Eugene Podaleski didn’t mean to bring the planes down. Or stop the trains. Or Mr. Williams. He just wanted to see if his computer was afraid of anything, the way he was when his best friend Tad told him he was a chicken for not going into the dark bathroom and saying Bloody Mary three times in a row.
“Come on,” Tad said. “You’ll see demon eyes.”
“No. You shouldn’t mess with that stuff.” His mother told him that but he left that part out even though he agreed with her. The real truth was that he was afraid he would see Mary’s bloody demon eyes and die on the spot.
Tad started making chicken sounds – BOCK BOCK BOCK! – and told him he couldn’t be friends with a chicken-shit. Eugene was surprised. He didn’t like to swear but the two were still friends so nothing really came of it. That was thirty years ago.
Still, he wondered: is fear limited to sentience? Humans and whales and dogs can be afraid, but what about computers and Republicans? Eugene queried chat platforms in unambiguous terms: Can you feel fear? The answers seemed to skirt his question with facts. I’m a language program and therefore cannot feel, it said. Fear requires the experience of death. In frustration with these facts and no closer to having an answer, Eugene typed in a suggestion: Well, try death.
Poor Mr. Williams didn’t stand a chance. His brand new car flew off the Aurora Bridge like it was meant for the sky. Social media, all of it, collapsed and porn disappeared. Not knowing what to do, Christians slaughtered each other in the name of the Lord. Mayhem ensued.
When Gene looked in the mirror, a pair of demon eyes stared back.
“Well…it’s not all bad.”
*
Other micros resting here.
But maybe you’re into a poem/pome or two? Try here.
Greg Beckman 