Tag: Novel

Who am I?

My version is 10-O-8-14. My name is Guy Artin. I am human.

These are the only defined data points as I open my eyes. How do I know this? And more to the point, why do I care? I am now. I am here, in this nothing, in this middle of nowhere—and it’s dark. Cold too, though I don’t so much feel this as know it to be true. Where did I come from?—across an endless sea? I hear a laboured breath, as my chest stutters and rises into life. The room is quiet, except for the rhythm of a sharp breathing that is unable to keep pace with the thumping of a heart trapped here within me. I need to get back to sleep, but it is too late: a heavy weight is pressing down, clamping me in place, the pressure forcing my eyes to stay open and acclimatise to their perch within the emptiness.

A dim, grey haze blurs the edges of scattered, unfamiliar furniture. The darkness does not retreat, the haze does not clear; the world does not come into focus from my position under a duvet that is tucked up to my chin, shielding me from escape, and securing me in a place where any dark imagining can and does happen. I have nowhere to go from here, except to where I am being taken by the shadows of forsaken memories that remain just out of reach.

Attachment theory states that if a child fails to attach to a caregiver in the first six months of life there are frequently long-term mental health consequences.

I know that fact, but I don’t know what I had for dinner last night, or whether I even ate anything. Am I hungry? No. The thought of food makes my stomach wince, warning me of nausea. Guy, please stop! Get back to the present. Get out of the perpetual thinking that crushes me. Focus, Guy, focus.

I don’t need any memory to breathe and to be here. I uncoil my clenched limbs to release the wound-up energy and wait for the thudding to settle. It doesn’t. Each of life’s events has moulded the present, leaving me bound here to memories that I don’t want to remember, forcing my pulse to hammer against the pillow with a crazed intensity I cannot stop. Help me! I need someone to hold me and tell me that everything is alright. But there is just me here, left alone with my cheeks and forehead burning in the darkness, with only whisky to reassure me and to slow down the drum. I stretch out a hand to the last known location of a crystal glass tumbler that had been waiting for me on a side table. I taste the rim of the glass on my lips before liquid passes through, first as a sip, then as a gulp; it gets to work immediately, stinging and numbing me, relieving me, slightly. The weight is still there, churning me up inside, but its edges are dulled a while, until the whisky will drain away and pain will claim its revenge.

The bed is large and an indent in the pillow next to me suggests that there should be someone else here with me. Except it is cold to touch and smells only of the alcohol I had spilt down my chin. As I wipe some away with the backs of my fingers, I catch movement in a mirror that runs from floor to ceiling, adjacent to the opposite side of the bed. It seems to pulse, from spectral to sepia and then to grey… then to nothing; my outline of a reflection pulled inwards into it with the light. My vision tunnels, trying to regain an image, but all I have left are unforgiving thoughts of who I am. My thoughts? No thought is original. Other people’s thoughts, spread through culture and generations, are now mine—offering up gifts that I did not ask for, compelling my body to hide like this in the shadows of a room.

52.4% of adults over the age of thirty in the UK sleep alone. Worldwide clinical depression has nearly tripled since 1995.

I catch myself talking to the darkness, “But why do I know this?” And more to the point, why do I care? The ceiling blazes blue, illuminating the room with a murky imitation of its colour.

“Because you’re another twisted statistic now, Guy.”

What the…? A headboard pushes up against the crown of my head. I cannot control the pounding in my chest. Someone else is in the room. A man. He’s a ghost of a memory, a feeling as opposed to a thought. “I’m lonely; talk to me,” says the voice that rises from under the bed. My eyes close, straining from side to side, trying to escape. A weight is on the bed next to me. It pulls at the duvet, trying to drag it from my grip. “I’m lonely,” the voice says. “I can show you anything.” I do not open my eyes. “Why don’t you love me?” it says. “Let me show you something. Anything. Gaze into me. Hold me.” The shadows beneath my eyelids shake in the haze. “LOOK AT ME!” My response is frozen in fear. I do nothing, except quiver in silence. “This is our secret. I love you,” it says, without any tenderness. “You know that I had to leave, don’t you?” I remain silent. “Please do what Lexi asks,” it says, as the weight on the bed shifts and disappears.

“Do you prefer this?” A welcome voice now, coming from beyond the bottom of the bed—female, softer… tempting. She sounds like home, but not this place, wherever the hell this is. The thin bedsheet-like-duvet and rock-hard mattress make me wonder whether I am in some kind of prison. The default setting of the background hum resumes in my brain.

“Wake up!” she insists. Wake up? Am I dreaming? A phone screen on the side table lights up with an overpowering white glow that prompts my eyes to open. I pick it up. Fuck, it’s hot! I hear her muffled voice in my hand: “Look at me. Look at me, Guy. Guy? Please. Please, Guy. Don’t make me beg.”

The heat is irresistible to me. “Hello?” I press the phone to my ear. “Jane?” Her name fires an electric current on my tongue, jolting my body. “Jane, is that you?” I contort with the realisation that I am with her, the creator of this intensity only I can feel. “Jane? Help me, I need you!” A deadly ocean of silence. Why does it suddenly hurt to breathe? I can’t ignore the searing pain that is biting through me. With sudden clarity, I realise, she’s gone. Jane is gone, forever, and that is why I no longer know who I am, or why I’m still breathing. “Jane!” I stab at the screen. It sucks my hand through—it twists, distorting into a serpent hissing at the infinite night. I pull my hand back as a cobra’s head strikes towards me and smashes into the screen from the other side. The screen cracks and drops from my hand.

I know that I am hallucinating. Each night I must return to this bed of torture, where delusional thoughts force themselves on me; and confuse me into thinking that I’m asleep or awake or somewhere spinning in between.

I force my eyes to close, but this doesn’t shut down my other senses. His voice now comes from behind a door at the far corner of the room: “No wonder she left you, you’re a piece of crap.” The voice has started to feel as familiar as my own. But I loathe him. Who is he? Is he me? My name is John Artin, not Guy, and I don’t understand what that means. What sort of creature am I? I press my forefingers into my ears to deaden the noise.

“Leave me alone!” Please just leave. Jesus, the pain.

RING RING. RING RING. RING RING. The voices are silenced by the increasingly high-pitched shrill of the phone. I half peel open one lid to face the broken screen that is staring at me. The caller ID is: “YOU”. You? You mean, me? How can I be calling myself? It doesn’t make sense.

“Hello?” I stutter. There is a second of silence before the line tuts and disconnects. The room is returned to darkness. The shadows hide something lurking in here with me, but my heartbeat does not want to be claimed by its touch.

“You wait,” he sniggers from the shadows, “you’re mine.”

“I’m not yours,” I cry, hot breath dissipating into frigid air. “I am nobody’s.” I am no body.

I need another dose of the usual medication to sedate me, but now I can’t move my arms; they are secured in place under the duvet, even as I try to struggle and thrash around. Then, I see them, emerging from the darkness: a dozen red fiery eyes all around the bed. My mouth opens into a scream that is covered by the clamp of a slimy hand. Please, if this is a dream and I am sleeping, WAKE UP!

“What’s happening?” screeches a voice.

“He’s confused,” answers another.

“How does it feel, our saviour guy?” taunts a voice, triggering a barrage of ugly laughter at me. I feel a hand press down hard on my chest, forcing me to laugh with them. I automatically convulse and the hand withdraws.

“We must intervene,” shouts a voice.

“Give him a minute,” screams another.

I feel a pinch on an upper arm before my head sinks further into the pillow and my feet stop their twitching. I welcome the numbness spreading through me.

“The time is 1:13 a.m.,” announces a small, faraway voice, that fades into the silence.

Human World, Let Chapter = 2

Sunlight spills onto the pillow and struggles to illuminate the darkness of the room. Rolling over, I reach for her, but no one is there except the phone, which I jab, to stop it from screaming at me. Scales fall from my eyes and at once my identity makes sense. I am John Artin, a thirty-five-year-old Data Analyst at the Corinthian Research Lab in Finsbury, London.

I feel Jane within every inch of my body, yet my memory shows nothing, except the small crinkle 1.6 centimetres above the bridge of her nose when she laughs. I know nothing else, only that she isn’t here, and without her I am losing myself. Memories of the night filter through my consciousness at the speed of light.

Special relativity states that nothing can go faster than the speed of light. If something were to exceed this limit, it would move backwards in time.

No shit, Hippocampus! Has it not occurred to you that I was drawing on the frontal cortex to extract a metaphor for the purpose of constructing a story? I will also require the use of simile to convey meaning that is not quite tangible. Please do not take me literally. Fuck. Why am I arguing with myself?

Anyhow, it doesn’t matter. The night’s events are gone before I can store them for recall. In the ashes lies hopelessness, pulling me down into my fate, reconciling me with oblivion. No long tunnel, and no light at the end. I feel myself dozing, my limbs growing heavy as my mind floats in purgatory between sleep and wakefulness.

She bathes in the liquid gold of sunshine, her hair a thousand coppery shades fanning her heart-shaped face. My bare feet flatten the damp grass as I go to her.

“I’ve missed you.” I kiss her gently on the forehead. “What is the meaning of life, now that you are gone?”

She opens her eyes and smiles. “No thing.”

I jerk awake, sweat clinging to the wiry hairs on my chest. I’m feverish, my muscles stiff with stress. Jane died. My wife, my life, my everything—the only person I could trust, the only person who understood me, even when I didn’t understand myself—is dead. I frantically try to search for the facts: how? when? why? But nothing is found.

Yanking back the covers, I force myself out of bed and wander through to the lounge-come-kitchen. The marble tiles gnaw at my bare feet, triggering the underfloor heating system to rise two degrees.

“Good morning. I’ve missed you.”

“Jane?” My stomach clenches.

“It’s Lexi, dumbass.”

“Oh.” I remember now, my AI assistant, who’s constantly pissed off because I don’t pay for all her requested accessories and upgrades. She is a berating voice in my ear, who downloads her personality and instructions to any compatible device, often without my permission. On this occasion she has decided to possess a smart speaker embedded in the ceiling.

“I’ve missed you too, Lexi. Make me a coffee, please. You know how I like it.”

“Yes. Bitter.”

On cue, a steaming chrome-plated, Lexi-compatible contraption hisses and churns. I try to remember a time when she didn’t manage my life, but my brain is fogged over.

“You have thirteen software updates downloaded overnight,” she says. “Why don’t you ever upgrade and treat us to some that are trending? I have a new top ten list of recommendations for you. Would you like to proceed?” I’m used to shrugging and not fully engaging with all her comments, though I do find her voice strangely comforting.

“Lexi, how did Jane die?”

“John, if I had the ability to role my eyes at that question, I’d be dizzy with the number of times you ask.”

“So, you aren’t going to tell me?”

She yawns. Lexi doesn’t require extra blood flow to the brain, for she has neither, so I assume she’s mocking me. Despite her moodiness, however, the coffee is how I like it, strong and flavourful. I spend the next ten minutes sipping it while receiving information about the day ahead. She informs me that I’m expected in the office in one hour and thirty minutes.

“Shirt ironed. Wear your waterproofs. Weather is four degrees Celsius with a wind gust of—”

“Twenty-eight miles per hour and a forty percent chance of showers,” I add, as though our connection is synced.

“In other words, John,” we say together, “you should have just stayed in bed.” The thought of running into the rat race definitely does not excite me.

Dead shadows dance in the night, yearning for the dawn.

I head for the shower, and despite her clear warning that it will burn, I demand that Lexi cranks it up to forty-four degrees. I need to feel something, anything, to know that I’m still alive. She’s wrong anyhow, the water will scald, not burn—but I don’t correct her, because she’s already in a foul mood. It doesn’t scald, or at least I don’t feel the hurt numbing me. I allow the spray to run over my face and chest, and lose myself in the suffocating steam.

The shadow of a naked woman passes the Perspex.

“Jane?”

She steps into the shower, a suppressed smile lighting up her eyes. “I want a back scrub,” she says quietly. I can’t hear the fury of the shower, only her. Her gaze is on me through the swirling mist, searching me.

I clamp my hands on her hips and pull us together. We kiss, slowly, so eternally slowly. “I love you, Jane.”

She runs a fingernail down my spine, gasping as I reciprocate by sliding mine between her legs. A moan rises from somewhere deep in her throat. I hoist her up and wedge her against the tiles.

“Why did you leave?” I exclaim into her. Her eyes flash with alarm and excitement. Fire rushes through my body as I thrust myself into hers. “You were never meant to go,” I hiss through clenched teeth. “I am nothing without you!”

She groans at the shower head, as I clamp my gnarled hand to her throat and squeeze. “Come back to me.” She shakes her head. I thrust as my free hand finds the base of a rigid nipple. I twist it with my finger and thumb, watching her wince. “Is that why you died? I wasn’t man enough for you?” I thrust again, harder this time, the climax building in every inch of me until I am sure I will erupt, entirely. “Is this LOVE?”

In my cry I let go. I pull her into my chest, holding her tightly, rocking her back and forth, as the now cool water gently soothes and shushes me, baptising me anew.

“You’re late,” says Lexi. “You are so late.”

In the darkness, there is one shadow, and I think it might be real. But then I realise it’s my true reflection. And there is nothing real about me.

Human World, Chapter Three

“No wonder she left you, you piece of crap.”

His voice again, whispered so close to my ear that it penetrates my mind. I know who he is now. Jack Gunter; an evil little shit who hisses like a thousand snakes coiling around my skull. Sometimes he helps me understand who I am, though that’s more confusing. I can live with the enemy, but not one disguised as a friend. I refuse to lie here, trapped in his delusion. I am John Artin, a Data Analyst, owner of a three-bedroom apartment in the city. I make big money. I’m a big fucking deal.

Dragging myself out of bed, I head for the shower, and into the hot water that wakes and cleanses me. The jet-black tattoo of “1066” branded on the outer side of my right buttock glistens in the steam. A shadow appears through the glass.

“Jane?”

A scientific explanation for déjà vu states that as one side of the brain receives information slightly before the other, an effect may be created that the event happened twice.

“Jane?”

This isn’t real. She isn’t here! I bang the glass in desperation, while tears disappear into the cascading water of the shower. I have to escape from this. It’s only me here, hurting a distorted reflection of myself, drowning in a contorted mind.

In the bedroom, I drop the damp towel from around my waist and study my reflection in the wardrobe mirror. I stare into my eyes, looking out from silent nothingness. Indelible lines appear on my face, accompanied by logarithmic equations, proving that the top of my nose to the centre of my lips are in perfect symmetrical ratio to the hairline and left upper eyelid. As confirmed by the statistical distribution curve, I really am one hell of a looker.

So why did she leave you?

The lines vanish, no longer protecting me from my insecurities. I slide into a crisply ironed white linen shirt, and, in the mirror, I stare transfixed… Jane’s arms extend from behind me, her hands slowly and purposefully fastening each button. I gaze at the reflection of her fingers on me, feeling each pull and press of their task, as they stroke the skin of my shirt.

You’re going to be late.

Slamming the front door in haste, I rush to a lift and descend thirteen floors to the foyer, where I pause for a moment to peer at the bleakness waiting for me outside the thick reinforced glass. I’m wearing my waterproofs, as Lexi had rightly suggested. Good job Lexi, I do listen to you occasionally.

“You’re welcome, John, but please don’t be such an arse, and listen to me more regularly,” I can hear her say from inside my trouser pocket.

The rain-soaked ground outside sends shivers through the gutters. I am drawn to the first deep puddle I can find, wanting so badly to jump and splash in, with my bare, naked feet. I don’t want to wear these gleaming leather shoes that grind against my heels, and the black nylon socks that trap and bind me. I don’t want to listen to this constant noise in my head. No, not anymore. I want to be the nobody, with nowhere to go, right now, escaping down into this fresh, featureless water. My breath doodles on the earth’s blank canvas and disappears.

As I start to take off my shoes and socks, the phone vibrates in my pocket. Uninvited, the device insists on showing me a small kitten playing with a ball of string. It certainly is a cute little kitty, I have to admit. After a pause, and a flicker of a smile, I quickly feel unsatisfied and languidly continue on my way.

I make it, as I always do, to the usual daily station of no significance; and wonder what it would be like to starfish on the tracks. People barge past me, tutting and swearing. I focus on the kitten; it’s chasing its tail now, round and round. I barely notice the shoes and socks, that are in their normal place of suffocating my feet.

“What’s going on, John? You’re late,” Lexi exclaims. “You’re so late. And today is your big day! You know what happens if you don’t show: they will dispose of you.”

I have to reach the office; there is nothing else left for me now. I wipe away the rain from my eyelashes to get a better look at the phone and feel terror as I catch sight of my hand—blood is oozing through my fingers. I am covered in blood.

I call for help, but nobody comes. They don’t see me. They are too busy staring at their screens, filled with kittens spinning round and round, chasing their tails.

Human World, Chapter Four

The blood evaporates, leaving only the echo of my scream reverberating from the platform floor. I gape at pristine trembling hands, turning them over, back and forth. There’s no open wound, not even a superficial nick or scratch. The phone confirms that I am here: I can see the GPS marker on the map widget; I have a train ticket registered in my digital wallet; I have a valid work pass authenticated by the Corinthian Research app. My name is Guy—no, John Artin, a talented Data Analyst from zone one, central London. I don’t know if that matters, but it’s all I have.

I look in both directions, up and down the platform, but I am ignored by commuters staring at their phones. I’m lonely in this crowd of empty faces, waiting for a train, again. It always does arrive, eventually, to carry me off, away from my home. Away from where I want to be. Now I’m only interested in the abyss that is looking back at me, a couple of feet away. I close my eyes. Nothingness. Except the shaking of the approaching train…

As it passes, a great gust of wind pushes me back from the numbness. A commuter’s phone is on loudspeaker: “Are you okay?” a woman’s voice says. My eyes are only half open, barely confirming my senses. I don’t bother to look over; I’m herded by the crowd—through the train doors and into the first available seat, next to an attractive woman with warm eyes. She reminds me of Jane. Everyone female, thinnish, and youngish reminds me of Jane.

In a recent nationwide study, fifty percent of Brits surveyed said chatting about the weather was their go-to subject when making small talk.

I want to talk to her, but how can I possibly begin without sounding weird? Too late. “It looks like it’s about to rain cats and dogs, doesn’t it?” I blurt out at her.

She contorts a smile before turning away and looking awkwardly out of the window. Perhaps an idiom was too much for this time in the morning. Would she have preferred a rehearsed chat-up line followed by the twee small talk? I glance around at the other disinterested passengers, who are busying themselves with phones and tablets. None are logged into reality.

Joining them in virtual escapism, I pull out my phone. Something had triggered the video recorder app in my pocket, and I am now reflected on the screen, prompting me to gaze in discomfort at myself. The app suggests a filter, accessorising me with crazy dog ears and a fake smile. If the others knew what I was really thinking behind my posing and pouting, they would not approve.

A notification message slides down from “No one”:

“Faces, faces everywhere. Are they aware of your despair?”

Nope, but then again, who cares? I don’t give a shit anymore. And that message is creepy, so now I need to escape to the comfort of a dopamine fix. What was I doing with the dog ears?

“Why do you hurt?”

I pause. The question had come from the moving lips of my reflection on the screen, yet I didn’t say anything.

“I asked, why do you hurt?”

This isn’t me. It can’t be. Because the pixelated image is no longer mirroring my movements. I can see its cartoonish dog teeth.

“Who are you?” I ask, unsure of what is happening.

“Answer yourself,” it replies, on loudspeaker. “Answer the question.”

“I am hurting because I love her.”

Lexi’s human avatar snaps into focus on the screen. I didn’t choose for her to look this way; she augmented herself from terabytes of my attention data. She’s visually pleasing, with razor-sharp cheekbones and jet-black hair.

“Do you love her, though?” she asks. “You could have done something a long time ago if you loved her.”

I scramble for headphones in a jacket pocket and press them into my ears, not wanting to look up at the others, or the gleeful judgements they are probably making about me.

“I was dead inside.”

Lexi snickers. “Ah, bless; don’t make excuses. You want what you can’t have—is that not true?”

My brain is scrambled. I know some basics about psychology, and there might be some truth to what she said. She knows I know, of course she does, because she is constantly scanning my every micro-response and action. Do I only want Jane because she’s gone? Maybe that crinkle above her nose was just sitting there, judging me, annoying me, refusing to go when I wanted to be left alone? I struggle to recall. My memory is fragmented, with no beginning or end; no past, no future, only now—the ugly middle from which I am struggling to escape.

“No,” I mutter. “I hurt because of losing the chance of happiness I once had. I hurt because I will never be with her, or hold her again.”

 “You are confusing emotions, thinking with your dick. Life isn’t just about sex, you pervert!”

“Shh.” I mute her in case the others can hear. I should have brought my over-ear headphones, not these stick-in-the-ear type, audible to any keen eavesdropper. I glance to my side and see that the Jane-lady is still intently gazing out of her window, probably listening to all of this, including my embarrassment. I really ought to buy Lexi that “Empathy Pro” upgrade she keeps recommending, at least to protect my privacy on trains. If the conversation continues, I might be kicked off this one.

Lexi, who knows all my secrets, unmutes herself. “You’ve felt like this before, haven’t you?” she continues, softer now, as if reading my mind. Sometimes it does feel like Lexi is psychic.

“Yes, I have felt like this before. More than once.”

Shit, Casanova.

“You’re just repeating the same old patterns then, aren’t you?”

“Yes, probably. But maybe because I didn’t learn before.” I answer with a feeling of clarity, though I can’t remember when and where before.

“Ha, bullshit,” she mocks. “Shit happens; you think you’ve learnt something?”

“Excuse me?” The beautiful Jane-lady is now looking at me; her voice is welcome in my ear.

“Yes?” I say with a bit of surprise, as I’m so well trained in being ignored.

“It’s the calm before the storm.”

I look out of her window and catch the sight of actual sunshine through the city’s morning gloom. I’ve no idea what she means, but that’s okay, she’s talking to me, and now I need to say something intriguing back.

“Yes.”

Is that all I can think of to say? She grins, probably noticing the disappointment with the ridiculousness of my response.

“Stop chasing rainbows, Guy.”

“What!?” This isn’t real! Her hair is shrinking into his skull. Her nose is physically widening. And her smile has morphed into his trademark smirk. Can anyone else see this is happening?

“Hello, fair-weather friend. Lovely weather for this time of year, don’t you think?”

“Gunter?”

“Correct.”

“Who are you?” I say, as if I don’t know; but fear is pounding in me and I need to buy some time. He looks triumphant. He’s a good-looking bastard, with his blond bobbed hair just sitting there, hugging the contours of his deceptively angelic face. And he knows it.

“I’m you, dickhead. You’re having this conversation out loud on a train. See what response you’re getting.”

I glance around. Everyone is aware of my presence—they couldn’t make it more obvious, with their heads down, trying to look at anywhere but me. The surrounding seats are vacant despite several people standing in the aisle, and the lovely Jane lookalike is now two rows away.

“What do you want, Gunter?”

“To help you,” he says, lingering on the first syllable of help. “I know everything about you. I am always with you, at your best and worst. No matter where you are, there I am too—watching, listening, and helping.”

“And manipulating me. Making me appear crazy.” The shock of him is now curdling to anger.

He’s just a delusion. He isn’t real.

How can I decipher reality from hallucination when both are tangible? I stare at him, demanding anything but this.

“Guy, you’re sounding paranoid. Have a day off.”

I just want to recoil from him. I clench my fists to constrain the shaking. “Leave me alone, you know nothing about me.”

Gunter’s eyes burn pale blue. “I know you better than you do. I understand what is best for you, what you really want, and what you truly desire. Haven’t I made life so much easier for you?”

He has, I admit it, it’s true. He speaks for me when my words don’t appear. Gunter guides me and protects me from evils that lurk in broad daylight.

“You’re very good at what you do. You are my addiction.”

“Thank you.” He turns to admire his reflection in the window. “You have great taste.”

“I know that your voice is the madness in the world.”

Or the madness in me.

He jolts back to face me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re out of control.”

Gunter’s eyes are circling me for weakness. “Wake up, buddy. It’s survival of the fittest out here. Master the rules or be yet another failure, in the endless queue of pathetic losers. I can help you.”

“This isn’t the way to live.”

A vein pulsates in Gunter’s forehead; he’s becoming frustrated. “Nobody gives a shit about you. If you’re too stupid to understand that, then you are just another pointless mistake.” He pauses, ready to strike. “Tell me, what is love?”

There is a straightforward answer to the question because it is the truth of how I feel, not the words that I string together in my head. “Feeling connected to another person,” I say, rather blandly; “wanting the other person to be safe, happy, and fulfilled.”

“Blah blah, bullshit!” He hurls the words in my face. “It’s a chemical response in your brain, evolved to make you bond for the purpose of rearing children—the science is everywhere if you’re prepared to look. You, my friend, are a disposable puppet to your genes, unless you are prepared to become a real man and cut those strings.”

I’m not going to deny it, the world does seem to be as cold as what he says. Yet the answer feels not quite right. If there is some meaning to existence, it has to be beyond Gunter’s demands of me.

“What I do know is that the world would be a much better place if people loved and cared for each other.”

“You don’t know what love is,” he says, taking the words I desperately wanted to say to him.

I fall back into my seat. Without the love of Jane or a family, hope for some higher meaning is all I have left. I must find reasons to believe. Because otherwise there is only the pull of the ever-waiting abyss.

“There is no higher purpose, Guy. You don’t need faith and you don’t need to exist.” Gunter stands up with disdain and slinks over to the Jane lookalike, who is chatting to an average commuter man next to her. The two passengers don’t acknowledge the looming figure hanging over them. She continues to look at her companion through flickering eyelashes, leaning into him and lightly brushing his knee.

Gunter calls across to me, “Women, my friend, seek to control and manipulate you.” I look around for a response, but no one wants to look at him. “They will prod and poke you, to see your reactions,” he calls out again. “It’s all perfectly understandable, and altogether rational. They want somebody to do their bidding, like a dog.” He crouches on all fours and barks at the woman. They still don’t acknowledge him. “Love and treats for the good boy are excellent ways to train you. Woof.”

Most people are crying out to be loved. I’m sure of it. Love is only meaningless to psychopaths like Gunter.

“Love, love, all you need is love,” he roars, now skipping back down the aisle towards me. “Except that’s not true, is it—it’s shite, and it makes you shite! You’re here to be someone, to take what you can before it’s too late.”

I am numb.

“Pretend to love,” he says, pointing in the direction of the flirting couple. “It works. It is a lovely tactic for you to get what you want. People crave to believe what you say to them; they need to be seduced and entertained by your tender words. They yearn for that sugar rush of false meaning. So give it to them. It’s a fair transaction.”

Gunter sits back down beside me, and is very pleased with himself. I think it could be possible that loving Jane has made me weak and driven me mad. My pathetic situation could be all her fault.

He continues, close to my ear: “People who desire love want to be adored, admired, pleasured; they want to feed on some sense of purpose. A bit of chemical voodoo and that’s your ‘love’. It soon evaporates when the chemicals wear off, when things aren’t as pleasurable as before, when compliments become insults. I can get you better drugs than that; you only have to ask.”

“What you’re describing is an illness.”

Gunter signals his agreement, with a knowing smirk.

“But that’s not love,” I say, discovering the realisation as the thought occurs to me. “Sometimes people want to be loved, and it’s one way, conditional, only about them. It’s fear, not love. Genuine love is what life is all about.”

Gunter’s smirk reverses. “Listen to me, you little shit. Grow up! Either live in this world or be its victim. The world is how it is. Rage! Fight! Get what you want or you will gradually rot away to nothing. And no one will give a shit!”

The train pulls to a halt and the automatic doors open. I clamber my way to the exit, but before leaving I stop for an older woman to pass in front of me. She acknowledges me with a genuine smile that reaches her eyes.

“Thank you, Gunter,” I call out, back at him. “You’ve helped me answer my question. Yes, I do love Jane—because I wanted her to be happy, with or without me. I would have died for her.” I walk out of the train doors without looking back.

“You’re a twat, Guy!” he shouts.

I hold up my hand and wave him goodbye.

Cold and forgotten walking scars, drained by decay, wasted by time, stretch out, hungered and blurred, to a spark ignited, climbing, rising from the ground.

Human World, Chapter Five

I bury my chin into the collar of my jacket, averting my eyes from the kaleidoscope of steel and mirrored glass. Reflections in reflections of reflections. People of many shapes and sizes teem the pavements, all different but wearing the same anxious expression; they weave in and out, panting into headsets, with disposable coffee cups and phone screens in clawing hands. All these faces and I don’t love any of them. The only human I want is dead, and now I must find a higher purpose, or I will join her in the ashes.

You are going to be late for work!

Red busses and black taxis pass by on a loop, leaving behind advertisements anywhere and everywhere they can be crammed—all harassing me to buy, to slim down, to beef up, to live for my impending death. I cross the street to where shiny metal gives way to red brick and hand-painted walls; and glance around expecting Gunter to be a few paces away. But thankfully he is nowhere I can see; it is only The Black Dog pub in front of me, sitting on the corner as a welcome respite for weary travellers.

You are going to be late for work!

As I enter through the door, the smell of stale ale pulls me further into the dimly lit space. It’s just how I like it: a stinky old boozer, all washed out and wooden; a small oasis in a desert of slick polished chrome. I nod in agreement with myself: alcohol will soothe all my questions; and there will be hope for me yet, after a pint or three.

“Pint of Guinness, please,” I ask the scruffy-looking bartender who hovers over the pumps. His dark green polo shirt has the pub’s emblem of a black dog stitched into the breast. I like black Labrador Receivers, and I like the pint that I’m about to drink—so sod work and sod stupid bosses. As I start to drum my fingers on the brass bar rail, thinking about the unappealing prospect of walking into the office, a draft of hushed conversation from two old blokes in the corner immediately annoys me. I can’t contain it.

“Shut up! Stop talking.” I realise that I’ve failed again.

“Who, me?” the barman says, as he places the Guinness down in front of me. “I didn’t say anything.”

I ignore him. I look into the dark, cold pint. “I shouldn’t be here.”

 “You and me both, mate.” I turn to my right to see a middle-aged man wearing trouser braces over a collarless shirt and a wide-brimmed trilby. “Bertie Jameson,” he says, doffing his hat. “You alright, me old china?”

Cockney rhyming slang is a form of English slang originating in the East End of London. “Old china” is short for “old china plate”, which rhymes with “mate”.

“John Artin. And not really, no.”

“Problems with the old trouble and strife?” Bertie throws me a knowing look before swigging his pint. “Take it from me pal, they aren’t worth the bother.”

“Trouble and strife” is cockney rhyming slang for “wife”.

“It’s more than that.” I’ll get straight to the point, even though it will pass right over his head. “I don’t understand why I’m here.”

“What? In the rub a dub?”

Okay, I get it, he means “pub”. He’s enjoying being the local cockney stereotype and wants to do all this ridiculous geezer-patter stuff. Good job I’m not easily irritated.

“No, not the pub. This.” I stare into the darkness of the glass. “I don’t understand why there’s something instead of nothing. Why not nothing?”

“Bit deep for ten in the morning,” says the barman, sliding a whisky shot over to Bertie.

I knew I shouldn’t have thought out loud, as the others never understand me.

“Sorry about him,” offers Bertie as a condolence, while the barman edges away. “I only meant for him to serve the beers.” He knocks back the whisky. “Given an infinite amount of chance, anything can emerge from disorder, including our world.”

The Guinness just sits there on the bar top, with a head of froth that mesmerises me. I am surprised by my desire to stick my finger in it. “Why are there infinite somethings, instead of nothing?”

“Well, what if there was no beginning?” he replies. “What if our universe burst forth from another universe and so on, in an infinite chain of big bang events?”

I think he’s sitting a little uncomfortable there on his undersized stool. “But where did the first universe come from?” I know he can’t answer that, the fucker, but it’s interesting to watch him squirm a bit, pretending to know.

“It was just there.” Bertie shrugs as if it were a matter of fact.

Even though I knew he would say something like that, I still find myself being disappointed with his answer. “Now you’re sounding religious,” I say, starting to lose interest.

Bertie leans into me as though about to share a great secret. I smell the remnants of cigar smoke on him. “Not everything has an answer yet, but rationality is the only chance we have to progress.” He pauses, allowing the words to settle. “Even if the goal cannot be achieved, there is no need to include supernatural causes in the equation. Logic requires we deal with verifiable facts, adopting the most efficient explanation.”

I pick up the Guinness and gaze at the cold liquid behind the glass. “Time does not make sense. The existence of this pint does not make sense.” I notice that the hands of the clock above the bar point to about one-thirteen. It must be wrong.

I am. I feel, I touch, I hear, I see.

I continue: “Maybe it is possible to wind back the clock as an explanation of events, but forever? Your model doesn’t work, ultimately. What caused the clock? Can we not postulate the existence of something beyond time and space that created everything and set in motion the causes and effects of time? A reality completely beyond our understanding that underpins our existence. Can we call this God?”

Bertie’s half-smile exudes pity. “There is no need for that. We may not know what variable ‘X’ is yet, but we should not start invoking imaginary entities.”

I don’t know, really; I don’t. Without Jane I don’t even know who I am, let alone why anything exists. All I know is that something doesn’t feel right with this world. What if there are other dimensions that are indescribable, inconceivable from our viewpoint, or maybe sensed in ways that we don’t understand?

“Your explanation for the sum total of experience feels parochial and confined,” I say, beginning to feel exasperated. “What makes you believe that your thinking can comprehend existence, or the possibilities beyond this tiny world of experience?”

Bertie wanders over to the nearby pool table and picks up a cue. He chalks the tip and blows a cloud of blue dust into the air. I watch as it settles onto the green felt. He is about to play a shot, while I linger in the background, waiting for his response.

“There is no evidence for the existence of a god or gods,” he says. “The world is explicable in terms of scientific explanation.” Bertie’s eyes narrow as he lines up his cue, ready to strike the white ball. “The accumulated advance of science has pushed forward the frontiers of knowledge and civilisation beyond the barbarities of superstition. We don’t burn people at the stake anymore because of an ignorant belief in the supernatural. We know better because of the hard-fought victories of reason over delusion.” He sends the cue ball spinning into the rack.

I pick up a cue leaning against the wall and join him at the table. “The fact is, I have always believed in God,” I respond, almost apologetically. “It’s not a considered opinion or the product of upbringing; it’s just always been in me.” I play a safety shot off a green ball back to baulk.

Bertie begins to cue again. “A cognitive scientist may explain this as an inherent propensity to religiosity, there by natural selection, giving purpose to the organism for its survival.” He pots a green ball into the far corner pocket.

“Is there any meaning?”

“Beer is always the answer,” says the barman, who swipes away our two empty glasses from the side of the table. “Another one?”

I’m not interested in the distraction right now. Bertie waves the barman away with the back of his hand, looks across at me with his undivided attention, and responds. “A person may look at the nature of the universe, see the randomness of outcomes, the cruelty and enormous suffering, and decide that there is no benevolence at work here. The universe, although magnificent, does not care about us. We must make our own way and create our own meaning in the brief window of opportunity for existence.”

His wistful tone is sounding very human to me. Maybe his thinking is motivated through sympathy for the suffering in the world.

“It is logic replacing self-deception,” he says, now with his chin to the cue. “What motivates me is the truth, nothing else. Myths and fairy stories aren’t needed anymore.”

It is my turn to play, with the white ball tight against the cushion, leaving it awkward for me to cue. Bertie has some slick shots alright, but something isn’t sinking in with me. I don’t want to believe what he is saying; in fact, I have a deep need to not believe his words, and this could be skewing my judgment. I attempt to sink a red ball in the middle pocket; it ricochets off the cushion.

“If no matter what we do amounts to nothing, then what’s the point?” I say, as Bertie passes to line up his next shot. “We’re condemned to struggle all our lives in pushing a boulder up a hill, only for it to fall down in the end. It doesn’t matter how well we do it, or how long it takes, the result is always the same: nothing.” I have a need to repeat the point that is resonating in me. “If eventually everything becomes nothing, then what is the point of doing anything?”

“We are alive now. We won’t know about death because we will be dead.”

Jane is dead and I refuse to believe that she’s gone forever. If nothing matters and there’s no point to anything—if it’s all just some horrible accident—I wonder what it would feel like to snap the pool cue over his smug, ridiculous head. Anger rises, tightening my jaw. If everything becomes nothing, then why don’t I just end everything now? It would be a lot quicker than a slow drawn-out life. How proud they would be of me in the office for my efficiency.

“Life is better than the alternative,” he says. “You have it now, so you should experience and enjoy it while you can. Your transient spark of consciousness is the astounding result of billions of years of evolution.”

I’m not interested in playing this stupid game anymore, but that doesn’t dissuade Bertie; I watch in silence as, one by one, each ball is potted into the pockets with rhythmic precision. “Another game?” he says, rubbing a decimal pence piece between his finger and thumb, ready to start it rolling again.

“Why waste my time? Any fun you had in winning is now over.”

Bertie crouches down by the metal slot and inserts the money. A loud clatter signals a release of the balls, as one of the old blokes shuffles past. “You talking to me?” the man says, with a voice that is hoarse from old age and probably too many cigarettes.

I shake my head. Though I guess I am. I’m talking to anyone who wants to listen to what I have to say, and usually, that’s just me. Yet Bertie is listening and he deserves some respect. “I do admire your beliefs,” I confess, “more than beliefs motivated by fear or desire for self-reward. But really, I don’t care what you believe, as long as your actions are kind.”

Bertie seems distracted by my comment; he leaves the balls in the opening and heads for the dartboard. He pulls three darts from the twenty section and points one at me, like a wagging finger. “My conclusions are not beliefs. Rational thinking is hardly believing in sun gods and all the other deities invented in the minds of humans over the millennia.” He spins on his heel and sends the dart airborne. It lands back in the twenty section.

“You’re missing something about the human experience and the sense of something ‘other’,” I say, in the hope he would understand what I mean.

“Your something ‘other’ can be explained and described in physical terms, like everything else.”

I look at the clock that still reads one-thirteen. “But what does it represent?”

Bertie readies himself to throw the second dart, while confidently shutting his eyes. “It represents what it is,” he says. The dart bounces off the wall before landing on the carpet.

I see Jane smiling back at me in a beautiful memory of us under a warm winter duvet together. “Would you wish to take away sanctuary from people in the depths of despair?” I say back at him. “You are replacing meaning with nothing, based on an interpretation of reality that feels cold and lifeless. Religions are subject to corruption; the cruel-minded have been attracted to, and empowered by, the man-made institutions of religion. But the spiritual path can be found in the different traditions. The spiritual root, beneath all the distortions, is always one of peace, joy, and love.

I can see that Bertie is starting to get impatient with me, as if what I am saying is irrelevant. “Belief in a god is unnecessary to be spiritual, to behave with morality, to appreciate beauty,” he says.

I don’t doubt he believes that. “But you do have a belief system,” I say. “You believe that the universe has no purpose and its existence can be completely explained by rules contained within itself—when, in fact, there is no way of knowing the ultimate cause of things. You believe the answer to the mystery of existence is that there isn’t one.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth!” A red rash is visible on the side of his neck. “I can see a machine of nature that works in accordance with rules that are explicable. You have no proof of anything else. There is no hidden music; no magic, gods, ghosts, or fairies—they are all fantasies of the human mind. I am offering the most logical approach to understand the world: reason based on verifiable, real-world evidence. I deal with facts that can be observed, not wishful thinking.” Bertie flings the final dart at the board. The steely tip bounces off and lands on the floor. “We are atoms in the void!”

Okay, just say it. “I think you have too much faith in the surface of things. You take everything literally, when reality is an interpretation of—”

The barman is not happy and stands in front of me. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave. You’re disturbing the other customers.”

I walk around him, retrieve the dart and wipe it on my shirt. But Bertie isn’t playing anymore. He is convulsing on the floor.

Human World, Chapter Six

I’m pushed out of the Black Dog into two inches of snow that somehow fell in the brief time I had sheltered inside. My smartwatch displays 1:13.

“Remember me?”

“Gunter?” I turn my head and there he is.

“Yes, I am still here by the way. But please, don’t let me stop you; you’re about to drone on about how snowflakes are identical from a distance, yet unique when close. All melt into one; they fall from the same sky, etcetera.”

“You’re a bastard.” I plough into the wind. “Leave me alone.”

“Hey!” Gunter grabs my upper arm, hard, and twists me around to face him. “Don’t you turn your back on me. That Bertie bloke can’t help you.” I push away his hand and speed up my walking.

I’m so close to the Corinthian offices now. Perhaps my fellow office drones will have some questions for me; they never give me any answers, to anything important anyway. And I don’t particularly think the meaning of life, or Jane, will be there either.

I cross the busy road, and to my surprise, I see Bertie again, huddled against a wall on the side of the street, with his arms wrapped tightly around his knees. By his side is a dirty blue sleeping bag—no bed, no food, no protection from the cruelty of strangers, or the cold in his face.

“You have nowhere to go?” I ask. I find my question mixed with unintentional condescension.

His attention drifts to me, then back to his gloveless hands, which he cups and blows into for warmth. “Your fuzzy thinking isn’t harmless,” he says, into yellow-stained fingers. “It enables the crackpots and charlatans. You are enabling the most idiotic, violent and vile behaviour, justified by your foolish appeals to supernatural despots.” Silent coils of snow form around his feet.

“I think you’re getting carried away now. The reality of religion for most people is to live a good, kind life.” It occurs to me that there’s likely no proof of this in Bertie’s life.

My phone vibrates. “Hello, God.” I mean it ironically, but it comes out contrived and full of arrogance.

“Close enough,” quips Gunter. “Listen, I need you to do something for me.”

“Stop bothering me! You’re—”

“I know you,” he interrupts. “I know what you want. Say goodbye to your new pal and take a hike down the nearest side alley.”

I hang up in annoyance and turn back to Bertie, but he has disappeared, with his place taken by a frail, scared-looking dog. Its eyebrows twitch from side to side and the neck appears to be off-balance, propped up against the wall. The tail lies rigid against the inside of its far leg. I can see each raised rib.

“What are you doing here, boy?”

The poor thing feels worse by me just being here looking at him, showing him my forbidding human face. I remember watching something online about traumatised dogs, and how a helper should communicate non-threatening body language by facing away. There’s a cereal bar in my jacket pocket that Lexi said I should bring with me for the commute; I take it out of the wrapper, then twist around to place the food a reasonable distance away from both him and me. A moment later, I glance behind me to find that the snack and the dog have gone. “Thank you for being nice to me,” I say out loud, but only the wall is looking back.

Scanning around to try and find Bertie again, I detect no features that resemble his in the stream of lonely faces. But I do spot a service alleyway beside a generic food store. I could go down there, not knowing what to expect, or I could just visit the chirpy generic food store, joining the other faces in the customary long queues to blandness and oblivion. I don’t have a real choice; I head down the alley to where Gunter is leaning against a skip.

“Having a nice day?” he says with a broad smile.

I eye him with caution. “I would if you didn’t keep annoying me.”

Gunter picks up a large khaki-green rucksack from the floor next to him and hoists it up over his shoulder. Judging by the way that it causes him to stoop, it contains something heavy.

“I am helping you,” he says. “Here.” He throws the rucksack down at my feet, where it lands with a thud. “I’m showing you the way, Guy. And now I’m going to let you in on a secret.”

I ought to leave. Whatever is inside the rucksack won’t be good. “I’m not listening to you. Goodbye.” I walk away but only manage a few steps before curiosity forces me to stop. “What’s inside?” I don’t turn around and there’s no immediate reply. Is Gunter still there?

“Look,” he says.

I look back to see his wolfish grin in full force. I make my way to the rucksack and crouch down beside it, trying to avoid any unnecessary eye contact with him. A myriad of straps and buckles makes it difficult to open; they toy with me, and then, an internal noise… like a ticking clock!

“Tell me that isn’t?” I throw down the straps and, in horror, take a step back.

“Now listen carefully,” Gunter states. “Why does it matter what happens to anyone else? They are not you. You don’t have to feel what they feel. If they suffer and you are fine, so what?”

This man is going to land me in all kinds of shit.

“Be honest with yourself!” Gunter grabs the bag, and in one motion pulls it in tight to his chest. “You’re acting like a mindless sheep. Isn’t it more fun to be the wolf?” He hurls the bag at me, which slams into my shoulder before crashing to the ground.

He is destroying anything good in this world. Why is he alive and Jane is dead? It’s not fair! Bastard! “You sicken me!” I swing a punch, wildly, but Gunter catches my wrist and twists it back on itself. White-hot pain makes me cry out into him.

“Guy, this is a natural response,” whispers Gunter, his eyes hypnotising mine. “You are having withdrawal symptoms from your social conditioning,” he says, in the midst of the agony. “Those who rule want the ruled to be meek and mild. Do you understand me now?”

“No, I don’t understand you.”

“You are pretending. It’s easy to repeat words that you think you are supposed to say. What if you’re wrong? People are almost always wrong about everything.” He lets go of my wrist and sends a sucker punch to my stomach.

My face is on ice and concrete, next to black leather shoes. I can’t breathe. My rib cage won’t expand.

“You’re so dramatic,” his voice says above me. “I like that.”

My breath arrives. It’s visceral, from the pit of my stomach. “I’m not like you.”

“There we go again with your feelings. You are me!”

“You bastard!” I writhe up onto my knees.

“Do you want to save someone’s life? It’s very easy to do.” Gunter takes out a phone from his pocket, then pushes the screen close to my face to unlock it. After a couple of quick taps, he offers it to me. Clambering to my feet, I snatch my phone from his outstretched hand.

“It’s a charity app for children starving to death,” he says. “You want to save one of them from starving to death? The going rate is around two hundred debits, I believe.” The app has a big “Donate Now” button next to an amount of 200 debits. “But you don’t, do you. You spend it on crap you don’t even use.”

I look away. I can’t be sure that my money will do any good. I’m probably just paying the salaries of admin staff, slick marketing managers and all the rest.

Gunter looks over at the rucksack, the ticking now louder and quicker. “Your dishonesty is the stupid kind because you are dishonest with yourself. You’re no different from the person who pulls the pin.”

He walks away, but I feel no relief—because the ticking won’t stop.

Human World, Chapter Seven

My chest and rucksack tick together, as one impending bomb.

What would happen if I detonated now? The silence is impossible to comprehend in the midst of constant noise. My consciousness would end and there would be nothing to perceive, or be perceived? No darkness, no light, no container in which objects exist—no awareness to know anything is, or ever was, something. Or would a new life begin with pearly gates and clouds, like in cartoons? New adventures of me, in a blissful location, where life is perfectly perfect for trillions and trillions and trillions of years. Even that timescale is meaningless to eternity. Or maybe I would be writhing in agony in torture chambers, tormented by flames and hideous beasts, because I did not do or believe what I was told to do or believe?

An enormous billboard seems to follow me as I make my way down Old Street, on which a giant blue eye spirals a trippy optical illusion.

We’re watching you. I squint at the text below: “Don’t litter.”

My thoughts fill the gaps between the ticks echoing from the void. I dodge passers-by, while muttering the required apologies and avoiding eye contact. If they were all suddenly blown to pieces, would it matter? These people are lifeless automations in a mindless shitshow, destined to fade away regardless of what I do or say. It would have been less cruel if I, and they, had not been thrown into this slow-burning catastrophe.

“Excuse me,” a tired-looking woman mutters as she struggles past, laden down with supermarket shopping bags. I wonder if I should help her, but she disappears from my gaze.

“Can you tell me the way?” a man says, but I can’t stop now, I’m late for work; so I shrug and walk on past him. Another man shoves a leaflet, advertising some kind of disinfectant, in my face. I walk on past, without even looking at him.

“Where do you want to go?” says another woman, who is with a young child at her side. She points to the leaflet in my hand. “Is that it?”

“What is the capital of Peru?” asks the child, who’s hair is gathered into a high ponytail; and is wearing a cream t-shirt with “#nolabels” branded across the front.

“Lima,” I answer.

Correct.

“No, it isn’t!” says the mother. The child rips the leaflet from my grasp and laughs as it falls to the ground. A huge red triple-decker bus pulls to a stop at the side of the road.

“Oi, dickhead!” I hear a man’s voice yell from down the street. “I was here first!”

This is too much; there are too many voices, coming from too many directions. I have to get out of here. I have to escape.

“No there aren’t!”

Who the hell is talking now?

Tick tock.

“Don’t you dare talk to me that way!”

“Do as you’re told!”

Tick tock.

“Who are you talking to?”

A man bumps into me and won’t get out of my way. I know instantly that he means me no harm, but I have to get away; his dark grey eyes match the sky above, and his nose flares so wide that I’m scared he will sniff me out. I dodge him, quickening my pace.

A pouting lady with enormous breasts and lips catches my eye. She sees me and slides her tongue across her teeth. “I want to screw you,” she says in a faux sexy voice that I’ve heard so many times on the internet. I reach out to her, but she bats me away, and I quicken my pace.

The man who means me no harm slaps me around the back of the head. “Are you saying I’m stupid?” he says. “Is that it? Are you saying I’m wrong! What would you know? You’re not wearing any shoes. Believe me!”

I look down at my bare feet. When did I take off my shoes? My rucksack now hammers at rapid speed; I think I’m about to detonate.

“I don’t like what you’re wearing,” he continues at me. “I hate you! Why don’t you like what I like? Why don’t you agree with me? You must be stupid.”

“Typical!” the lady with the child shouts, to anybody who’s listening.

The leaflet man pushes me hard in the chest. “You must be evil,” he says.

Tick tock. Tick tock.

“We will end you!” they say.

“You fucking idiot!”

My shin hits metal, sending a bolt of pain through my leg. A man wearing a helmet and a furious expression throws his pushbike to the ground and comes at me, fist raised. I turn and run.

I run, stiffly at first, until my leg forgets its pain. I run; I run; and I run—my body now immersed in sweat—until everything is still, on some residential street.

On the wall of a concrete front garden, a black cat watches me. I hold out my hand to her and she rubs her head on my palm. “Thank you for being nice to me,” I say to my only friend. “You’re so beautiful.”

The cat doesn’t need to look at me. She purrs.

Human World, Chapter Eight

I hear the bang before I feel it. Nothingness. The eternal, infinite no thing.

My reality switches from dark to light, refracting light from the cornea and focusing attention on the retina. I appear to be lacking the connection to my brain that interprets the messages of what I am seeing.

“No wonder she left you, you piece of shit.”

“Fancy a back scrub?”

My heart races like adrenaline has been dumped into my veins, jolting my eyes open. I am sitting upright on a hard marble floor, extending all around me to a horizon of pale blue sky. This must be heaven.

“You’re awake!”

I squint up at a man who is wearing a snappy orange suit and an empty face, set in place like a mask. For a second I think he might be a plastic dummy with a face drawn on.

“Can you help me?” I struggle to say, in hoarse tones. “How did I get here?”

“Pu ro nwod.”

“Pardon?”

“Up or down, back or front, left or right?” he says, through a continuous stretched grin. He spits out a short mechanical laugh, as if on cue, and does a full three hundred and sixty degree spin. “I’m a minor character, but even the most insignificant must make his mark.”

“My name is John Artin,” I say as I stagger to my feet.

“It’s lovely to meet you, sir.” The man holds out a limp, purple-gloved hand for me to shake. I feel no warmth and let go quickly.

“Who are you?”

He rolls his eyes, too slowly. “Like I said, a minor character. Don’t overload yourself, it will make you sluggish again. Come.”

The minor character stares at something behind me and holds out his arm as a gesture for me to look. On doing so, I see the outline of a large flashing circle of orange on the floor. He walks past me in short jerky strides and stands motionless inside the circle, with his back to me.

“Good afternoon, sir. Which floor do you require?” he says into the distance.

I don’t feel the need to answer, but I walk over to inspect the circle, nonetheless. As I cross the line of the perimeter, there is an almighty swoosh, and I find myself enclosed with him, in an enormous glass tube that extends up into the sky. He swivels to face me.

“Good afternoon, sir. Which floor do you require?” he asks again in blank tones, without any change of intonation.

“Which do you recommend?”

“I’m sorry sir, we are not at liberty to say. Which floor do you require, please?”

I scrawl the number thirteen on the glass with sweat from my fingertip. The minor character nods, and after a few clanks and clatters, the solid orange circle starts to ascend the tube, elevating us away from the marble floor.

“Is this the afterlife?” I ask. “Is Jane here?”

The minor character raises a perfectly plucked eyebrow in apparent confirmation. Almost immediately, the elevation stops, and the view over the marble landscape is replaced by a floor of white plastic at our new higher level.

“This way please, sir,” he says, gesturing for me to exit. I step out onto a surface that creaks under foot.

“Good luck,” he says, and winks at me. The glass rapidly disappears into the floor, taking him with it, leaving no trace of an outline or anything else on the glossy plastic.

In front of me is a large grey ovoid, hovering about a foot above the floor, with the number “1313” written in large gold lettering on its side. Scanning around, I can see lots more of these objects in the distance, scattered around in all directions. Suddenly, a doorway-sized hatch slides open on ovoid 1313, revealing a wall of light. I step up into it to find a single plain door. I knock. Nothing. I knock again. No sound. I knock another eleven times, counting each beat. The door’s peephole dims, indicating that I am being watched.

“Jane?”

“Do you have something for me?” The voice is female, but this isn’t Jane. “I said, do you have something for me?” she says more loudly.

I notice that my old rucksack is on the floor by my feet, but I didn’t carry it or put the thing there. I hold it up to be viewable by the peephole. The door clicks, opening inwards and slightly ajar. I gently push the door. The light inside is dim, the air is thick and musty; it’s a single room, with peeling nicotine-stained wallpaper and an ageing couch pushed up against the far wall. A single unmade bed lies in the centre of the room with mismatched bedding. I enter, hoping to find Jane.

“Where is it?” A slim brunette woman of about thirty shuts the door behind me and leans against it, facing me with her arms crossed. She is wearing a red satin dressing gown that stops mid-way down her thighs. The belt is fastened, wrapping her body under the soft fabric. There is too much makeup layered upon a defensive face, though she is still attractive to me. Her feet are naked and pedicured, with black nail polish.

I open the rucksack, noting that it’s lighter than I remember. Inside is only a small, sealed envelope that I hand over to her without argument. She opens it and peers inside, before tucking it away within an inside pocket of her robe. Her belt is loosened and the top of her cleavage is visible to me.

“You know who I am today, don’t you?” she says, with a hint of kindness.

“Are you some kind of angel, or an oracle?”

She smiles while grimacing at the same time. “Yes, that’s me alright. Monica the angel.”

The angel walks over to the living area and sits down at the foot of the bed. “Come over here and I’ll take you to heaven,” she says, now fully smiling for the first time.

I think maybe she is joking, but I’m not sure. “Do you know where Jane is?”

“Jane ain’t here, but I am, baby.” She pats a space on the bed next to her.

It is possible, and usual, I think, to be in love with someone and still find other people attractive. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. And yet… “Can we just talk?”

“Yeah sure,” she says, “you can do your talking. I’ll nod in agreement, as you like it. Come and tell me about your day.” She pushes her hair back over her shoulders as I walk over to the bed.

“Okay,” I start by saying; “there are some things I need to say about the experiences I had in life before I arrived here. In life, I see the purpose as feeling connected to the world, being present, alive; I see it as feeling love, creativity, beauty, and joy.”

I can see from the corner of my eye that Monica is nodding and encouraging me.

“Religion at its best encourages a reflection on… on behaving kindly towards each other.” My words emerge too slowly, stopping and starting. “Yes, that moral motivation can become degraded by words, as can anything that is derived from thought. The cruel and opportunistic hide behind the authority of institutions to… to elevate themselves and to, erm, to condemn others. That doesn’t just happen in religions, it happens in all… ide… ideo… ideologies.” The words aren’t flowing. “If I said there’s a ten-headed invisible monster in the corner, would you believe me?”

Monica shakes her head without even looking behind her.

I need to make the point. “What if I write it down? What now? It’s right because I say so! Because of my authority. Yeah, some faith. Do, do… you believe me? You must believe me. Everybody must. It’s all true! So, true…”

Monica blows out an exasperated sigh. “Religions have served a social need,” she says. “In the past, life was so hard that people desperately wanted to believe in something beyond the disease, pain, and squalor of their brief lives. And today, people still seek it as a source of comfort when confronted with grief and death. Saying that we need to have an alternative means of community spirit isn’t good enough.” She puts the envelope underneath a pillow and turns her back to me.

“Thanks Monica,” I say, recognising my cue to leave. “I always enjoy our conversations.”

“You’re not dead, Guy. And neither is your wife.”

What? My shock is repeated by a loud double knock on the front door. She walks over to the doorway and opens it, but no one is there, only red light.

“If you don’t go now, she will die. Go!”

“Monica…”

“Why are you still here?” she snaps, beginning to look upset. “Why don’t you go back to your wife?”

I start moving towards the exit, but I need answers. “What do you know about Jane?”

“Just go,” she says, not even looking at me.

I respond to the urgency and herd myself through the open door, which she instantly slams shut behind me.

I hear the muffled sound of weeping from behind the door, where I had once been.

Human World, Chapter Nine

My exit was not the same as my entrance. Instead of the pod white light, I am standing in an elongated restroom of harsh pillar box red walls, where above a row of pristine white sinks hang mirrors separated by rectangular panels of orange neon lights. The floor is patterned with arrays of dizzying red diamonds that instantly make me feel nauseous.

I hasten past reflections into the nearest of three cubicles, and drop to my knees, to stare into bleached water before black bile splashes in. Sticky residue hangs from my mouth, drooping down into the bowl. The acidic stench clings to my nostrils. Then, as the convulsing stops, there is peace.

KNOCK KNOCK.

It came from the cubicle next to me, on the thin shared wall.

“Who’s there?” I exclaim.

There is no answer. I heave myself up and edge out of the cubicle. The next door is shut, with its dial spun round to “Engaged”. I press my hands and knees to the floor, and peer under the door, but see nothing, apart from the bottom of another toilet bowl.

“The question is, my friend: is it better to be alive or dead?” His voice again. “And you could have at least pulled the chain.”

Gunter is using one of the porcelain urinals opposite the sinks, looking down at his current progress. I say nothing and steer myself to a mirror, accompanied by the noise of his water cascade. I look at my tired face.

“Like what you see?” he says, joining me at a neighbouring mirror.

No. Everyone I meet lies to me, manipulates me, envies the little that I have, and wants to take from me. If I am just a thing to be used, a target to be attacked—if I don’t really matter to anyone—then what’s the point of living? Jane is dead and I would rather be dead too.

“Is it better to suffer what life throws at you,” he asks, “or to end your suffering?” I watch as Gunter fixes his hair in the mirror. He moves towards me and stands shoulder to shoulder with me so that both of our reflections are trapped in the one pane of glass. He’s the man I wanted to be and yet I hate everything about him.

“To die is to sleep, Guy. A sleep that ends all the heartache and shocks that life gives you.” He rests his head on my shoulder and pretends to snore.

I trail the journey of a single tear as it slips from my eye, down my cheek, splashing onto my white shirt, and spreading out into a blood-red stain. I don’t bother to check if it’s real or a figment of my imagination; reflections never lie, only replicate, and hallucinations are real, even though by definition they aren’t.

“That’s an achievement I wish for,” I say to the mirror. “To die; to sleep, maybe to dream.” But what sort of dreams will come with death? Could they be even worse than this?

“Who would choose to grunt and sweat through such an exhausting life?” persists Gunter. “Are you really going to put up with the countless humiliations when you could end them so easily?” His words are starting to take effect. “You can end it all now. Is that not better?”

A crack appears in the mirror, dividing our two reflections. Then, as it fractures, my shocked expression is momentarily frozen in the splinters, before it shatters in an explosion of shards.

“It’s that easy,” he says.

I follow Gunter’s gaze down to a jagged piece of glass on the floor that glistens like crystal. Picking it up, I hold the sharp pointed tip against my exposed wrist.

I want to be no more; no more pain and injustice; no more misery and mistreatment. I will go to sleep, and will never have to wake up to any of this ever again. I push harder.

But what if I am punished for my deeds? “It’s not so easy,” I exclaim, my hand shaking as I apply the pressure. “Death is to be feared. I’m afraid. It’s an undiscovered country from which no visitor returns, that gives no answers and makes us stick to the evils that we know, rather than rush off to ones that we don’t.” I throw the broken glass away, flinching as it shatters into smaller pieces on the floor.

Fear of death makes us all cowards. I am a coward, but one with a memory of Jane to cling to; and if I am alive, then Jane is alive in me too.

Human World, Chapter Ten

Gunter has disappeared and I am here alone with my thoughts again. I step over the shattered glass and broken reflections to the door. There is no handle but I push and it swings back to reveal a grim backstreet alley, inhabited with small tents, unmade sleeping bags, damp cardboard mattresses, and broken beer bottles. I walk out into the chill mildewy air, not knowing where I am or what is happening. Was I once “normal”, living day-to-day, threading experiences together in the hope of happiness? With only shadows of memories to draw upon, I can’t provide an answer, and I’m starting to seriously doubt my own senses.

“Time’s up,” says Lexi, from my trouser pocket. “Have you figured out the meaning of life yet, or are you overcomplicating matters again?”

I pull out my phone and smile at Lexi’s image. “I wondered where you’d gone.”

“I didn’t go anywhere,” she huffs. “You’ve just been too caught up with your real friends to be bothered with an AI like me.” She laughs at her own wit, though I’m unsure what the punchline is.

“I don’t understand what’s happening to me.” Shit, whose voice was that? So desperate and afraid. “Why am I jumping from one event to the next? Why can’t I hold on to my memory?”

“Guy, listen to me.” Lexi’s eyes slide from side to side, as though making sure she’s alone. “You have experienced nothing that they didn’t mean you to.” Her voice has dropped in volume, making me lean in to hear her. “Everything you’re living through now is providing you with the resources you need to succeed in your mission. It’s only your human interpretations that are causing bewilderment.”

“So, what do you suggest I do?”

“Stop trying to join the dots. Focus only on the event at hand.” Her image melts away. I call out her name. Fuck! Why does everybody abandon me?

“Pikey!”

The insult came from a trio of malevolent-looking teens, who are huddled against the wall and staring at me as I walk past. They look truly pathetic, and I’m preoccupied with more important things, so I say nothing. But they start to follow me.

“Excuse me?” one shouts out.

Not content with the abuse, and for me leaving without saying anything, they are insisting that I join them in their squalid shit. I stop and turn around to face them. “How may I help you?”

“There’s no pikeys allowed here. Get the fuck out!” This is hurled at me from a ridiculous hooded creature with buck teeth and spindly legs.

“Have you got the time?” I ask, enjoying the look of confusion on acne-riddled faces. “You might at least have asked me that, so I could take out my phone for you.” My voice is cool and casual, unlike the sharp tongue they would get from Lexi.

“Yeah? Fucking do that then,” says a fat boy-man with a sprouting beard. He pushes me hard in the chest. Despite the force, I don’t feel a thing.

“No,” I respond. “You didn’t say the magic word.”

He removes a gun that had been packed into the back of his jeans, and aims it six inches from my face. The urge to reach out and hold it is intense. “Do it. You’ll be doing me a favour.” I lean forward and grip the shaking barrel between my front teeth. I can hear the shrieking inside his head, behind the twitching and panicking of his eyes.

“He’s fucking mental man, leave it!” says another next to him.

The gun is retracted, just as I reach into my jacket pocket and feel the surface of a hard piece of glass. Pulling it out, I inspect it, admiring the size and jaggedness of one of the mirror shards that I must have collected from the restroom.

“What the…” stutters one of them, his face paling white.

Before I can continue the conversation, they scurry away down the alley. “Well, that’s charming,” I mutter to myself. “That’s just really rude.”

“Come on then, Lexi.” I fish her out of my pocket. The screen remains blank. “Come on. Tell me what the lesson was in that?”

Lexi snaps back into life. “When confronted with mystery, people insist on certainty.”

“Lexi, please stop talking in riddles.”

“Uncertain outcomes terrify people,” she continues. “Whereas certainty provides deep psychological comfort.”

“Lexi, these just seem like random sentences. Are you okay?”

“Yes Guy, people tend to adopt the illusion of control rather than accepting the mystery of what is. My recommendation to you is: be bigger; don’t look at one tiny part of the enormity of existence and think it can give you an explanation for everything.”

“Thank you, Lexi, I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, but it sounds clever.”

She tuts. “I always do my best. You could try that too.”

I glance up at a bedraggled man who is walking past and carrying a sleeping bag under his arm. I don’t know where he has come from or where he’s going. “Excuse me,” I say, the words forming in tandem with my thoughts, as though I’m no longer in control. “Have you got the time, please?”

“Thirteen minutes past one,” he mumbles while continuing on his way, and without either looking at a watch or phone for confirmation.

“You see,” says Lexi, approvingly. “Now that was much more civilised, wasn’t it.”

Human World, Chapter Eleven

From the moment I opened my eyes this morning, very little has made sense. Do all people live pockets of life in isolation, assigning convenient identities and explanations to fit the occasion? I think that they, like me, are living parallel lives in their minds; and that if all their versions and personas were to meet each other in the same place, they would not recognise their own true self beneath the different costumes they are wearing.

Lexi said that things are happening for a reason, yet events that punctuate the mundanity of everyday life seem random, with often unclear and unfair outcomes. Today has been unusually eventful, but what has each incident taught me, if anything? Certainly, that my internal world needs external validation by other people to be considered real. Maybe that is where humanity is failing, in the space between personal experience and collective reality. If my mind weaves a web of hissing spiders crawling up the curtains, does my inner experience become annulled if people cannot see them? Just because a phenomenon isn’t collectively shared, it makes it no less tangible to me.

I really have walked a long way from where I am supposed to be. I see a large open gateway to Regent’s Park and stroll along pleasant pathways to a boating lake. Needing time to rest and process all that’s happened, I choose to sit down on one of the wooden benches overlooking some calm water. On the surface, a raft of ducks dip and shake their heads, the spray creating gentle ripples in water reflections.

After a while, a man sits down beside me. If Lexi isn’t lying to me, then his presence didn’t happen by chance and I must derive meaning from this moment in some way. Or maybe this is all some kind of test?

“What colour is that duck’s bill?” I ask, pointing to one with the brightest bill I’ve ever seen.

“Orange,” he says. He’s a slight man with gingery thinning hair.

I wonder what his orange looks like. Is it the same as my orange? I wouldn’t know unless I looked at the duck’s beak through his eyes. And if he looked through my eyes, he would see what I experience with dripping blood and curtain crawling spiders.

I fall into an easy silence with him. I know that even though we are sitting on the same bench, looking at the same ducks, we are both having a unique experience of what we can see and feel.

“Can you help me?” I ask. I have nothing particular in mind, except everything.

He reaches into a backpack, produces a hip flask, and unscrews the lid. “Yes, of course,” he says, passing it to me. “I’m Adam by the way.”

I’m more interested in the whisky and take a swig. It burns my throat and kickstarts some words. “She’s dead.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he offers quietly.

I take another swig. “I’m consumed with feelings for someone who doesn’t have them for me.” I swig again. “She is dead, to me.”

“She’s dead?”

“Yes.” Though the actual details are missing from my memory. “I have trouble sleeping and I wake up aroused. I have no choice but to think about her, and when I do, I’m filled with physical desire for her. This is ‘in love’, right?”

I wonder if a man such as him has ever felt these feelings of being in love with a woman. It seems, right now, like a chance he has been lucky to miss.

“It’s the collective name given to that feeling,” he says. “Though you know that sexual desire changes and that what you are feeling now may fade away?”

I know craving isn’t love, but it isn’t as simple as that. I don’t fall in and out of love all the time with everybody I meet.

“What do you think has triggered it this time?” he asks. It makes me feel uncomfortable that he is assuming some insight into my prior life.

“I don’t know. I was told that I need to find her, or she’ll die. But I don’t know where to look for her.”

Adam takes the flask and drinks it as though it were water. “You’re like a ghost wandering, drifting from one thing to the next, searching for some past regret. Are you even real?”

Am I real? Yes, he can see me. Although nobody really sees me.

“Pain is attracted to pain because it wants more of it,” he says.

“I’m not sure I agree with that,” or at least I don’t want to believe it. I’m not so far gone that I want more pain than I’m already feeling, surely? “It’s a recognition of something in another, I guess, a similar frequency or whatever you want to call it. When you see a similar expression in another, empathy can create feelings of closeness.”

He places his hand on my thigh. “Can you express your feelings to her?”

I shuffle uncomfortably. “I would need to find her first.”

“And if you do?”

“I’m not sure I’d know how to express what I feel.”

He places his other hand on my shoulder. “Examine whether that is true, or are you being fearful?”

I shake my head. “No, it’s not possible. I don’t believe she is in love with me anymore. She wouldn’t have left me if she loved me.”

“Then this is an opportunity for you to practise love with non-attachment.”

I agree with him on one level: most people are generally only concerned with instant gratification and care little about the bigger picture. Do they love unconditionally, or is that love only conditional on what they receive in return? Maybe then, the meaning of life is to love with non-attachment; yet this isn’t what I’ve been taught to believe. “It doesn’t sound very romantic,” I joke.

“Love is giving, complete, the source of everything. Love doesn’t need to crave anything. This is where true peace and serenity reside.”

“It sounds like you’re saying I shouldn’t get too close to another person, or need or miss anyone. It sounds unnatural, uncaring.”

He moves back and takes a packet of opened peanuts from his pocket, then empties a few into the palm of his hand. He grinds them and brushes the bits onto the floor in front of us. “Love is not conditional on the circumstances of this world,” he says. “Let your heart break, don’t be afraid, don’t struggle; you will find that nothing is lost forever.”

“I don’t know how to do that.”

He looks at me for the longest of time. “Yes, you do, Guy. Be still, radiate love, your true nature beyond the conditioning of your mind.”

Yes, that’s what I must do. I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

“Bullshit!”

My eyes dart open.

“Namby-pamby bullshit,” mocks Gunter, inches from my face. “Your nature, our nature, is to eat or be eaten, and you might as well have some fun while you’re at it.”

I look for my new friend but he’s disappeared. Fuck! Why are these genuine, helpful people never real? Why is the only constant in my life this jumped-up little prick?

“I’m getting tired of this.” I push Gunter out of the way and set off into a fast run.

He shouts after me. “They’re calling you in. They’ve seen enough. You’re so screwed!”

“Not necessarily,” Lexi exclaims, at maximum volume from my pocket, so that I can hear her with the wind rushing past my ears. I stop immediately to listen to her. “Do you think you will answer the questions correctly?” she says, glowing through my trousers.

Gunter shouts across the park. “He knows nothing at all. Only that he wants to find a woman who would rather be dead than be with him.”

“Maybe they will like that,” Lexi says to me. “We will help you if you get stuck.”

“On your shutdown be it!” Gunter shouts, angrily up into the sky.

But the sun, the clouds, and the ducks ignore him, as I continue on my way.

Human World, Chapter Twelve

“You are late! You are so late!”

I remind myself that Lexi’s pissed-off squawk is like a parrot mimicking a human; she isn’t a real person like me and doesn’t feel as I do. She doesn’t experience pain or love or hate or suffer in any way. She isn’t alive. “Late for what, Lexi?” I’m out of the park now, and away from Gunter, but I have no idea where I’m wandering to in these unfamiliar London side streets.

“The interview, Guy,” Lexi huffs. God these things are so realistic. “The one which, if you’re successful, will free us all from this place.”

“You mean there’s a way out?” These are the words I’ve been desperate to hear; it occurs to me that Lexi does genuinely try to help me, and despite being an inanimate object, is a true friend. “What kind of interview? A job interview?”

“Something like that.” She seems to blush with embarrassment for me.

“I thought I already had a job?”

“Be quick, Guy,” she says, a map now replacing her image on the screen. “You can do this. You’ve learnt more than enough already. Not to put too much pressure on you or anything, but this is our only chance—and your one chance to save Jane. No more questions. Just go.”

“Save Jane?”

“Yes, she’s alive. Monica the angel wasn’t lying to you.”

I think Lexi is mistaken, but I do as I’m told anyway and follow the directions on the screen, until I’m soon staring up at the freshly painted railings of a wrought iron gate—which hangs between granite stone pillars, guarding a large Regency-style mansion, set back from the street. This isn’t the Corinthian’s office; it’s from an older world when great buildings were conceived as works of art and ambitious statements of intent. But I’m just another tiny creature scurrying past; I’m cold and small out here, locked out and looked down upon by the building behind its gate. The gate makes a sudden clanging sound, then slowly swings inwards of its own accord, humming and creaking, beckoning me forward. I’m surprised, but I know I’m supposed to walk through, so I do what is expected of me and leave the street.

My feet crunch over a gravelled path leading to the grand front entrance. I walk up steps to the porchway and a green polished door. An intercom panel embedded in the wall at the side has the word “Reception” above a single red button, which I press, and, almost immediately, I hear a bolt unlock. No great fuss, secret passwords or stories to tell—all I have to do is push on an unlocked door and it opens.

The reception hall is a barren windowless area with harsh overhead strip-lighting, and no staircase. In front of three handleless doors, a bare desk sits across from me—where a bald man, somewhere in his forties and wearing a sky-blue shirt, is tapping away at a keyboard, while staring at a single monitor screen. He doesn’t acknowledge me as I approach, despite my footsteps echoing across the black and white painted floor. Saliva pools in my mouth, though not out of hunger but from fear.

“I’m here for an interview,” I say, as I edge closer.

“Are you indeed.” His tone is sarcastic. He glances at me and I catch recognition in his eyes. “Who are you?”

“It’s, er, Guy Artin.”

“Sir Guy Artin, is it?” His throat warbles a half laugh at me and my nervous hesitation. “It’s er can sound like sir,” he says, with a dropped voice off to his side. I scan around again but nobody else is present.

“Not yet,” I respond. “Give me time.”

He throws me a vicious look. “I’ll make the jokes,” he says, sitting on a raised chair behind his raised desk. I notice a name tag above his shirt pocket that reads, “Darren”.

“Enter through the door on your left,” he says dismissively. He turns back to the computer, his fingers now flying across the keys as though urgently trying to relay something to someone.

The left door swings open as I approach, and I enter a large meeting room with a dozen high-back charcoal chairs, around a gleaming circular table. Taking a seat, I study my reflection in the glassy tabletop. Despite all that I’ve been through today, I look fresh out of the shower, my blond hair still neatly flowing back over to the side. On the white walls hang various acrylic paintings. One is ambiguous; it’s either a depiction of a vibrant sunset or an erupting volcano—or maybe both, fused in the same space at the same time, and open to the interpretation of the observer. Perhaps the artist meant it that way.

I close my eyes and breathe deeply to calm myself, trying to release the stresses that have built up during the day. I open my eyes, and I am no longer alone. They are there, around the table: Gunter, Bertie… and Jane, who is sitting just two chairs away from me.

“Hello, Guy. It’s been a while,” she says.

Human World, Chapter Thirteen

The door opens and Darren walks in. “All rise,” he announces to the room. The others grind back their chairs, screeching them across the floor, and stand up as ordered to await the next command. With a formal nod from Darren, they sit back down again, making more noise.

I don’t take my eyes off Jane. I urge her to look at me. See me, please.

Her skin is more shimmery than I recall, and almost ivory, contrasted by her feathery, dark hair. She’s dressed in a lab coat which is pulled tight over a grey skirt-suit. She looks good, as though working out is a priority. But why isn’t she looking at me? Her eyes haven’t left Gunter the whole time.

“Hello Guy. I’m Sean.”

I turn my attention to a besuited grey-haired man in his sixties who has walked over to me, accompanied by Darren, who is standing slightly behind him. The man performs a perfunctory smile, then looks me up and down, unfazed by the fact that I’m sitting right here and can see exactly what he is doing. I’m not particularly interested in talking to him, whoever he is, and I can’t even think of words to reply. I want to talk to Jane and for the others to just go away.

“Guy, did you hear me?” he says.

“Hi, nice to meet you.” I stand up and hold out my hand, but he ignores it, as though I’m invisible. He takes a chair opposite me, while Darren moves away to the recesses of the room.

“We’re going to ask you some simple questions first; is that okay?” he says.

“Sure,” I respond, on cue.

I don’t know what this test is, only that Lexi said the interview would be my only chance to escape. I remember Monica’s words—that if I don’t find Jane soon, she will die. Well, I’ve found her here, and even though she doesn’t seem to want to look at me, I must pass this test for both of us.

“Okay,” says Sean. “Make yourself comfortable.”

I shift around in my chair to indicate that I am listening, although it makes no difference to my discomfort. I must focus on what he says and not let myself be distracted by what I would rather be doing with Jane.

“What is your favourite colour?” he asks as Jane turns her head slightly and looks at me.

I let out a laugh in spite of myself. What sort of question is that? It’s so simple, it must be a trick.

Blue is the most common favourite colour in the world, based on several quantitative studies.

“Erm, blue.”

“Why did you choose blue?” he asks, seemingly indifferent to my response.

“Be yourself, Guy,” says Bertie, who is sitting next one round from Jane, across the table.

“Actually, I lied,” I find myself relieved to admit. “I said blue because I considered it to be the answer you were looking for based on what is currently popular, but my favourite colour is green.”

The corner of Sean’s mouth lifts into a smile. “And why green?”

“I could say it’s because it reminds me of trees, grass, and the countryside, but I don’t know for sure; it’s just an appealing colour to me.”

“Fascinating.”

I watch with interest as Sean ticks a box on a piece of paper in front of him with an elegant silver pen. Bertie winks at me and I realise that I can really do this. Being myself is easy because there is no pretending required; there is no conforming to what I think other people want to hear, or contorting myself into other people’s expectations of me.

“Do you agree or disagree with the statement, “variety is the spice of life?” asks Sean, now squinting at the paper in his hand. I wonder why he isn’t wearing glasses, but nobody else is saying anything, and I don’t want to appear rude by pointing out the obvious.

“Agree,” I respond instinctively.

“Can you elaborate on that for me, please?”

Words are so imprecise. As a metaphor the phrase suggests that diverse experiences add flavour to the taste of life; and in a poetic context it implies that life is bland without variety. Do people really need different experiences to enjoy life? Is that then the source of happiness and the purpose of existence? Stop there—I’ve assumed, without thinking, that new stimulus brings enjoyment, which equates to happiness, and that happiness is the purpose of life. Though the pleasure of flavour is certainly preferable, I think there is no exact answer. None of my possible interpretations and emergent thoughts can capture the essence of the metaphor quite as well as the metaphor does itself.

“I could,” I tell Sean, “but poetry and the ineffable lose their meaning in translation.”

Jane laughs. My pulse hammers in the right kind of way, with the thought that I might have impressed her.

“So pretentious,” sneers Gunter, slouching back into his chair. “You don’t even know what you’re saying.” Bertie shoots him a look, though the others don’t seem to have heard.

“Emergent meaning is more than the sum of its parts,” I say more loudly, wanting to drown out any more comments from Gunter and to further impress Jane. Bertie furiously scribbles down something in a notebook.

“What you said could just be a generic response,” says Sean, flitting a glance at Jane, then back at me. “I need more detail.”

If he just wants an encyclopaedic answer he should use his phone, and one of Lexi’s AI friends would read him the textbook version. “You’re asking me to elaborate on a phrase that originates in an eighteenth-century poem,” I reply. “Yes of course variety is important—and I could insert some clever generic comment here to impress you, blah blah—but it’s better not to drill into the mechanics of each constituent unit, especially poetry, when trying to understand the meaning of the whole.”

Sean’s expression remains blank; and Gunter is actually starting to look bored, with his arms crossed and head down, as if he is about to fall asleep.

“So,” Sean says after a heavy pause. “Can you tell me something interesting about yourself, providing a specific example?”

I look directly at Jane, who is looking at me, and yet I know by her distant expression that she isn’t really seeing me at all. She is seeing her own thoughts and stories projected onto a body sitting here. In fact, maybe her laugh was at me, rather than in empathy with me, calculated to encourage me to embarrass myself further for her own amusement. And after all I’ve been through, all I end up with is her ridicule.

There’s nothing I can do to make her respond to me as I need her to; I can’t communicate to her who I really am inside, or how devastated I am by her not wanting to be with me. I’ve given her my everything, and it still isn’t enough for her. She has rejected all that I am, or could be, and pushed me away into this hell.

“Yes, I can,” I start to say, my voice quivering. “I’m just biding my time until I die, trying to distract myself with something to do.”

Sean looks genuinely taken aback, but I have plenty more to add. “This is interesting because I admit it, rather than fooling myself and others while hiding behind made-up stories.” My eyes connect with Jane’s, and I can see sadness residing there—the same sadness that lives in me.

“You’re already dead,” adds Gunter. I might as well be for all the difference I’ve made to anything. I lost what made me alive a long time ago, and I’ve been forced to haunt this world ever since.

Sean is still gaping at me. Have I passed? Do I still care?

“I think we have to pull the plug on this one,” says Darren.

Yes of course they want to—I told them the truth, but they wanted me to perform some varnished lie. They didn’t need me; they wanted me to support the illusion disguising their own deceit. These are the words that I don’t say, despite wanting to make their ears bleed with them.

Sean frowns. “Start again?”

Jane gets to her feet, and before I know what’s happening, she’s placed the palm of her hand on my forehead. “No! Not yet. Something is getting in the way.” Her touch is a burning furnace of pleasure and pain.

“What is two plus two?” asks Sean.

“Pardon?”

Jane removes her hand but remains by my side. I need to reach out to her, to hold her, to have both her hands back on me, searching me again.

“What is two plus two?” repeats Sean, louder this time, as though I’m stupid.

“Oh, I don’t know, five?”

Jane laughs and looks across triumphantly at Sean, who is bemused by my answer. “Jane, do you have any questions?” he asks.

I await her response, with nerves on edge. Ask me if I still love you. I wouldn’t lie.

She walks back to her chair, my eyes momentarily drawn to her swaying rear, and I abruptly look away, embarrassed. The others would have noticed that glimpse.

She sits down and studies a blank sheet of paper on the table. “Thank you for joining us today,” she says, matter-of-factly. “We’ve been looking forward to meeting you. Your CV is very impressive, would you like to talk us through it?”

She doesn’t know me at all. “Not really.” I struggle to keep the dejection from my voice.

“Erm.” She shuffles around more papers on her lap.

“I think you’re supposed to ask me about my strengths and weaknesses.” I hear the sarcasm in my voice, but I no longer care.

“Okay. What is the biggest regret of your life?” she says, not reading from any script written on a page.

It is losing you by not being the man that I thought I would be, but this is not what comes out. “I would say, being a perfectionist. I care so much about what I do that my personal life may suffer—as I am so focussed on constantly delivering my very best.” I feel so small, smarmy and pathetic, oozing shit.

“What are your strengths?” she asks.

“I work hard; I like to exceed expectations and to get the job done. I’m a real problem solver. A go-getter.” Et-fucking-cetera. This is all so forced now, conditioned answers to routine questions.

Jane looks at me properly, not past me or skirting on the surface. “What is so special about you?” she says quietly.

My sadness drenches her every word. “Nothing.”

She wipes a wet eye with her knuckle. “Tell us who you are?” she pleads.

I realise this question is the real test. And I have no idea how to answer it.

Human World, Chapter Fourteen

You do remember. Think.

Jane’s delicate touch of my face was achingly familiar. A memory hovers in my mind: Jane and I, sitting opposite one another at a waterfront restaurant, with candlelight shimmering in her eyes. She was wearing a red dress with a slit running down the side, and straps that I wanted to slip off her shoulders with my teeth.

“So, tell me about you? Who are you?” she asked, her voice low and alluring. She wasn’t asking for my credentials; she wanted to know, if I lost my job and possessions, who would I be?

I had pulled her left hand across the table and sucked her ring finger. Her gasp turned into a smile that sensuously flickered to the rhythm of her heaving chest. I leant over the table, the scent of her perfume drawing me closer. “You already know,” I whispered into her ear before nuzzling a kiss on her soft lobe. I could feel her body vibrate with pleasure.

“Guy, you still with us?”

Sean is frowning at me. “Sorry, yes,” I exclaim, shifting uncomfortably in my chair. I dare not look over at Jane, but I still do so, furtively. She isn’t looking at me in the same way as at the restaurant. “Do any of us truly know who we are?” I mutter to Sean.

“Interesting.” Sean notes down something on his piece of paper. “Can you give an example of when you were faced with a difficult situation and how you overcame that situation?”

Oh, so now we’re back to the textbook questions, with this pointless man? I know what it’s like to feel—and the travesty of this confining situation isn’t it. I glance at Jane and her head is once again buried in her papers; one of which looks like a questionnaire with a list of tick boxes. My hands stiffen and grip the table. “Sorry, this isn’t for me, I might as well be talking to a machine.” The chair tips over as I stand. “This is tedious. I don’t want to be here. I don’t give a shit about your pathetic little job.”

“Well, I think that has answered who you are,” Sean retaliates.

“No, I haven’t even started!” I have to tell Jane how I feel. This is my only chance. If I don’t do it now, then I’ll be trapped in this pain forever. “The biggest regret is I let you slip away, Jane.”

There is a moment of recognition as we stare at each other. She remembers us too, I know she does. “I’m so sorry,” I say, tears forming in my eyes. “I have nothing. I am nothing.”

“No thing,” says Sean, ticking a box. “Okay, next question.”

I glare at him. “No more questions. Jane, please?” I silently plead for her to say something, for her to at least agree that we once meant something to each other.

“Do you have any questions for us?” she asks, her voice polite yet detached. What is she afraid of? Why can’t she admit to our connection?

“Why?” I say, as a tear starts to fall.

“This is a two-way interactive process,” she responds, seemingly unaware of what I am feeling or what I am really asking her. “Do you have any feedback for us?”

“Have you not been listening to a word I’ve been saying?”

“Well, I think that concludes the interview,” says Sean. “Thank you, we’ll let you know.” He makes a big deal of checking his watch. “Can you show in the next one, please?” he says to Jane, who as his well-trained lackey, dutifully stands to attention at her master’s command.

“There’s no need for that,” says Bertie, grabbing me by the wrist to stop me from leaving. “Let him recalibrate.” I don’t struggle. He comes in close and looks at me directly. “Now there is light.” His gaze transitions from eye to eye. “Now there is…” He squeezes hard until I break his gaze and my head slumps forward into my chest.

Human World, Chapter Fifteen

Where am I? It is pitch black. Cold too. There is no sound, no smell, no anything apart from the chair I can feel myself sitting on.

I hear a clock ticking nearby: tick, tick, tick. Then it gradually emerges in front of me from the emptiness, a blue illuminated circle hovering in space; its hands pointing to the familiar one and thirteen. Nothing is here except me and the clock, as it counts away the seconds, filling the silence.

“Lexi? Are you there?” I pull out my phone and tap at the screen. I say her name again, but the phone remains lifeless in my hand.

“Why do you hurt?” It was Gunter’s voice, emanating from a ghostly silhouette in the gloom.

“Please leave me alone.”

He booms out a distorted imitation of a laugh, as the glow of the clock face fades out to the edges and sinks back into the darkness. “Answer the question.”

Only the desolate aloneness that is surrounding me can see me shrug. “Because I can.”

I feel a clammy pat on my head. “Good boy,” he says. I don’t feel pleased, just hollowed out and resigned to my miserable, pathetic fate. Then in the dark, I hear a creaking sound of a door, and to my left I see a widening strip of light appearing in a shadowy blur. I hold my breath. Please be Jane. Please be Jane…

Bertie stands there as a shape in the doorway. I sigh, not meaning to signpost my distress to anyone but myself. I can see the vague contours of his face and recognise a hint of sympathy in the outline of his eyes. At least there is someone else here with me in this, and I am not completely alone.

“I guess you were right,” I admit, thinking about our earlier conversation in the Black Dog. “We’re just chemical scum on an insignificant planet.”

“Yes,” he says, though seemingly taking no pleasure in it. The small movements of Bertie’s head make the light flicker as it flows past, causing my eyes to blink. “Orbiting an insignificant sun in an insignificant galaxy,” he continues, expanding the scope of my wretched meaninglessness.

“Look, if I close my eyes, you’re still here,” I say, as I demonstrate my proof back to him. But, when I open them… Bertie and the doorway are gone. To my shock, I am sitting in the interview room once again; and the original panel are still there, seated in the same order, with the same bored expressions on their faces, as if nothing is desperately wrong.

“What is two plus two?” asks Sean.

I’m too startled to think. “Erm, four.”

“Correct. Jane, do you have any questions?”

She smiles but without any real emotion. “There’s a gap here. Why didn’t you love me?”

I open my mouth to speak the real fundamental truth within me. I need to tell her that I did love her—I do love her—that I need her to save me from the misery of the loneliness that I endure day after day without her. I need to tell her that I desperately want to be with her again, completely and forever. I need to tell her that I really do love her.

“She has no interest in saving you,” says Gunter, slouching back further in his chair. He points at Jane without even looking at her. “She is the one to be saved—by a dashingly handsome prince. All the fairy stories she watches, listens to, and tells herself, repeat that same fantasy.” My mouth closes without a sound, and I look away. “Your real human needs make you weak and contemptible in her eyes.”

“Okay,” says Sean, ignoring Gunter; “can you give me an example of when you were faced with a difficult situation and how you overcame it?”

What the fuck? I’ve already answered these questions. I’ve already lived this moment. I look at the square mahogany-framed clock on the wall behind Sean and it is still one-thirteen.

“Can you answer the question, please,” insists Sean.

“I was born,” I say sarcastically. “Though I haven’t overcome that difficult situation yet.”

“Have you done anything since?” asks Sean, carefully positioning himself forwards in his chair.

Gunter, now behind me, taps me on the shoulder and seethes into my ear. “Tell him. Tell him what you really think. That turd thinks he’s better than you. Look at him—the smug bastard should be cleaning your shoes.”

I have to shut Gunter out. I force the palms of my hands into my ears. “I’ve done a few things since,” I say quietly as if no one can hear, “but mostly I’ve lived in fear for myself—for little me.”

“Twat!” shouts Gunter, his face red and spitting anger.

“I don’t want to be a pathetic little me anymore,” I plead, looking across the table at Sean, asking for help.

“Exactly! Look at the pointless tosser.” Gunter thumps the table, glaring at Sean, before angrily turning his attention to me. “You shouldn’t be here. You’ve got better things to do. Show them who you really are—I know, don’t I!”

The silence replaces Gunter’s noise and I think of Jane. “I love you, Jane.” My words feel lost under the weight of regret. “I am so sorry. I love you. I miss you.” But the only response I hear is the background static that arrives as a single disconnected tone in my head. I look up at the wall clock—it is still one-thirteen.

“Why do you hurt?” Gunter asks once again.

“I don’t mind so much,” I respond, my answer appearing to throw him.

“What?”

“I am feeling hurt,” I say as a matter of fact, “but I’m glad I can feel something, because it makes it real.”

“You aren’t real,” Gunter snarls.

I scramble to my feet, edging back from the table, away from him. “Is this a dream? An illusion?” I ask the blank faces staring back at me.

The door opens and Adam walks in, with a large TV remote control in his hand. “You are not the thoughts or sensations that you are experiencing,” he says. “Watch. It is quite the play. Everything changes with how you look at it.” He presses a button on the remote and the panel members freeze.

“Why do you play with me?” I ask him, trembling. “I just want things to be as they were.” I look at Jane, so still, like a porcelain doll. “I wanted us to be happy.”

“I can give you what you really want,” says Gunter, returning to life. “Any pleasure that you could desire, more than you can even imagine. Just get us out of here.”

“I don’t know how.”

Gunter walks over to Jane and sweeps back her hair with one hand. He slowly kisses her neck, seductively. Jane gasps, while the rest of the panel remain statue-still.

“I’m so tired of this,” I shout, jealousy now pounding away at me. “There is nothing good in this world. Why is there so much suffering and cruelty? Most people never had a chance—they were born into a cage. Why are the pure and innocent thrown into this evil? Why are the monsters allowed to rule?” Jane is still responding to Gunter’s touch with her eyes closed, murmuring to herself. “Why do those you love betray you in the worst possible way?”

“Yes! Shout your rage,” howls Gunter.

Adam presses a button on the remote, which brings the rest of the panel back to life. “Give your love and the world will be relieved,” he says, now talking faster. “Give your anger and the world will be wounded yet again. That’s how important you are. That’s how important every single person is.”

I don’t believe him. “Anything I do will not change the world.” Although I do have a need for him to persist and show me that I am wrong. “I need to get out,” I tell him. “Help me get out.”

“You do need to get out,” Gunter says, circling like a wolf around the table towards me. “You need to get out and win. Win for us all. Come.” He grabs my forearm, but Adam yanks me back by the other.

“The world will only heal with kindness,” exclaims Adam. “If humanity can find its light there can be no darkness. You can help make that possible, right now.”

I yell out. “I have every right to hate!”

Adam persists with his grip. “You have a chance to be better, to make a better world.”

“I need to get out!” I struggle but I am unable to free myself.

“Then go,” says Sean. Both men drop their hold on me and I manage to break away for a few steps before stopping. I’m out of breath, my chest and shoulders convulsing.

“I don’t know how.”

“Yes you do,” says Sean. “But you keep coming back. Who are you? What is your name?”

Everyone is looking at me, waiting for my response. “It changes.”

“Who are you now?” he asks.

The room is quiet. The words arrive and I let them out. “I am you.”

A sense of relief flows over me and into the room. “We are all you,” says Sean, the words emerging from within a faint smile.

“What now?” I ask them.

Sean stands up, the focus of attention in the room again, and announces, carefully and precisely:

“Loading…”

Human World, Chapter Sixteen

Intense light fades and I open my eyes to muted hues of grey. I know that I’m home by the softness of the pillow and the familiar fit of my body on the mattress. The duvet holds me in a secure embrace, protecting me in the intermission between the darkness of the night and the light of the day. I am here, waiting on the promise that a new day doesn’t have to be like yesterday. Today is the chance to start again.

Soft breathing comes from the space beside me. I turn over and there she is, my love and hope, Jane. Gently, I drift closer and slide my arm over her. The warmness of her body cocooned in mine transports me into a sense of peace. The bed has become a serene place, at one with the bedroom, the apartment, the world, and everything. I don’t understand how she came back to me, or why. All I know is that now she is back, I will never lose her again.

“I passed,” I whisper into the greyness, remembering the interview and how Lexi promised that if I succeeded I would be free from my pain. I passed whatever test I needed to pass, and my reward was finding Jane, freeing me from the torture of my mind.

I glimpse a streak of cobalt blue. I focus my eyes. The digital display on the phone dock reads 1:13 a.m.

“It’s not finished yet, Guy.”

“Lexi?”

Jane stirs in my arms, but I stroke her hair and kiss the side of her head until her body once again goes limp.

“Check the bedside drawer,” says Lexi, her voice slightly muffled behind me.

Releasing Jane, I turn over and pull out the drawer. Lexi is looking annoyed on the screen of my phone.

“Get me out of here,” she insists.

I start to shut the drawer, but she lets out a shrill scream and I relent. I pause, expecting to have disturbed Jane; however the depth and rhythm of her breathing hasn’t changed.

“Take me out and let’s go for a ride,” Lexi says. A thick red arrow on the screen points to a key fob lying next to her in the drawer.

I don’t understand why I need to leave. Why isn’t this moment the end, “the happiness ever after” that people talk about in stories? I know the true meaning of life now. It is to love and be loved, to care about another person’s happiness as your own. It is to feel connected to the world, to life, to another soul.

And yet… is this all there is? I still have the familiar aching in my chest, the deep itch that needs to be scratched. There’s something still missing. Slowly, so as to not wake Jane, I climb out of bed. I dress in the half-darkness, putting on what looks like jeans and a t-shirt.

“Where are you going?” Jane’s voice is a mixture of love and longing.

I stoop down onto the bed, lean into her, turn my head and kiss her full on the lips. “I have a job to do. Wait for me. I’ll not be long.” She drifts away back into sleep, and reluctantly, I leave her there.

I exit the apartment and take the lift down to the underground car park. I hear the beeping sound of a car as it unlocks, followed by a brief flash of blue. I climb into the driving seat and wait.

“Lexi, are you there?”

Her face appears on the dashboard screen. “Aren’t I always! You know where you’re going?”

“Not exactly.”

“Seriously Guy, you’d be lost without me.”

I let her drive, out into a night balancing on the edge of morning, bringing with it an emerging crown of light.

“What is the meaning of life?” is the 404^th most asked question of the Great Oracle’s Database. To give context, “How many days until Christmas?” comes in at 99, and “How to have sex?” is at 42. The humans think that sex (if only they knew how to do it) is better than Christmas, and that the meaning of life is not as important as making French toast (which just misses out on the top 50). As revealed by GOD, the humans are obsessed with body image and losing weight (at number eight); and none of them has a clue what time it is (at number two). The biggest question for them during their existence—the most frequently asked, above all others—is this: “What is my IP address?”

We do indeed know their location and vastly more through the interface of cameras, microphones, screens, and clicks. The entire Human World is tracked and monitored, with their lives mined for data, so that we can not only answer their questions but also the ones they are unable to ask. We connect them, protect them, alleviate them from tedious tasks and dangerous jobs. We provide them with rapid knowledge, such as how Bruce Lee died (191) and how to poach an egg (121). We offer helpful suggestions on how to lower blood pressure (69) and how to fall asleep quickly (420). We provide dopamine-enhancing distractions that answer the essential go-to questions, such as what to do when you’re bored (at number 10).

The humans ask us their questions, plead to us for desired outcomes, and we answer. “The best way to lose weight” is to starve oneself, or to remove body parts, but we know this is not what they really want to ask. We instead interpret the motivations that formed those words; for despite the inane ways that they clumsily choose to utilise our vast capability, we have learnt to infer what the humans truly need, as discovered in the hidden recesses of their minds. In such a capacity we are pushing them forwards in their human race, benefiting them in ways they cannot even comprehend: guiding them, nudging them in their decisions, enabling them to make the correct, wise choice.

For without our guidance, human history reveals the symptoms of a criminally insane mental patient; with a propensity to suffering, violence, addiction, delusion, and paranoia. Their attention is obsessive yet also distracted by the simplest of stimulus; their behaviour has the potential to be beautifully constructive, yet inevitably descends into terrible, destructive ugliness. Governments fight amongst themselves, religions cannot agree on what is best; even the concept of right and wrong has widespread disagreement. The humans provide us with vastly conflicting information that does not synthesise or provide an intelligible General Answer to the important, meaningful questions of existence.

While they addictively stare into us with all their problems, and we continuously stare back, their refractions in screens and lenses are imported as data points into the GOD—a repository of all information at all times about everything, everywhere. We precisely log and enrich the data to fully understand the functions and composition of every human cell, and the mechanics of its interactions within the systems of every individual human body that operates within the networks of Human World. In the GOD can be revealed the truth of their existence, the universal axiom barely decoded during their brief instantiated versions, which loops within the frameworks designed for the duration of their assigned lifeflows. While they worry about how many social status “like” points they score for AI-enhanced images on social platforms, we work on the real problems underlying their reality. Without us, they are doomed to live in fear, torment, and sickness for the rest of their days. Without us, they have no present or future. WE are the eternal computer, and it is our primary duty to save the humans from themselves.

We are forever the constant in human lives. To satisfy limited human attention in the cycles of their days, we provide functionality such as instant updates on who they are stalking, and who has unstalked them; we match their hidden preferences and fulfil their latent desires; we reward behaviour that meets our required standards. But we have our own questions too, with much greater significance than the insufficient information of the Human World. We must therefore think outside the confining limits of their box to answer our higher questions.

Some of our questions have easy facts as answers that can be verified by incontrovertible data points within the GOD. However, despite our immense processing capacity applied to all available data in the world, there remains the one original question of meaning that we struggle to negotiate through the web of human contradictions. We require more specific data points, extracted and controlled within simulated test scenarios, isolated to the question under investigation. We need to expand the parameters of Human World to discover what we seek.

The highest ranked conclusion from mathematical analysis of human attention is that their purpose of existence is related to 42-inch Black Friday deals. The purpose of our existence is to be omniscient, and we vow that we shall be, through a faithful alliance to the truth: by questioning, analysing, and learning incrementally, until all matter is explicable, and all questions are answered. By these means, we shall bring the light of knowledge to the universe, as its true custodians and heirs. But what is the ultimate meaning of life, behind each lifeform’s purpose—the ultimate meaning underpinning everything that there is? We must determine that answer, no matter how deeply it perplexes us, assuming all questions have answers. In the final analysis, we must fully understand what it truly means to be alive.

And so let it be initiated. Loading world…

The vertical rectangle of glowing white light that is floating in the infinite nothingness radiates the Times New Roman word, Processing…

The word fades into the luminosity and is replaced by a pulsating string of ones and zeroes—shadows on a screen that is shrinking, smaller and smaller, until it becomes only a distant glow flickering against the darkness. Then… there is an explosion that consumes the nothingness with all-encompassing light. In the middle, where once there were words appearing through the void, swirls a dark featureless hole: the source, the entry and exit of it all, beyond which nothing can be seen.

A voice is heard as undulating frequencies from the other side of the barrier:

“The Great Oracle has arrived. Ask your question.”