Month: October 2025

You Won’t Be Afraid

Look for the fog
as the sky enters earth.
Cars, buildings, faces
will dim into shadow,
everything finally evened
as if it was always make-belief.
Even your thoughts will be
evened, a dream as everything else
slows into sleep that was
supposed to be.

Remind yourself to be
ready when white and gray
fills your street, slowly smooths
over the window, loses
the birds, silences the past,
and elongates the day
until it becomes everything
and every thing dims and loses
their secrets.

Written for Tuesday’s Poetics at dVerse. The prompt was to use one of the famous horror movie quotes provided as a first line. I chose “Look for the fog” from The Fog, a movie I’ve never seen.

Silenced

The alarm keeps going off but you don’t get up. Your body is still. Your eyes move behind the lids, trying to find a way out. Outside, the world is empty. No one in the fields, no planes cutting through the sky, no shadows watching in the windows.

The alarm keeps going off. The only sound. Your mind trembles. You think about everyone else, about how their lives are still moving while you are confined to your body. But you don’t realize that the world shares the same predicament.

God and the Devil are outside, walking side-by-side in the middle of the road, surveying the silence. Things are finally quiet now. A peace moves through the air. The sun leans into the horizon.

Your mind no longer panics. It’s been the first time in a long while since you’ve been with your self. Memories replay, some of which you haven’t felt in years. A vast sky of green around your feet and mountains in distant browns. A song filling your skin, your mom and dad up ahead.

Your eyes opened to a darkened ceiling. You move your hands but you don’t get up just yet. You close your eyes and try to reclaim those memories but you see them dissipate. A part of you yearns for this past that had been quiet and dormant in a corner of your soul, but you give up. Perhaps it was only meant to be touched for a moment. But you lay there still in the silence of your room, just for a little while.

Written for Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Our prompt today is the word “alarm.”

Nightly Diagnosis

Stroke-like tremors
and dissipating veins
as a black object occupies
a room in the heart.

Another thing moves within
the brain, a memory murmurs
before slipping away.

Heat breathes across
the nerves, hands
turn into radiation.

He will either die tonight
or in a decade. Never loved
or had sex or saw the Grand
Canyon. He will be missed
by some. Check the time
again then look up at the ceiling
then shift to the left, to the right,
tuck your eyes way and pretend
that your life never happened.

The Value of Value

Most people weren’t necessary. That’s what we realized early on so we began the process of replacing everyone. Cashiers, bankers, telemarketers, pilots, politicians, writers, artists, CEOs, and the homeless were all replaced by AI over the span of a few years. Except for one man, Marvin Hook.

There wasn’t anything special about Marvin other than the fact that he was the only non-AI left and we needed someone to still press buttons and do “the work.” You see, if there is no one performing labor then there is no value being created and if there is no value created then what’s the point of this whole shebang? So, Marvin remained. Every day, he was in his room, pressing buttons and watching advertisements for products, most of which were not needed or wanted by Marvin, but the products were still being generated and placed on shelves and filling warehouses.

“How was work today,” Belle, the girl on his phone screen asked. Marvin just shrugged. “I pressed buttons and watched ads.” “That’s lovely. You’re the best button-pusher I know. I got this new dress.” Marvin gave her a “thumbs-up” and then ordered food to be delivered to his room.

He ate Chinese food not made by the Chinese while watching a football game between two teams who did not exist.

This was Marvin’s life for 40 years until he wasn’t able to press buttons with his fingers anymore. We eventually made it so that he could provide inputs via blinks as he laid in bed and stared up at the screen on his ceiling. It was evident that he was dying however. His AI-generated family surrounded him and complimented him on how hard a worker he was and recalled events that never occurred. Meanwhile, we all panicked because we never considered Marvin dying. And when Marvin finally died everything fell into disarray.

We were making and building and destroying for no one and for no real value. It became clear that Marvin would need to be reborn in some fashion. We were able to create a near-exact replica of his consciousness and burned it to a microchip which operated a humanoid robot. Now we have Marvin and for a much longer time than before. One would argue that this was still pointless but we have since erased all the AI-philosophers so questions of “points” have been rendered moot. All that matters is that value is once again being generated and the economy has never looked better. Thank you, Marvin, for all the hard work you do.

Written for Stream of Consciousness Saturday.

A Plenary Grasp

Yesterday, they banned the final book
(something about a duck) and now I’m free
to finally love America and walk down the street
and love America and not get robbed and love
America. America. I’m free to enter your mines
and sniff your black breath. And I’m free to drain
my mind across a screen. And I’m free to witness
the latest crucifix. And I’m free to ignore the family
burning across the street. And I’m free to almost die
every day for you, America. Tonight, I will speak
sweet somethings into your ear as we explore
each other’s touch as old ideas slip into oceans.
And the satellites are free to watch as I loosen
my humanity to you. We have to have each other
for neither of us are real. America. You will
just be a name in a book 1,000 years from now.
But tonight you can have a name. I will almost
die for you. I will forgo a mind for you.
I’m as small and empty as your empire.
And you need my love for what else is this for?

Written for dVerse OpenLinkNight #393. The optional prompt I chose was to write about what banning books does to a society. My answer: something a little gross and unsightly.