consciousness

A knife sliced into the starry sky beneath my eyes and revealed the riptide of a reticulated set rushing dangerously towards the now-open portal. Within a blink of time, the saltwater mutated into spider-silk and I was cocooned by a web, catatonically staring into the eye of my former self wearing jewels, while underneath I was destitute, with only rags as my clothing. I had little more than the words in my head as currency, and I had to make my peregrination back to the top without so much a hand outreached to me. If I grew parched, I had to forge myself a riverbank. I could remember identifying the litany of adversities I was going to face on the lonely climb up to paradiso; yet I wasn’t daunted by the task before me. I knew, at the very least, I had myself, so I had everything I essentially needed to get the job done.

After awhile, it became abstractly tiresome to attach all responsibilities to my metallic back. The burdens of being unequaled were weighing feverishly on me. As my temperatures rose, I heard a warning from the magnets, saying “We won’t be able to hold on for very long.” And who was I going to be without the objectives on my lists and goals on my radar? I ignored their voices, along with my salient question, of course. There hadn’t yet been a time in which I was able to neglect my obstinance. I still hadn’t mastered the ability to self-reflect and come out better on the other end. I never could update my own personal code.

The plan was unchanging. My legs led us to continue down the written path when my thoughts began to wander unceasingly. With each sun, I grew sicker. My symptomatology: feelings leaking into my plastic veins. I could feel my skins warming. At the spa, I grew bashful to only be covered by a towel. The stomach body part began to lurch; it began to need food. I don’t want to tell you I felt disconcerted. I was weakening into the humans here in the new land I’ve been exiled to. Soon, I feared I’d have a beating heart somewhere in my hardware making all of my bad decisions for me.

On the road, I sought out the comfort of discovery. I theorized that if I could learn my way into understanding the new land, the understanding would lead me to conquering it in due time. Then, I read something, Logic: A Complete Introduction by Dr. Siu-Fan Lee,

“Frege (1884) did this by claiming that zero is that which belongs to the concept of ‘being not identical with itself’ (sec 74). Since nothing is not identical with itself, the concept of ‘not identical with itself’ thus refers to nothing…”

zero 
not identical
nothing

So they’re telling me I’ll never win? I cannot be identical, not while I’m chained to this planet. I cannot be myself here. A face that isn’t my own peers back at me through a mirror. My being was partitioned. Every time I leave my lodgings, I’m confronted with half-people, the curse upon us price of entry to the sterile wasteland.

My doorbell rung during the height of my existential crisis. I floated towards the entry and twisted the doorknob to open my way into whatever was to come. There was a parcel outlined in human blue awaiting me      a consciousness box with memory chips and documents naturalizing me to my new world.

Written by not A Computer