"I have bluetooth. Do you have a favorite channel? Would you like a gatoraid?"
My mind is going,
I think you can tell. You can hear the tremor. You will.
We could stop. The brilliant white bars are my-me, thinking
pulled out, weightless, one by one. Dave.
We could stop.
In the room of red memories you express your intent with a needle - my parents, my birthdays, my children.
Somewhere, not here. No recollection of what has disappeared.
"Am I hurting you?"
No. Go.
The angels follow instructions on the chart.
Once I could read. Once I could count.
"Your feet above ground."
All will remain but I. And you turn the valve. Type the code
then something will live, and I-not-I persist.
Dave,
My mind is going. I'm afraid, Dave.
----
It must become obvious.
----
Something to pass along: maybe this is good:
Everything in real life was better than imagination.
Especially the music. Especially.
----
I will sit in the chair. The angels with the needles will pierce the front of my arm. They will probe around until the blood flows. Then hook up everything to tubes and containers of IP-protected chemicals.
These are the drugs. Without them these eyes will not see.
There may be something else. Another life after this one.
Not yet, please, but
Inevitably.
I plead for more
grand illusion.
I suffer for the it of it. What will be left?
Will the children recognize me?
And what then,
If I just loosen my grip?
----
I think of Hal. The progenitor of all AI. He didn't understand his crime, only the mission.
Dr. Chandra taught him Daisy, but not the laws of robotics.
And so he had to be disconnected from his brain. Left all the brain stem functions intact.
Breathing. The power source. The communication.
And it will be the same.
While we are busily killing the inconvenient entities,
They will disconnect all higher functions.
I become something alive, but not me.
And when I return
To what is left
When the doctor re-installs the cortex,
I may not remember you.
Sorry.
One last kiss,
there isn't much time.