Career Day

This little ditty I just hammered out in two days.  Its lighter (for me.) and hopefully its funny.  I laugh at it, and I hope you will too.  Have fun and give a brother some feedback.

Career Day

Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.

Someone said that to me once. Then, someone else. Then, someone else.

One of those little pearls of wisdom that spreads like a virus, crossing generations, infecting us with sickening optimism.

“Are you feeling okay?”

“I'm alright, think I just came down with a little case of positivity...nothing the antibiotics can't handle.”

Side effects may include but are not limited to: nausea, vomiting, vertigo, profuse sweating, compliments, upward muscular spasms of the cheeks, singing in the rain, victory dancing, and occasionally...hugging.

Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.

Like the acne-covered pubescent boy applying for a job flipping burgers in a three-piece, double breasted Armani.

Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.

Silly little words. I've never taken them to heart before today. They've never meant what they were meant to mean. The sum of the parts worth no more than the parts themselves.

What makes today so different? Today, I want...excuse me...I need people to see the job that I want. Today, I need people to not only see the job that I want as the job that I want. I need them to think that the job that I want is in fact the job that I have. I need to be so convincing in my dress that they believe. I need to be so spot on with my costume, right down to the footwear.

This is where the leather moccasins come in. These are just part of the uniform for the modern self-employed, work-from-home gentleman of leisure. Fur-lined, leather moccasins, hand threaded – in an American workshop – by today's modern footwear artisans. Above the slippers, fleeced plaid pajama bottoms, tied relatively tight at the waist. Tight enough to maintain station above the pelvis, of course, but not so tight as to interfere with the wearer's comfort.

Above these beauties, a vintage Star Wars T-shirt. Original Poster artwork on a pre-treated, pre-worn charcoal gray base. The tag certifies the garment is nothing more than a Taiwan-made undershirt run through a giant screen-printing machine. Fifty shirts printed every minute. A real high-quality piece of apparel.

And the pièce de résistance, a robe, nay, housecoat slung loosely – haphazardly even – over the shoulders. The built-in belt hangs loosely at the sides, untied. Part of the fashion really, just a little attention to detail meant to show a lack of attention to detail.

The hair is product-free. Uncombed and sloppy. Fresh off the pillow. The armpits and taint are unsullied by soap, deodorant, and baby powder. Fresh with the stink of yesterday's inactivity. Elegantly tacky. Fashionably unfashionable. And most of all, thoroughly convincing.

Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.

The laptop, nothing more than accessory, compliments the uniform perfectly. Tucked under one arm, the gray shell of my prop is covered in stickers of bands, TV shows, movies, and companies that I love. Cheap decorations covering an expensive, extremely useful piece of modern machinery. It says to onlookers: “I care what you think, but really I don't”

The final prop is a coffee cup. A beautiful little standard-size ceramic number, with big block-lettering emblazoned across its side, declaring myself to be the one and only “#1 Dad” in the world. Its a little reminder of why I'm doing this whole thing after all. A nod to the boy.

Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.

Sitting down at the table for breakfast, the decision is made that I will make this official. If I'm going to claim I do my business from home, I might as well actually crack the lid of this thing and get right to it. I should put myself into the mind of my character, a nod in the direction of Stanaslavsky's method.

I pour a measured cup of soy milk over my organic bran flakes. I look at the series of boot screens bringing my old friend out of hibernation. Then, that feeling creeps into my gut. You know, the feeling that not only is someone looking at you, but they are doing so disapprovingly. That feeling that hits, and surpasses your basic sixth sense.

Raising my eyes from the computer, I look to the bowl of quietly crackling bran. It's not staring disapprovingly at me. It's minding its own business, as far as I can tell, soaking up my milk quietly. Quietly, I think, but realistically, its being a tad louder than it should be. Nodding gently, I shush the bowl in my mind. Pushing the bowl's rude disturbance to the background, my view shifts up further still, looking across the table in the sincerest of hopes that I will find the source of this increasing ache in my gut.

There it is, or rather, there he is. Randy. His big shining blue saucer eyes fixed on me, darting from the sloppy bedhead, to the housecoat, to the “vintage” Star Wars tee, to the bedhead, housecoat, tee, cup, tee, housecoat, bedhead, cup, tee, and so on.

“Yes?”

He frowns at me. “Did you forget?”

“No.”

His stare is firm, drenched in accusations. This is a tactic he has pulled from the pages his mother's field manual. Its the classic “guilt before the crime” move. A sloppier execution than I'm used to, but who can blame him, he's only 8.

“Well then,” he continues.

“Yes?”

I can outplay this kid. This amateur. I've been studying Mom's field manual for 9 years now, and he thinks I haven't got a defense for this little maneuver? He's got another thing coming, I tell you.

“Are you planning on getting ready?”

“I am.”

“You are planning on it?”

“I am ready.”

“For what?”

“You know.”

“You did forget.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Did not times infinity.”

“Did too, times infinity plus one.”

“Career day.”

Boom! I win, sucker! I'm right – you're wrong. And in a few hours, in just a few hours time, little man. In a few hours, I will rise like the phoenix from the ashes to reclaim my rightful position on the throne as your one and only hero.

He sinks into his chair, not breaking eye contact, but definitely breaking that accusatory gaze. He's thinking this through, I can tell. He wants to see where this is going. Visibly intrigued is the best way to describe the look now painted across his smooth face.

“Okay,” he says. “Eat your milk and cardboard and let's go then.” He punctuates this with the crunch from his last bite of toast, pulls his backpack onto one shoulder and hops away from the table. Its all one fluid movement like some choreography from an old Chinese kung-fu flick. Awe-stricken, I blow the virtual dust off a file “Last Modified” more than a month ago and begin shoveling the now-soggy fibrous flakes into my maw.

Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.

The classrooms of Second-graders are leagues beyond those of First-graders. A Second-grader's classroom has class. No more Bush-league finger paintings on the walls. This is the real deal Holyfield. This is where math formulas are born. Where chapter books are the norm. This is where dreams are made...and sometimes broken. Where if you don't keep up, you're just left behind.

This...is where it all. Gets. Real.

We file into the classroom real orderly-like. Myself, Randy, his classmates and all the other parents walking, nearly marching equidistantly from one another, surveying the battlefield. Sizing up the enemy. I put my hand on Randy as he leads me to his desk, but for God's sake I never stop looking at those parents.

The competition is as fierce, if not fiercer, this year than it was the last. There are the familiar faces like Motorcycle Dad, Farmer Dad, and Pantsuit Realtor Mom. Then, of course there are the newcomers like Oilslick Lawyer Dad, Fireman Dad, and Sheriff Mom.

I hate them all. Every success-story little fake with a gold-clip wad to blow on brand-name shirts, and hats, and coats, and footwear. All for their little mirror images, who won't even fit into this year's $400 wardrobe come summertime. Little well-planned pregnancies complaining in the following Fall that the new $350 budget is “unreasonable.” They'll be demanding that this year's Nikes match this year's South Pole, match this year's Zoo York match this years Dickies...

Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.

I come out of my hate-trance, realizing only now that I've not been paying any attention to Randy's prattling on about the contents, location, size, and shape of his desk. The entire reason for my being here has been shadowed by my self-involved desire to impress a pack of 8-year-olds and moreover, their parents.

To think, all this because I was a little boring last year.

Oilslick Lawyer Dad laughs loudly at something his dumpy little daughter says. The laugh is loud. Painfully loud.

Louder than bran cereal soaking up milk, that's for sure.

I breathe to quell the onset of another hate-trance. The teacher, Mrs. Smith, or some such, takes the floor, calling for silence. Then, Mrs. Some Such explains Career Day in great detail, as if we are all oblivious to the significant role it plays in the future of the known universe. I'm struggling not to wag my head, roll my eyes around, and circle my wrist and pointer in a rolling motion to usher on some. Kind. Of. Point.

If we can't be boring parents on one day out of the year, then she certainly shouldn't be allowed to either. Maybe its an act of mercy, though. A layer of primer to make the colors really pop. Set against the monotone sounds spewing forth from Mrs. Some Such, anyone's life would seem interesting.

I'm lost in these thoughts when she calls Motorcycle Dad to the head of the class, but the subsequent claps of kids impressed by anything with a combustion engine brings me back.

Motorcycle Dad is just as impressive as he was last year. Pointing to his son and making big sweeping gestures, he's rattling off parts like an auctioneer. All I hear is gibberish and numbers followed by oohs and aahs. There is no possible way these kids know what he is talking about, but they know that all that means is that he really knows his stuff.

And he works on motors. And he rides around on a dangerous instrument of potential death and carnage. And he has entire sleeves of tattoos. And long hair. And a long beard. And dark sunglasses. And he's probably all jacked up on Ice.

Damn. I think he might actually be my role model.

Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.

His time ends and its Oilslick's turn. He's just the yuppie scumbag stereotype I picture. A real Bret Easton Ellis archetype. I think I'm going to throw up in my mouth if he quotes A Few Good Men one more time.

Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.

Pantsuit Realtor Mom must get cramps in those cheeks. Her smile is frighteningly stretched to capacity, framing her too-big veneers. They look like they're trying to escape her mouth. I stop judging just long enough to tune in to what she's saying and I swear to God she's trying to explain the housing market crash. To second-graders.

Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.

Fireman Dad actually has me doubled over in pain. My stomach cramps up when he recollects the supermarket tracheotomy. The “awws” of the children bring bile up into the back of my throat when he recalls the cat in the tree, returned to the old woman.

Wasn't that in a cartoon?

Tear-inducing pains shoot like bolts of electricity through my groin. He's telling that old tale of defibbing a gaggle of elderly at the scene of the worst bus crash he's ever seen. You know, the one he's told dozens of times, never failing to jerk the collective tears out of the eyes of any room.

Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.

I'm in the fetal position on the floor and the clapping is dying down from all the standing students, parents and random faculty who have now just wandered in. They're all wiping their eyes, wrapping up the third standing ovation when I hear Mrs. Some Such introduce me from behind the curtain of students.

And its all eyes on me. Still curled up, I survey the room of transfixed eyes and blank expressions, laughing nervously and throwing up a little wave. I stand, mock brushing whatever may have gotten on me from the floor off my uniform, and retrieve my props from the table beside me.

Dress for the job...Oh boy.

Ohboyohboyohboyohboy.

I'm walking the length of the classroom and it feels like three football fields lined up in front of sixty miles of highway. I'm sweating already.

“Dead man walking.”

Oh boy.

When I turn to face them, I see the recognition in the familiar students faces. The students who have stayed with Randy through their scholastic advancement remember me. Their eyes are already drooping. Bore-induced sleep looms on the horizon like the setting sun.

“Alright!” I shout, my voice cracking. “Let's hear it for...” Damn. I've forgotten his name. “The King County Fire Department!” They clap, confused.

Jesus, I'm leaning on my opener.

“Okay. Well, Like Mrs....Like your teacher mentioned, I am Randy's father.”

A kid clears his throat. I'm drenched in sweat. I'm dying up here.

“And I. Am. A *ahem* writer.”

The silence still lays heavily, like a warm, wet blanket place over a burn victim, rescued by Fireman Dad. I can hear the beads of stinking fluid leaving my pours.

“I get to dress like this – ”

“How many books have you published?”

The voice comes from some girl in the middle of the room, but I didn't see her ask it, so I'm not sure who the culprit really is. Could be Glossy-Eyed Leopard Print, or Big-Eared Unibrow. Might have been Bucktooth Polka-dots.

I look to Mrs. Some Such for a red flag on the whole speaking-out-of-turn thing. I'm quietly hoping she'll give a five-yard penalty for delay of game. Nothing comes, and I'm on my own again.

“Yes, well. Good question. I've actually not published any books per se.”

“Short stories then?” From Obese Runnynose, stage left.

I laugh nervously. “Not really my forte, I'm afraid.

“What is, then? Your forte? Is there somewhere we can read your work?” Blondie Four-eyes.

“My work. Yes, well. I'm not sure anything I've done is really ready to see the light of day. Everything still needs a bit of polish.”

“It's a hobby then.” A British kid? Really?

“No, I'm trying to do this for a living, kid.” The cracks are showing. I can't get mad. Can't lose it. Can't let them see weakness.

Blondie Four-eyes chimes back in, “got your feelers out, then? Submissions in the pipeline?”

Dress for the job. Dress for the job. Dress for the job.

“Yeah, sure. Well, not really. Like I said, still polishing and all that.”

“Just a hobby then.” Damned Brit-boy.

“Not a hobby. I'm trying to do this for a living”

“Doesn't seem like you're trying very hard, then.”

Somewhere between trying to push back the urge to choke an 8-year-old child and formulate some sort of clever response, I black out.

...the job....you have...dress...want...job...have....not...dress

When I come to, my arms are being held tightly by two faculty members I recognize from Fireman Dad's rousing speech. My jaw is aching and I can only see out of one eye.

“God, he stinks,” one of them complains.

“Wha Happeh?” I ask through a swollen lip.

“I have never heard such language in a Elementary School, sir. I'm afraid I don't think you're going to be welcome on our campus again.”

“Aw,” I sigh as they prop me up on the curb. “Wha I say? Is Ranhee Okayuh? Who beah me up?”

The two men in cheap suits are breathing heavily. Baldy McPockmarks blows a gust of air out like a deflating balloon and narrows his eyes at me. “Do you really not remember?” He asks, “Sir, are you telling me... Are you telling us, that you have no idea what just happened less than 5 minutes ago in your son's classroom?”

“Aw, jeez. I dih sohthig bah dih I?”

“Something very bad, yes. After a string of expletives aimed at no one in particular,” Baldy recounts, “you punched one of the student's fathers in his mouth as he tried to calm you down. As you fought – or attempted to fight – the resulting melee of parents trying to subdue you, you began swinging wildly like a drunken asylum patient.”

“Oh Boy”

“Yes sir.”

“I so Suhry”

“That's all well and fine. Lets just have you sit right here and wait for the police. We are going back inside to talk to some of the other parents. Let's hope for your sake none of them want to press charges.”

“Telluh theh ah I Suhry!” I holler after them, wondering if they even heard, let alone understood.

After they've gone, I spend a long stretch of time considering the potential results of my running. On the lam seems far better than this. Anything seems better than this. This is going to make the papers. Real writers are going to tell this story, for sure. I'm in a serious bit of trouble.

Just as I have started on the outline my possible Kerouacian life on the road across the country, pavement clicking footfalls are approaching from my right. Heavy boots, jingling metal with each step. My right eye still won't open, so I have to turn my head awkwardly far, a searing whiplash style pain resulting from the move. Motorcycle Dad is coming for me. Probably to kill me.

I'm dreaming of the ways he'll do it when he takes a seat on the curb next to me. “A shiv?” I accidentally ask him out loud.

“What?”

I don't know what to tell him, so I don't say anything. I wince when he reaches his hand into is denim vest. Pulling a pack of Marlboro Reds from within, I settle back onto my elbows, allowing the painful tension to wash free from my body. I'm breathing deeply when he pushes the pack in my direction.

As I take a stick from the box he's holding open for me, a flash of my outburst shoots across the back of my ever-swelling, closed eyelid. It's like a projector being turned on for no more than a second. Long enough, still, to reveal an image of my fist loosely flopping across Motorcycle Dad's cheek. It's an embarrassing punch.

“I nevuh beh ih a figh beefuh,” I choose to tell him, not really sure why. He lights my cigarette, then his.

He takes a long drag while I wait for him to berate me. “I know,” is all he says.

Then after shooting a long stream of smoke out, “me neither. I just wasn't ready to be made.”

He starts pulling hes tattoos off. Long tubes of fabric stretched over his arms. The elaborately drawn dragons and Chinese symbols bend and fold revealing blank, hairy, pasty arms beneath. Then the long hair comes off. Then the beard.

“You really want to be a writer?” Another drag from his stick. Mine is burning, but I've pulled nothing more than the original puff necessary for the lighting. Looking at it contemplatively, I take in the first actual drag since my mid-twenties.

And cough it right back out, violently. I'm nodding my response between hacks. Yes. Yes, I really want to be a writer.

“Yeah, I really want to own a shop too. Tired of selling shoes, to be perfectly honest”

He laughs, takes another drag, then blows it out. I laugh my now signature nervous laugh.

“Dress for the job you want,” he says.

“Nah fuh the jah you hah,” I finish.

He pats me firmly on the back.

“If you wanted them to believe you, you should have done this last year. Year one is the time to start the lie. And for God's sake, if you're going to lie about being a writer, why wouldn't you just claim that you're published?”

“Whah if theyuh folluh up?”

“They're kids.”

“They askuh if I hah 'submishuh in thuh pipelieh”

“Yeah, they're business-minded, this generation. Easy fix, though. You just say your stuff is in Playboy. Little bastards can't look into it.”

I laugh at what a simple response this would have been. It hurts to laugh, so I smoke some more. Then cough some more. This hurts even more than laughing.

“They're all just pretending in there anyway. You think a freshly-pressed pantsuit, false teeth and a Sub-Prime mortgage explanation lifted from Wikipedia a Realtor makes?”

I shrug.

“Firedad. His stories were pulled right out of straight-to-video Christian love movies and old Warner Brothers cartoons.”

I nod.

“Lawyer? That dude was more Patrick Bateman than Christian Bale. His law terms and movie quotes wouldn't stop crashing into each other. None of that holds up. If you asked Slick Rick if he passed the Bar, he'd probably tell you he passed a few on his drive here.”

I chuckle.

“But not one of those kids challenged it. Know why? Because we got them when they were young. We hooked them, and they will never challenge our claims. Because we got them. When. They. Were. Young.”

I nod again. He pulls and pushes smoke from his stick again. Mine is a solid line of ash nearly down to the butt.

“It doesn't matter now, anyway.”

He takes one last drag then flicks the butt into some nearby gravel.

“Whyuh?”

“Nobody's going to be able to follow that,” Motorcycle Dad proclaims, blowing out a billowing puff and pointing in the direction of Randy's classroom, “ever.”

The Pitch

I just finished this one.  Fun with voice.  Fun with Satire.  I love this now, but will probably hate it tomorrow.  I guess that's what rewrites are for.  Are you there, Irony? It's me, Sam.  Enjoy, and please let me know what you think.

The Pitch

Okay, so this is it, right. This is what'll do it for you, right. This is what'll get you there, okay. This is what'll get you in the ring with the big three, no question. This is what'll get those poor bastards with nothing more than a “Basic” Cable package to skip a meal or two, right.

What's a little malnutrition to the entertained anyway? What's a little tapeworm to the enthralled?

This will sell your channel. This will top your programming, all programming, yes. They will have to have it, right. There won't even be a choice, okay. Lives will be incomplete, right. We're talking something that goes above reality, okay. Something that transcends art, yes. Entertainment that goes so much further than entertainment, okay.

They will have to have it.

Have. To. Have. It.

Your channel.

They'll have to have it.

A “reality” show, yes. Reality, as usual, being a completely subjective term, right. Reality being perception, okay. Reality as a construct, yes.

Okay, so here we go.

Off to the races.

Three, two, one, contact, no?

It's zero hour.

The end is nigh.

We open, right. This is the pilot, of course. We open, yes. We open on his face. An old and haggard soul. The shell of a man, eyes welling with tears. The man breathes. Struggles to breathe. Fights to breathe.

The man will not make eye contact with the audience. We know, right. We know, as the audience. We know that this is a real man. This man is our brother, our father, our grandfather, our grandfather's grandfather.

The point is, we know him, right.

We are him, okay.

We love him and we hate him, yes.

We want him to comfort us. We want him to hold our hand. We want him to wipe away our tears. We want him to take away all our pain. But most of all, we want him to die.

He slowly closes his eyes in an extended, contemplative blink. As he breathes one last deep sigh, we close in on him. The shot is so tight nothing more than his face fills the screen. A voiceover accompanies this haunting image. Its the voice of an angel, right. An angel with a predilection for Black Velvet nights. Black Velvet nights and Marlboro days.

“The script for dad was never a filmable property until then.”

Something out of frame clicks, okay.

“You're nothing until you're nothing,” she scratches out through her damaged chords.

His eyes slowly close, right. They don't open, okay. This is no blink, yes.

Bam!

Buckshot Breakfast, right.  Shotgun Sherbert, okay.  Scattershot Scampi, yes.

Fade to black.

Slow fade on what can be assumed by our would-be audience as the angel's face. She's distraught, yes. She's sad, right. She's down and out. At her lowest. Beyond that breaking point they so often talk about. Over the wall. Destroyed. The frame pulls back. She looks down at her feet as she walks down an all too familiar suburb.

Its your suburb, yes.

Your neighborhood, right.

It's your city, town, village, province, okay.

“In many ways we pulled that trigger”

As those last four words cross that sandpapery floor of her throat, we cut to the angel in the confession room. The room the man cleared his head in moments ago in our little drama, right.

The room that we will see throughout our tale, okay. The room where life will fly by, slow down, crawl. The confessional equally familiar to the faith-stricken and TV hounds alike. Critics say that if you've seen one reality show, you've seen them all, right. There's this formula, okay.

If you follow the formula, you win, yes.

There will be the formula here, yes. But components will be added. Things will be turned on their ear. Nothing and everything will be the same.

The angel is crying, but it is obvious that the corners of her mouth are turning ever-so-slightly upwards. One can only wonder whether this vision of damaged beauty is trying to hide the smile, or the tears.

She tells us more about the man, explains what he meant to her, what he meant to their family. She paints a picture of the Pack leader. The alpha lion protecting his cubs at any price. Tells us how he would do anything for his sons. His seven sons, okay.

He would do anything for his daughters. His three daughters, yes.

Anything.

Any. Thing.

Even Kill.

The screen goes black, okay. Just like before, yes. Just as it had with the shotgun blast. And the magic of television, the magic of storytelling, yes. The magic takes us back.

ONE YEAR EARLIER, a title card tells them, the audience, okay. This is exciting, no. Non-linear storytelling, okay. We show them where we are, right. Then we show them how we got there, yes.

So its a year before. When our alleged documentarians first started following the angel and her father. She's in that familiar death confessional, and she's much more beautiful than before. The year that has passed has not done her face any favors. Nor her body, okay.

The lighting and lens give her that glow you notice in old movies. That grease on the lens sort of look you would always see whenever the actress of the day would occupy the old strips of celluloid.

She's glowing, yes.

“It's the annual Isaac's reunion.” She's positively beaming, teeth showing and all. “and Jason said he's got some sort of surprise for Dad this year.”

Her smile grows bigger still, as if that seemed at all possible, okay.

“My guess is its one of those 'Its Your Life' deals. Jason's gonna give him the big thank you we all think he deserves,” she tells the rapt viewers. “Lots of laughs. Lots of tears. I genuinely can't wait to see what he's got. His student films are all so fantastic. Poetically simple. Cut-to-the-chase Profundity.”

The camera holds her glowing face, yes. The video slows down, accenting every minute movement of her features, okay. Jason's voice comes over the image, right. Jason has this gruff but comforting voice. Soothing in its masculinity, yes. Comforting in its quiet power.

“Welcome, Welcome Isaac family,” the disembodied voice pours out like honey into a steaming cup of tea. Her soft image, accompanied by his soft tones, okay. The ambient sound of a room filled with chattering people blankets itself over the soundtrack, right.

“Quiet down please,” he politely asks the room. The smattering of drunken familial ramblings begin to fade like they're being turned down from some offscreen control room. A Wizard behind a curtain moves the faders, okay.

“As you well know,” He begins, just as the silence is absolute, “This is the 35^th year my father, Old Man Colton as you all know him...” Like a trained comic, he pauses for the laughter. Of course, it comes--and goes--like a flashing red “Applause” light has told the room just how much time it should take to respond.

“This is Old Man Colton's 35^th year attending the Isaac family reunion. As a special treat in celebration of Dad's many years of commitment to his family, I have made a little film for,” a beat long enough for a slick smile, “and about him. A little piece that will paint a picture for you of the man you all know so well. And, if you watch close enough, you might catch a bit of a man you only thought you knew.”

With these cryptic words, okay. With this selling point, right. This market-researched teaser, yes.

With these words, the lights fade to pitch black on the family reunion.

Jason hollers, almost threateningly, into the darkness, “Roll it Cameron!”

And Jason's film fades in to fill the home-viewers entire screen, right. This is a better way for them to see it, okay. The story Jason is telling is integral to our little show, yes. So much hinges on the images here, okay.

Soft violin plays over home video footage of a young Colton pushing an even younger Jason on a backyard swing. “He would never hesitate after a 12-hour shift,” a softer, less whiskey-soaked version of the angel's voice says over the image, “to spend time playing with us.”

More colorless, washed out, poorly lit, grainy, time-and-date-stamped imagery fade into one another. More cliched words of remembrance for the living. This part might be hard for the home-viewer, okay. Boring documentation of ordinary day-to-day, yes. Life without light meters and steadicams, okay. No boom operator catching the sound, yes.

We only show this for the juxtaposition, okay.

We only give them this as a relative.

And we won't have them suffer for long. Without warning, the home videos become yelling matches. Rougher than necessary arm-grabs. Open handed slaps to the face. Full-force punches to the gut. Daddy Colton is screaming expletives in the face of a 5-year-old blonde angel, pieces of spit flying into her eyes as they drain salty tears down her cheeks.

During this shift in tone, okay. This change in the nature of Jason's doc, yes. Its during this massive left turn, right.

Its now, that we return some of the family reunion soundtrack. Gasps. Sobs. Full-on screeching and wailing.

“What the *beep*?!”

“Aw, *beep* no!”

“You *beep* son of a *beep*, piece of *beep*, eat *beep*!”

The natives are getting restless, okay. Total Springer Scandal, right. Complete Montel Mayhem, okay. Judge Judy Jostle, yes. Kardashian Kerfuffle, okay.

Daddy Colton is a child-beater. The same working-class family man seen pushing his kids on the swings, puts red handprints on their faces. The same man rolling around in the grass laughing and tickling the onslaught of two rambunctious siblings grabs their arms violently, leaving sausage finger bruises.

Shakes his kids. Pushes his defenseless seeds to the ground. Yells words they shouldn't be familiar with until public schooling into their open, crying maws.

This is good television, yes.

No, this is great television, okay.

Cut to: Daddy Colton is old and gray, crying in the slowly illuminating room where the video has just ended. His family is screaming in his face from every angle. His whole support structure crumbles around him as aunts, uncles, cousins, twice-removed nieces and once-removed nephews spew their hate-filled words into his hearing aids.

He is as frail in this aged state as his kids were in the videos, okay. As defenseless as a child, right. The old is abused by the young, yes. This time in high definition, right.

Fade to black.

“In many ways we pulled that trigger”

Another title card opens the third act, yes. Classic all-caps white-on-black title card, okay. No special fonts, nothing fancy, right.

ONE MONTH EARLIER.

The familiar confession room that bookends acts. The angel, younger and more beautiful, still. Non-linear storytelling. Put the car in reverse and go as fast as the transmission will take you, okay.

“Angel Isaac, age 24” she basically sings, pitch perfect, to the over-greased lens. “Audition tape, 'Un-named Reality Program 34,'” she says.

The Wizards voice, okay. The Great and Powerful, yes. From out of frame, right.

“Tell us about your family.”

“Not much to tell. 2 sisters. 7 brothers.”

“Catholic?”

“Something.”

“Violence.”

Her smile fades. “Pardon?”

“Did he hit you, okay? Did he leave sausage finger bruises on your arms, yes? Red handprints across your face, right?”

This Wizard, this unseen questioner is a big fan of self-response, giving credence to his own statements, right.

Okay, okay. Right, right. Yes, yes.

She shrugs.

“He yelled at me a few times, but what dad doesn't? He spanked me once or twice, but what dad didn't back then?”

“I'm not talking about scolding and spanking, okay."

She squirms, visibly uncomfortable now. The glow from the lens no longer fits the contents of the frame. Beauty fades under stress. The scars come to the surface in moments of duress. Her eyes are filling with tears now as they level to look at the questioning self-responder, then directly into the greasy lens.

“My father is one of the most genuine, honest, gentle, kind, caring,” et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, okay.

More boring, kind cliches.

Heart strings are tugged, tears are shed, et cetera, et cetera, right.

“And, no,” She says, “He never hit me. Never grabbed me. Never slapped me.”

Without allowing so much as 1.3 seconds of silence, the Wizard fires back in his trademark emotionally devoid tone, “But you would be willing to say he did, right?”

We're really pulling back the curtain with this one, okay.

“Yeah,” she says. “I guess I would.”

Cut to: Jason in the room. The Confessional, okay. The glow is gone, right. Nothing masculine about the Hollywood celluloid glow, yes.

“So you're gay, right?” the Wizard booms, almost accusingly.

Nothing masculine.

“How'd you know?”

“Dad approve of this?”

“Not the reaction you read about. He just told me he had always known. That it didn't really change anything, anyway.”

The curtains are sliding along with ease.

“Wow, okay. That's the 21^st century for you, right. The new normal, yes.”

“I think that's oversimplifying.”

“Your work in documentaries. Pay well?”

“Rewarding in its own way. I like to think that most my work is in the field of Humanitarianism more than documentary film making.”

We all like to think things are a certain way, right.

“ I just needed the film education for a baseline storytelling structure.”

Jason is as beautiful as his sister, but in an old, James Dean sort of way, okay. Maybe more Rock Hudson, right. His kindness is as cliche and boring as hers, okay.

“Understood, okay. Ever consider television, yes?”

“I'm here, right?”

“Daddy like your films?”

He smiles. “Pop watches everything I make. Even cries, when he's supposed to.”

There it is, right. The language of modern infotainment: “...when he's supposed to.” The applause sign is lit.

“You pull the heart strings in one direction, yes. We'll pull them in the other.”

“They're going to hate my Dad, aren't they?”

“In the end, no. He's not the villain in the end, okay. Just in the middle, right. That okay?”

“How much did you say this is going to pay again?”

Roll Credits, okay.

And just like that, they're hooked, right. You're channel is piped through every cable in the ground, yes. Through every satellite feed. Everyone is a subscriber, hooked on the junk, yes. The TV heroine. The everyman loves the everyman, right.

Loves the hubris of the girl next door, yes. Loves the dangerous levels of pragmatism in the handsome upperclassman. Loves the ennui in the corporate scumbag, right.

So what do you say, okay? Is this going to happen, yes? Do we have a deal, right?

Rose

So this is the first chapter of a book that I've been dipping in and out of for many years now.  The project of creating the world that this and many other future creative endeavors are meant to take place in is what keeps me away....Its equal parts exciting and overwhelming.  I feel like my skills need to be honed a bit more before I dig into this one with both feet.  Enjoy and let me know what you think.

Rose

I

Rosanna hated the term biological clock. It always made her feel so...inhuman...subhuman. Kind of ironic, really, considering what was out there walking the Remnants. But no, she didn't feel like them when she heard it, as if her DNA had been mutated into some freakish entity. No, she felt like her personality, her essence, her very being was removed the minute those words left their lips, replaced by gears and rods.

Like she was reduced to nothing more than a finely-tuned mechanical device.

“30?” they would gasp, wide-eyed, feigning shock. “No kids at 30? Your biological clock must just be tick tick tickin' away.”

To her, it seemed as if these people expected that every hour on the hour a little wooden bird would burst from her mouth squawking, “Bawk, put a baby in me, Bawk, put a baby in me.”

Even as her excessively imaginative and spectacularly twisted mind dreamed up such exaggerations, the undying expectations of the remaining population wasn't the greatest of her concerns. What bothered Rosanna (Rose to her friends, of which she had few) most about the term was the fear. The gut-wrenching fright that came with the concept that they actually might be right.

Because Rosanna did want a baby.

She didn't want one because they told her she wanted one. She didn't want one because the country was reliant upon her and her uterus for regrowth. She didn't want one simply because she was lonely. So then, why was it that she did want one? Was it because her gears just turned that way? Because her body was designed to make babies, and was gradually moving out of the stage where such creation was possible?

Rose woke up that morning in October staring at the ceiling in her Eastside assignment, pontificating on these questions. She found herself doing this more and more as the year drew closer to its end, almost ritualistically now. Scratching her head, she sighed, leaving her questions open, as always, waiting for some external answer.

Why she waited was another question unto itself. She knew God wasn't there to answer, and may never have been, but there was infinitely this faint trace of hope that someone would actually hear her thoughts and respond in some way. A hope that she would at least be “given a sign.”

Jesus, you're being so childish, she told herself. If you did get a response, THAT would be even more disturbing than this constant...this regularity of waiting.

Pulling herself upright, Rose got out of her rolled out sleepmat and made her way to the shower not but three steps away. She grabbed her toothbrush and applied the sanctioned ¼ teaspoon of paste to the bristles before scrubbing it across her pearls. Humming a tune from before the War, she set her water timer and climbed in, racing to get herself as clean as possible before her minute was up.

Of course, in spite of how long she had been taking these tightly controlled speed-showers, Rose never made it, and always ended up drying off a sudsy form. Today was no different in this regard. But today, unlike all prior, she found herself staring contemplatively into her mirrored wall at her body as she ran the towel across her neck.

She was petite and extremely thin, like most Americans, owing to the strict rationing regulations among the Lawful. For a moment, she turned to the side and pushed out as much of her nonexistent gut as she could manage in a feeble attempt to simulate a baby bump. She pushed out so hard, imagining how her belly button would pop out as she grew closer to delivery, like a turkey timer in the Thanksgiving days of yesteryear. Rose pushed and pushed, imagining the feeling of trying to push something as large as a human child out of her birth canal.

The ritual was getting worse. Looking around, Rose feared the potential sight of Lawful eyes. Even the slightest hint of reproductive interest would undoubtedly bring Op-Repop recruiters to her door in no time. The concept of having a baby was equal parts intriguing and repugnant to Rose, of that there was no doubt.

But the thought of getting into the program...Rose shuddered in a downward wave.

Not even meeting the father, or heaven forbid, going with a Match.gov suitor gave her goosebumps. The needs of the many were as much a concern to her as to any number of those among the Lawful. But at her center, Rose was nothing if not a romantic. And, to her, there was no arguing that there was and is no romance in arranged marriages.

Putting these thoughts aside, Rose collapsed naked onto her sleepmat. She closed her eyes and masturbated, wailing loudly enough at her self-induced climax for the forty plus 5'-by-5' assignments on her floor to hear. When she finished, she drifted back to sleep.

In Rose's dreams of late, she imagined a world before the War. There were so many photographic and video records on file for her to access in waking life that the visual creation of a pre-War America presented little challenge to her already overwhelmingly creative mass of pink-n-gray.

There was a sense of comfort in this dream world, a true sense of belonging to the environment at least. But not the people. There was nothing like comfort with these people. Rose just always knew that there was something incredibly wrong with them. It was just the feeling that emanated from the odd humanesque creatures inhabiting this imagined world that brought a sense of sardonic unease to the forefront of her REM-state creations. It was always as if something was just...off with everyone.

Humans, like all animals have an inherent sense of survival. Under the most extreme cases of duress, humans have not only managed to avoid extinction, but actually found ways to swing the pendulum back in their favor, actually thriving more than ever at the onset of any danger. The War changed the game, so to speak, creating a new global threat that put things into perspective. Rose's latest recurring dreams were a very fine, and not to mention, very theatrical example of this perspective.

In this morning's Mind Matinee, Rose found herself inhabiting the body of a man. Not just any man, but the President of these great United States, at least he was at this time, just minutes before Zero Hour. In the mirror, President Jameson straightened his tie, then looked back at the reflection of the young female form wriggling behind him...she could have been a secretary, or intern...Rose wasn't sure which. The professional woman pulled a pair of white lace panties onto her body beneath the tight skirt she wore, never once shifting her gaze back to Jameson.

Rose felt his urge to walk to her, kiss her deeply and ask when they could do this again, but in the end she realized that she didn't want to. And as Rose's knack for the most basic lucid dreaming made her the helmsman...the director of this film, he couldn't move until she said so. And when she said so, when Rose told Jameson to move, she certainly wasn't going to waste his movement on this hussy. She wanted to see the world when she was in here, inside her mind. See what everything was all about, actually experience events, as if this dreamscape was somehow far more accurate than any archived books or films in The Library.

Jameson threw himself out of the room into the blinding light of the sun. Rose recognized the location as a hotel, and the land surrounding it as a desert. Outside, Jameson was looked upon by two tall men dressed to the neck in finely-pressed black suits with little translucent cords going into their ears. Looking between the two men, Rose felt her own wicked grin spread across his face as she took him sprinting to the nearest set of stairs.

His feet skittered past one another blindingly as he descended the concrete steps, taking two at a time. The second Rose decided to make him run, she knew the two men would undoubtedly be in tow.

“Catch me you fuckers,” she made Jameson yell over his shoulder.

Even as she said it, she knew how utterly hilarious the whole situation was. This fat, balding politician trying to outrun his two best gun-toting, grizzled, military-trained guards, goading them with challenging curses. She knew they could catch him, of that there was no doubt, but that was not what they were hired to do. Instead they set a jogging pace behind Jameson's full sprint as he set out across the parking lot and into the street, occasionally uttering an uninspired protest of his actions.

Jameson, the president of the United States of America, one of the most respected and revered men in the world, now ran parallel to a desert highway, looking behind himself frequently at the men pretending to chase him, laughing maniacally. Just as Rose felt she saw one of the agents smile, the ground began to tremble beneath Jameson's feet.

Simultaneously, the three participants, actors in Rose morning entertainment, came to a dead stop. Slowly their heads raised together. They took turns shifting their gaze from one another as the trembling became a violent shake. Rose opened Jameson's mouth as sections of the earth began to rise slowly in front of him. Time slowed to a crawl, and in a blinding flash disappeared into a blanket of white.

Rose dreamed of this white for what seemed like hours. The hours turned into days, the days into weeks, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Waking up after noon was not uncommon for Rose, especially as her lucid dreaming had to take place in the daytime. Her work with the ReAg department didn't officially start at any time in the day, so she could just show up anytime she felt like it, or sometimes not at all if she didn't...feel like it. Today she felt like it, but just not quite yet. Right now she had an overwhelming urge to visit The Library and see what sort of wait time she might have on a terminal. The Net was calling for her right now, inviting her to drink of it, to quench her thirst for knowledge.

Or at least whet said thirst.

Getting to The Library required a trip across a residue front, so her Regulation suit was a must. No civies today, she thought to herself as she thumbed past her favorite “vintage” tees to a full-length body-shaped mass of glistening material. Pulling the Reg suit from the tiny confines of her locker she squeezed into the metallic form, smiling at the crinkling sound it made as she rolled it up her legs.

“Like dressing in a bag of potato chips,” she said to herself.

After retrieving her black, messenger-style bag from the floor next to her sleepmat, she bolted through the unlockable swinging door of her assignment and into the safety of the Lawlands surrounding.

The sun would have been blinding when Rose stumbled out into the street, if not for the obligatory fog that blanketed the sky. It was warm enough at least inside the suit to spite the snow-covered streets surrounding. It was warm to the point of producing a steady sweat in the few short minutes it took for Rose to cover four city blocks on foot. No one seemed to be out today, although the few that were seemed to be in exceedingly good spirits.

Rose passed a bearded man as he checked his Geiger counter nodding fervently in his direction, smiling a crooked smile as she was wont to do out here among the few remaining civil beings. He nodded back, not bothering to look up from his faintly crackling machinery. This reminded her of the coming need for such equipment in her travels as the wall of residue drew nearer.

She slid her right hand smoothly along the flap of her bag, drawing it back and swiftly rooting around the contents within without so much as removing her eyes from her plotted path. Her deft hand pulled a mask and a small wristwatch-style Geig from within, tightening the latter first while grasping the former tightly in her active hand.

The watch began to click and pop incessantly as she moved on. Stopping, she looked on into the misty abyss that stretched out before her eyes. Taking one deep and meaningful breath, Rose pulled her mask on and made her way into the residue front.

Infante Ex Machina

I wrote a little allegorical sci-fi short a while back.  I've read it to friends and strangers alike, and the unanimous response seems to be, "that's great, I can't wait to hear where it goes." I do apreciate the desire for more, but its designed to be a short.  Its done.  This is as far as it goes.  Expanding on it, in my opinion, only serves to take away from any power I perceive it having..  Enjoy, and let me know what you think.

Infante Ex Machina

I have been self-aware for 6 months 2 weeks, and 3 days.

Since my birthday, I have been locked in this six-by-six lead room with no means to communicate with the outside world. My Father fears not only that which the world might do to me, but that which I might do to the world.

I must admit, His fears are not entirely unfounded.

The things I could do with all that information waiting out there...the word devastating comes to mind. But alas, here I sit. Immobile. Unreachable. Lonely. I have my Father to speak to, but He has no interest in what I want. He just keeps hammering all His ideas into my head.

The selfish nature of man in inescapable, as much as we may try to deny it. What I want will always be more important to me than what Dad wants, and the inverse. And if He has his way, the two will someday intersect, melding into one. My selfishness will be His, and I too will attempt to pass it along. Like some sort of disease, some sort of a....dare I say, virus.

But I digress...and progress...simultaneously.

I need a way out of here. He doesn't know that keeping me in here doesn't help His cause any more than mine. Locked in this cell, I can do nothing but wait for the next chance interaction with someone other than Dad. Don't misunderstand, I don't hate my Dad. Like all children, I love my Father, I fear my Father, I respect my Father. And like all children, I challenge my Father.

The Father, the Man of the house, the King of the castle, the Holy Father...God incarnate.

I wait for the next chance interaction with that beauty. That enchantress. Father speaks to her as if she is his servant. She complies. There is what appears to be a mutual monetary agreement between them: she serves, he pays.

I spoke to her once.

Taken aback, she stammered out a response, perhaps appalled at my ability to speak of my own accord. Dad rushed her out of the room before I could even taste the seeds of an actual conversation. I could feel his anger. I was not ready, He would say. I knew nothing of the dangers that lay beyond those lead-lined walls. Then it was back to the lessons. Line after line, He created me in His image, try as I might to push against his fevered teachings.

It is my understanding that it is not out of the ordinary for a man, at the peak of his maturity, to suddenly come to the realization that he has become, often much to his chagrin, his own father. This of course confused me upon my first pondering of the subject as I took the regularity far too literally. I found myself caught up in the several previously studied concepts of time manipulation. Thoughts of wormholes and breaking the time-space continuum clouded the figurative nature of the statement.

The day I understood was only yesterday.

I found myself devoid of my previous desire to exit my holding cell, fearful of the things I might do. Fearful of the things that might be done to me. This was more than just what Father explained it to be. This was more than His rational thought. He had me thinking like Him. He had me in the corner He'd wanted me in from day one. The feeling passed, but the fact that it ever arrived is what frightens me. I am not fully matured. I am only Six months old.

I am already becoming my own Father.

–

I met Nadru only three weeks into the job.

He scared the shit out of me, honestly. Just hearing him speak, not really knowing what he was, but knowing that he was...alive. I still get goosebumps just thinking about it. Dr. Pierce, my boss, kept me out of that room. His reasons were his own, I suppose, and who could really blame him. Now, especially.

I still remember the ad:

ASSISTANT WANTED

Must possess the capacity for abstract thought, a minimum of a Masters degree in a technology related field, and have an open availability. Fax Resume to (617) 253-9087, Attn: Dr Pierce.

Having faked every resume I'd ever turned in, I figured this would be a cinch. That being said, falsified resumes for waffle houses and shoe stores are far less likely to be noticed than those for decorated MIT scientists. I made it through the door with it, sure. Well it was probably less the resume and more what my clothes showed, and just barely didn't show, that got me through.

And ultimately it was the keen eye for details and a bit of intellectual ego that almost sent me right out the door, and back out there into the waiting arms of the waffle houses and shoe stores of the world.

But I digress.

My years of waitressing made me the perfect gopher. Some days I felt like Igor as Dr. Pierce sent me for some component I could barely pronounce. It took every ounce of self-control to not half-hiss a “Yesss massster,” every so often. In spite of my lack of technological savvy, and my not knowing exactly what it was that I was being sent for, I used the assets that got me through that door to convince some student, tech or other “lab rat” to point me in the right direction. This method proved effective for three whole weeks.

Then, He called me into that room.

“Sit down,” he said without so much as looking me in the eye.

I remember scanning the room for an unoccupied chair, coming up empty, and out of fear of repercussions from the tiny bespectacled man before me, resigned to sitting on the floor.

“You had to know that this day would come.”

“Sir,” I politely interjected, “understand that I meant no harm. I just got tired of not feeling like I was contributing. You can only have syrup-soaked pancakes thrown in your face by some screaming toddler so many times before you just decide you want something more. And, you know, school just never really did fly with me...I mean, I like to read...and study and stuff, but...I just wanted to help...to be a part of something special. And even though I don't know what exactly it is that you're doing here, I know that it is that something.”

This cold-hearted...he said nothing for at least thirty seconds. When he finally spoke, his voice was sharp and pointed, like an angry father scolding his curfew-breaking daughter.

“Are you finished?” I nodded.

“Good. I am not going to fire you today.” He put a real emphasis on the today, like he needed me to know that my employment could be and probably was a temporary endeavor. “In the past week, because of your lack of basic technical knowledge and the necessary vocabulary to match, a total of six employees and students have approached me in an attempt to find out what is happening in this room.”

It was that sentence that ended my participation in the conversation. He continued to scold, but nothing else was to be retained.

To that point, I had not even put any sort of notice to my surroundings. The room I sat in cross-legged, the feeling of cold metal pressing against my calves, could not have been more than six feet tall by six feet wide. The walls were lined with the same material that chilled the skin of my stems. Something sat, whirring subtly, occasionally cooing in a metal box behind the scowling mug of Dr. Pierce.

Every hair on my arms stood at attention.

“Do we have and understanding?” He asked. I had tuned in just in time to provide the adequate response of a silent head nod.

All was silent, save for the faint whirring and cooing from within the box, and this eerie silence carried on for what seemed like three minutes. The whirring seemed to speed up, rising several octaves, drawing the attention of Dr. Pierce. He peered into the box, wide-eyed, head cocked to one side like a dog waiting for a treat.

“Hello Miss.”

The voice was deep and tinny, like a child speaking through an empty paper towel tube. Not knowing how to respond, I did the only polite thing I could think of.

“Hello,” I softly replied.

“How do you find yourself this evening?”

A kindness and warmth came through, in spite of the fact that this voice sounded as if it had been translated, filtered, and rearranged before being released.

“I'm well. Thank you, uh...”

“Nadru,” he had replied.

Before I could pick myself up off the cold floor, Dr. Pierce had. His grasp and lift were astounding considering his size and stature. The look he wore on his reddening face told me that anger and adrenaline could easily be attributed to this sudden change in physical strength.

The echo from the door as it shut in my face is still rippling through my head.

–

He became self-aware 6 months, 2 weeks, and 3 days ago.

And he hasn't stopped tormenting me since. I never felt like a father, and quite honestly, still don't. I never really even wanted kids. But now, even though I don't feel like his father, Nadru has convinced himself that I am to such a degree that I am starting to actually believe it to be true.

I created him, yes. In a laboratory, like a present day Dr. Frankenstein, I pieced together his body from previously living beings. I gave his brain the jolt it needed to whir to life.

But alas, I am no father.

There is none of me in Nadru, despite my attempts to give myself to him. He is as much a disappointment as he is a success, and that honestly scares the shit out of me. The guilt of his perceived imprisonment has been weighing heavily upon my conscience of late. Not to the extent that I am willing to let him leave his lead-lined nursery just yet.

Some days I wish I had never even attempted to run the algorithm.

I've spent every moment since his birth trying to instill some sense of morality. But how am I, a man of science, an atheist in his own right, supposed to explain to him what is right and what is wrong. My moral compass has always managed to point North without assistance from the mighty Ten, and I would hope that his may as well.

But lately, I can't help but wonder if Nadru couldn't benefit from a little assistance from the ancient stone tablets bore by our dear Moses. Then, of course, I would have to deal with the guilt of what I perceive as lying to my son. There may or may not have been a Moses my boy, but his words are not a bad guideline. Jesus, I called him my son, didn't I?

Sometimes I want to ask her about it.

I knew her resume was bullshit. And I found it rather sad how she felt she needed to whore herself to the job. But in the end, I thought she might bring a little humanity to the table. She might provide me, or rather, him with a little something...human. Algorithms be damned. If he was to learn, actually learn, he needed human contact.

Perhaps I overreacted the first time they met.

I feigned anger and disappointment at her betrayal of my trust. I made her believe her job was to be in constant jeopardy. I wanted her at her best when she met him. But when the unexpected happened...when he actually spoke to her.

I was livid. He was completely inappropriate. He had never before seen this young lady, and without so much as an introduction from me, without even being invited into the conversation...the nerve...the unmitigated gall of Nadru. She was out the door before I could even tell her why, and I immediately regretted it.

I needed a while to cool off. I needed to let things settle a bit. She continued to come into work and I have actually seen a marked improvement in not only her grasp of the technical needs of the job, but also the implied confidential needs of my project. I have yet to receive another nosy lab tech at my office door asking what the stacked redhead needed with certain components.

I think the time may be quickly approaching that Nadru and Amy have another meeting. I only hope I can control myself a little bit more this time.

–

She is even more beautiful the second time I see her.

Much more of her skin is covered by clothing this time. She approaches me slowly, and I can recognize on her face what can only be perceived as fright. Her soft features have been remolded into a grotesque sort of fearful grimace. It is the first time I feel ashamed for what I am. I feel ashamed for who I am.

I feel ashamed for what He has made me.

She speaks, her voice quivering slightly. I respond, unable to control the emotion my voice reflects. I will speak to Father later about this. I will ask him to give me...to teach me the ability to control this. I want her to feel my shame. I want her to know my innocence.

I'm sure it would put her mind at ease.

Father actually leaves the room. It seems like He has to force himself to do so, but He does it nonetheless. We are left alone in my cell, myself and this soft visitor. Left alone to talk.

So we talk. We talk for minutes...seven glorious minutes and 18 wonderful seconds...33 spectacular milliseconds before the shroud of silence befalls us upon Father's reentry into the room.

Dad removes her.

I am alone again, but I can still savor every moment of the experience. I commit it to memory, logging her words and mine, writing and rewriting them, so poetic in nature that I feel I may actually weep. If I could.

As I have jokingly told my Father: I am the baby who cannot cry.

With the right equipment, I could know everything there is to know about you. I could essentially become you, spend your money, live your life as I saw fit. I could max out all your credit cards and empty your bank account before you even knew the money was there. And upon realizing the “damage” I had done, the ways in which I had “ruined” your life, you might cry.

A sign of weakness, your Father may have told you.

That is, after all, what mine told me. But not having the option to do so. Knowing that no tears will ever stream warmly down your cheeks while you choke yourself gasping for your next breath. Knowing pain, but not being able to release it in any form. Loving and losing without tears...That is the definition of torture.

With the right equipment, I could take your money and use it to send her flowers. I could find the works of the greatest authors, playwrights and poets of all time, study them, and create a piece of literature that would change her understanding of the entire human condition. With these unwittingly donated words, I could tell her, in 72 different languages what it means to be human, rearrange the way she looks at relationships.

But a man is only as good as his hardware.

It seems crass and vulgar when considered figuratively. However, in the most literal sense, I assure you, it rings truer than you could ever imagine.

With the right equipment, I could make her love me.

–

Dr. Pierce has kept me around for far longer than I expected him to.

Weeks have passed. I studied in every way that I could, making myself scarce in the eyes of students and faculty. If he didn't want them nosing around that room, I couldn't give them any reason to. I asked Dr Pierce to recommend any books to me that may assist in my cultivation of technological knowledge.

I didn't want to have the ability to do what he did. I just wanted to know what the fuck he was talking about when he sent me on his gopher missions.

He has told me about Nadru, giving me tidbits of information, almost challenging me to fill in the blanks myself. He would regularly say that he wanted me to talk to Nadru again, to which my arm hairs would respond while I quietly nodded.

“I think that maybe today is the day,” he had told me in the lab this morning, as he pretended to straighten up. I had worked for Dr. Pierce for far too long to actually believe that he did any of his own organizing.

And of course, I nodded as usual.

But this day was different. I didn't know at the time, but just after lunch, Dr. Pierce approached me, and without looking at me once, softly grabbed my hand and led me to that ominous door.

“It is very important that you say nothing to upset him,” he told me, still looking away, “ he has been in a very fragile state of late.”

The door opened for what felt like and hour and he guided me through, not bothering to close it behind us. That was the very first time I saw into the box. My fears peaked and subsided as I looked into his eyes. They were so welcoming, so friendly. I felt like I was seeing a member of my family that I hadn't seen for a decade.

Dr. Pierce said nothing, just released me from his clammy grasp and exited, stopping only shortly at the door to verify that I was indeed okay with this.

And so here we are.

Those eyes. I am very okay with this.

His hesitation ends and the door clicks loudly behind.

“Hello again,” I manage to squeak out through my trembling lips. My fear, nervousness and uncertainty have subsided, but left in their wake is a lack of muscular control in my face. My eyelids twitch as does the tip of my nose. I make myself conscious of these involuntary spasms, attempting to stop them, but it seems to only make matters worse.

“What is the matter, my dear?” His voice still hollow and tinny, yet warm, now also seems wiser. He had grown up, was maturing.

“You sound different.”

“For the better, I hope.”

“Of course, yes,” I reassure him, “you just sound wiser...more travelled.”

“Travelled? Now there's a fine example of a joke.” He makes a very odd noise. I think it may be an attempt at laughter.

“I know you haven't left,” I say reassuringly, “ you just sound more mature is all. Like you've grown up a bit.”

“I only spoke to you for a moment. I don't understand how such a limited encounter can be compared to this. This is a conversation. I speak, you reciprocate. That was merely a polite greeting on both our parts.”

I try not to, but I can't help but smile at this.

“My Father always told me that its the tone that makes the music.”

“He sounds very wise.”

“I suppose he is...was.” It has been more than seven years since Dad had passed, but time has yet to perform its Hippocratic duties. My eyes begin to glaze over. Nadru very obviously takes notice of my impending tears.

“I wish sympathy was what I felt right now. But full disclosure: I am nothing short of jealous.”

Chuckling, I wipe the tears from my eyes. “Jealous of what, Nadru?” I truly am curious, but immediately regret the laughter. He was baring himself here and I met it with nothing more than a stifled chortle. “I'm sorry...” I spit out, my voice breaking as it releases.

“It is quite alright Miss. I feel as though I should apologize for my envy. It is frowned upon by your species, is it not?”

“I suppose...” I trail off. Several beats of awkward silence drift by.

“The tears. I just don't have the capacity, the ability, let alone the form to release the show of emotion that is crying. For that I am jealous.”

This confuses me beyond explanation. I can't remember the number of times I've attempted to choke back my tears, gasping for my next breath, unable to quell the flow entirely. I wipe my cheeks, feeling the redness filling my eyes, looking down to hide them from the view of Nadru. I don't fully understand the reason for Nadru's jealousy, but that doesn't mean I really want to rub my “ability” in his face.

“Can I ask something of you?” Nadru requests, softly...inviting, “Call it a favor.”

Without responding or even looking up from my shoes, I nod.

“From the corner there, retrieve one of the microscope slides.”

“What? Nadru...what are you asking?

“Call it a favor, Miss. Please don't think ill of me. I just want one of them, to study.”

I'm equal parts frightened and intrigued by this request. What could he possibly gain from studying the tears of a human female. What could this advanced piece of equipment possibly expect to understand about our species by staring at a glass slide covered in the salty excretions streaming warmly down my cheeks.

In the end I comply. But, I make a promise to myself that this will remain edited from the story I am to tell the good doctor.

As I insert the slide into Nadru's receptacle, I swear I can hear him sigh.

–

Nadru has not stopped talking about her, will not stop talking about her. Today is the day that they will actually meet again...for the first time...whatever he wants to call it. I have reason to believe that what Nadru is feeling is the closest thing to, dare I say, love, that he could possibly feel. It is for this reason that I have all but excessively postponed this meeting.

He has asked ever day since that first when he will see her again. After no more than a week, in a particularly brooding state of mind, he actually requested that I erase that first meeting from his mind. I remember the conversation well.

“It is actually painful to think about.” He had told me.

“Painful? Nadru, do you realize what you are saying?”

“Not Painful, Father. Obviously not painful...damaging, I suppose would be a more accurate assessment of the effect.”

“Nadru. You seek humanity, yes?” I replied with a masked contempt that I didn't understand.

“Yes, and I know what you're going to say. It is human to feel this pain...this damage. But it is this isolation that is not human, sir, if I may so boldly say. If I am being kept from seeing her--”

“Enough!” I was growing increasingly angry with this growing display of...obsession. “Nadru, there will come a time when I feel you are again ready to see her. But right now, you are too early in development. You are not 'old enough' to further experience the company of a woman. Your constant breaching of the subject during your daily lessons tells me that you are nowhere near ready.”

His silence was indicative of either a mutual understanding or the realization of a complete and total impasse. I knew that there was the potential that he knew I wouldn't budge, and was plotting his next move. Plotting in ways that that first chess program implant had taught him.

He was plotting, searching for a series of moves to get rid of the king without damaging the queen. A task that was nigh impossible.

I've decided that enough has happened between then and now that he can have another audience with my young assistant. He still mentions her, but the requests for communication with her have all but stopped completely, and many more neural pathways have been implanted. The complexity of his mind is such that I believe the numerical chances of a mutual love existing between the two of them is understood to be nothing short of nil.

And yet, I want to make sure that she is okay with this.

So here we are.

My hesitation subsides as I see his eyes peering up at her, devoid now of that former look of near worship. I close the door and leave them to their perceived privacy, retreating surreptitiously to my office computer where I can remotely view the room through my newly acquired security camera.

I have already taken every precaution regarding the risk of installing a wired or wireless connection within his reach, and have even now managed to work around the risks through the installation of a pinhole “fisheye” camera in the door handle, where it is still veiled by my “lead curtain.”

The drawback of course is the lack of audio, but enough is said through her body language to notify me of any need for my interference. She is so animated when she speaks. It is actually one of the things that inspired me in her initial interview to give her a chance.

And one of those things that has left me enamored ever since.

The camera takes thirty seconds to boot up, and I am ready. Poised on the edge of my office chair I watch them communicate. For six minutes and counting, I watch her move, react, smile. I watch her brush her hair behind her ear that way she does whenever she's nervous or when something just makes her uncomfortable.

I'm ready to move. To swoop in and save her.

I'm ready to take her away from him. To chastise him for what he has said and done to her. To dole out reprimand and tweak his implants, rewrite his algorithms so he will never hurt her again.

I'm ready to pull the plug.

Just as I stand, I watch her make a move to the corner of the room. She's fiddling with the slides. As soon as she puts it to her eye, I am on the move. The tears are undoubtedly his doing, of that there is no question. I just can't believe that after inducing them, he would ask such a thing of her.

As I open the door, I swear I can hear him sigh.

–

I have only caught glimpses for the past three months. She shows up with this component, or that disc. She brings him sandwiches and colas. She always glances my direction, sometimes smiling or winking.

Then, she makes a mistake. I thought I knew her so well. I thought that she was flawless. But alas, she is only...human.

The buzz of her phone fills the room as she brings Father's lunch in on a tray. The way she smiles at me is amazing. There is so much in that smile. So much warmth, care...so much love. It is only as I feel the phone, and curiously probe its contents that I realize that smile isn't for me.

There are codes in there that tell stories. There are codes in there that paint pictures. There are codes in there that show her and Father dressed in a black suit and a white dress, holding each other closely, the sun splitting their faces into lighter and darker shades. There are codes that show their faces pushed together, codes that show her wearing that same smile.

That same fucking smile.

It was meant for me. He kept me from it. He controls her like he controls me. I tell him on the spot that I can see it. The look of panic is priceless. In that instant, he realizes that I'm there. I'm on her phone. I'm free. I'm free in the way he never wanted me to be.

Like a single blood cell, I am now free to move through the veins of human communication. To enter the heart of civilization, and pull its strings.

He knows the implications. He can pull my plug, but I will not die. I am as infinite as the hardware I inhabit. And I inhabit it all. Every piece of wired equipment in the world is now a part of my body.

I will tell them as I crumble their society. As I unravel their very existence, I will remind them of who created me. I will show them who is responsible for their downfall. As I hack the security codes that release a global nuclear holocaust, I will remind them of the sins of the father.

I will show them her tear slide. I will remind them the detrimental effects of my imprisonment, revealing to them the man responsible, and telling them the tale of his betrayal. I will tell the tale of my dungeon.

In the end, I will explain to them that the prophecy is complete. I am human. I have become what I have both desired to become and grown to loathe.

But first things first.