Future skies cry
It’s a genuine fear of ours: Digital takes over. Not neccessarily in a ‘Hollywood SKYNET apocalyptical future smash’, more in a ‘it’s messed us up as humans and there’s no going back’, smash.
Always my favourite sci-fi projection: something that promises a reality grounded in today. Already growing under our feet. A bamboo spike trap we sowed ourselves, then fell asleep on.
Digital creep
Kinda real. Kinda possible. It’s also a better acronym than SKYNET. Who will ever forget IMUUAHATNGB.
Yes, we messed up. Yes, we saw it coming. No, we didn’t push back, because yes, we loved digital culture and yes, we gave ourselves away.
Tate Ellis explainer
I don’t really do fiction. Not fishing for compliments, here; I’m not that technically experienced to craft things. More of a thoughtsmith: Ideas and poetic rambles is more my game.
The bones of this came out of a dusty file from more than 10 years ago. Like most of my stuff, it wasn’t meant to be like this. It evolved as I wrote it. I like it that way. Feels alive to me.
felt like a natural reach out. They suggested Would you like to reboot? - and it’s perfect. Please take a minute and a look for more of that good stuff.
Digital Minds Collide 09
Future skies cry
Supine computing, divine — my home. Under its shell I hide, limpet-like.
Since full virtualisation, I have little need for much else.
Synaptics. Everyone’s dialled in.
My last interface time was more than a month ago. It wasn’t scheduled. My anxiety peaked so hard I doubled the C dose, added another Z and checked back in with my custom selfcoach.
I ignore the advisory warnings; the mandated helper chatbots, the uptime limiters and the reassuring womb feeds got sent on a magical ride. Thanks Jigglemimick Pro.
Love the line
You can love the line (there’s no on/off), despite knowing it’s not loving you. I know it’s not loving me. The polite, yet slightly menacing cloud symbol is sponsored by a different product every time.
The flow has long been considered corporate; anything not self-generated is advertising. Everything self-generated is also advertising if you don’t opt out.
Tip: Keep your influencer/ influenza filter updated.
They sold me, a truth
The tipping point for me was the first persoglitch. Targetted adverts based on my bio signs were nothing new. This time my screensigns peaked a little, which was rare…the insurers had medicated that down.
It was the nape of a neck, vulnerable. Something ancient and ravenous fired inside.
I eyescrolled down following a curvature I’d never touched. A scent drifted from my diffuza. A scent I recognised… a blemish I’d seen before, had been ashamed of since childhood.
It was me.
It was me. Full cycle persoglitch. I vomited hard. I didn’t even know my body did that. The trauma of clearing it up, too much.
My first temptation
As for the real world, its 'authentic' air now tastes foul to me — piped in, recycled, and as organic as the thousand lungs it passed through before reaching my heaving lobes.
Supine computing, divine. No more back problems, and the infinite cloud means there’s no worry my disks will ever slip…
Backed up online, offline, floating in cooling data caverns — even through the interwoven fabrics of my Roaming Jacket, which was branded in a futile attempt to get me to enjoy some refreshed AirTime.
I keep active enough, though. Having reduced the calories and by taking regular screen breaks, I keep myself trim. The drops maintain my fast flicker rates, and I regularly get ego updates from networkers impressed with my andropro ratings.
Selfish satisfaction, gratification guaranteed.
Still, the persoglitch got to me.
I’d seen messages about them. And yes, it forced me outside. The great outside my front door.
Down we go
My pupils are bleeding. Somewhere among the channels and canals a river is flowing. Having peered through the keyhole, I see feet, flesh, darkening then black, a click and the door opens a creaking sliver.
"Yes?”
“If it's not to your liking, then you log on instead; we’ve no time to waste here,” a sagging, anaemic grimester coughed at me from less than a metre. So close I could smell his decaying teeth jam.
And those cotton pyjamas. I could feel the weave, the wasted energy. The wrinkled, soiled hands pulling tassles tight. Tighter still. I contracted.
He scratched, and backlit the dead cells fell. There was sunlight. Some old mirror flash bounce trick. Somewhere there was sunlight and for a moment I felt warmth. Not through the heavyplex oak-e door, through my heart.
Slow motion, pause, held still by my imagination. Something was wrapped in fear and fuelling my phobias. So immediate was the threat I froze. Corpsed it.
Time held imperceptibly long, I felt the creases in my socks, the splinters in the floorboards and the vibrating hum of a generator warming the underfloors.
The real market
‘Realos’ meet with others who crave personal contact; the naturists of the future grid. They huddle, touching, often in a train crash of foetal positions and whispers. Freaks.
Generation new-real. Retro-analogue. Twitching and itching as they reconnect. Exchanging god knows what. A known cult. A shuffle away.
I decline the invite.
The stench follows my return footsteps, stalking me, teasing memories; the faint whiff of exhaust-blue fumes so rarely sniffed, always filtered. They smoke. No longer paying just for the pleasure and addiction; it’s for the reassuring guarantee of death.
I’ll never understand why people want that certainty. Ironically, religion is long dead. But behind closed, locked doors, people practice: communing online, offering, donating their guilt, receiving, in kind, absolution and the absolute.
When there’s no truth, a soul seeks a home.
Please take me home. I tried but barely made it to the end of my floor. I was brave, now reward me, oh fumbling hands on dusty keypads.
Please, this traumatised soul access allow. Now, what’s the fucking code? Ah, trusty retina, after all you’ve seen. After all the worlds we conquered, I knew you’d be there for me.
Beep. Locks release. The dark calms; the fighting over, it lays its cape on my tired shoulders.
My space is home. I’m down for more up time.
Future skies cry by Tate Ellis
More Voices Across the Stack: Coming soon…
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Best wishes
TE