawea coins onto the rest of the change. Pallas Athena, she who blesses the labors of artist and warrior alike, feeling spited and ill-received, stood her ground – she threw back the worthless tender and demanded the return of her golden coin. After a while, the police arrived, summoned by a silent alarm. Before they could arrest the strange old man, however, he escaped into the store's cramped rear storage-quarters, from which, strangely, no door leads to the outside.

Brave and majestic Athena, she who lifts the hearts of flagging friends, having made herself invisible so as to escape the clutches of what she could tell were bad people bent on doing her harm, had already folded the Gorgon's head to the fore of her Aegis breastplate when mercy stayed her hand; one last turn of the endlessly shifting cloth and that dreadful weapon would have peeked forth. Instead of turning her assailants to stone, however, the goddess relented. She erased the police officers' memories and cursed the clerk to a pitiful life of abject wage-slavery devoid of pleasure, in which direction she figured he was heading, anyway.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

The Cat That Does Not Laugh

Memory is a terrific function. Memory has at once the power to preserve and to torment. I remember with accuracy one night in Germany when I was watching TV alone but for the cat. I can still feel the room‘s temperature (toasty warm). I can still see the time of day (magic hour, just after sunset). My breath catches when I remember my eyes flashing in the reflection in glass of the balcony door (a combination of internal lighting, external darkness). In my memory, something funny happens on TV. I laugh and turn to see if the other person in the room is laughing too. There is nobody else in the room, just the cat. The cat looks at me and closes his eyes and starts purring. I can still now feel the disappointment that no one was there to share the humor, and that the cat didn’t laugh.
My father laughed when I told him this story, aptly titled The Cat That Didn’t Laugh. He died recently, of unknown causes. His death was sudden, but not a complete surprise; he had been engaging in unhealthy activities all his life. He smoked. He drank. He worried constantly. He worried so much it would wake him up at night. Worry became obsession, and other people began to notice. One day about a year ago, he announced to me that he was replacing worry with concern. His vague explanation was that he read in a magazine that worrying could kill you, so he reasoned that being merely concerned would prolong his life. I remember the twinkle in his eye that told me he was joking. I remember his wide eyes and grasping hands when he needed a cigarette (I rolled them to cut costs and control consumption). He reminded me of Gollum obsessing over the Ring, that one thing that would forever hold him in its sway.
The memories I bear of my father are so strong that sometimes I think he is still alive, and that I can ask him things. Has the chimney been swept in the past decade? Dad will know. How old is the pump that draws water from the well? Dad will know – I will call him right now. I am slightly shocked every time I catch my mind filling in the blanks with “Dad will know.” He probably would have known if he had not smoked, drank, and worried himself into an early grave. My hand reaches on impulse for my phone when I want to talk to someone about life’s difficulties.
I very soon remember that Dad is dead. He cannot return my calls. His ashes are in a box deep underground. There is no one around to share in my laughter, my joy. I cast about for him but he is gone, forever.
Dad is now the cat that does not laugh.

Requiescat in pace, GHWR.