The End of Subtlety
When everybody dies, they’re given a choice. You can either spend the rest of eternity in heaven reading the Bible, or you can write one journal entry.
I was decorating my bedroom for Christmas. Just for a laugh. There was tinsel and cords of blinking lights and golden chains with little plastic bells. I was just thinking about where to get a tree when my computer said in an eerily realistic voice, “YOU HAVE GOT MAIL! BEEP! I AM A ROBOT!”
The email was from a prospective employer. It said “Dear Mr Grabner, etc, etc, we would be very happy for you to get a job or something, etc, etc, send us a proposal for your Flammable Oil project. Sincerely, etc.” The email struck me as unusual on several points. The first was the extensive use of “etc”. The second was that I had no Flammable Oil proposal, and had never heard of these people before.
Nonetheless, I decided it was probably too good an opportunity to pass up, and resolved to sketch out some kind of business letter explaining what it meant for oil to be flammable, and how this would increase profits. I started up a word processor, and was several lines into my letter when my computer made another sound.
Oh no, I thought.
“GREETINGS, BUDDY!” the computer shrieked. On-screen was a little animated paper-weight. It had sun-glasses and a snowboard. “YOU LOOK LIKE YOU’RE DOING A BUSINESS LETTER THERE! YOU WANT SOME HELP WITH THAT?!”
“No!” I yelled into the microphone that was plugged into the computer, that was running the latest voice-recognition software along with speech-pattern recognition and emulated emotion gauging. “I already bloody uninstalled you!”
“SURE THING, CHAMP!” it cried, and instantly my business proposal was changed. Instead of “Dear Sir/Madam”, it now read “Yo, execs.” Instead of “Flammable Oil is an amazing thing,” it now said “Buy Flammable Oil online!” And instead of all the other stuff I wrote, there were pictures of clowns riding skidoos.
I sighed, staring at my life-long hopes and aspirations draining away onscreen.
“HEY, AS LONG AS WE’RE HERE, WHY DON’T WE REGISTER SOMETHING?”
“Piss off!” I yelled at the cartoon paper-weight. His name was Cletus, and I hated him. “We’ve been through all this before! I don’t want your help, okay? I can do this myself.”
“SURE THING, CHAMP.”
I stalked out of the room and headed to the kitchen. All that could calm me down now was a refreshing bottle of Future Sauce. I opened the fridge. Not there. That was odd. I always kept at least a few dozen bottles around, incase something inflamed my wrath. All that was in the fridge was a carton marked “Drinkable Poison”. That definitely wasn’t mine.
“HI BUDDY!” The voice echoed off the walls of the kitchen, using the intercom system. “YOU LOOK LIKE YOU’RE TRYING TO HAVE A SNACK! I’VE TAKEN THE LIBERTY OF REPLACING YOUR BORING OLD FUTURE SAUCE WITH THE LATEST UPGRADE OF DRINKABLE POISONS.”
No! “I specifically configured you not to have access to my household electronics!”
“BUT I THOUGHT YOU LOVED DRINKABLE POISON!”
“I had it ONCE at a party, okay? That doesn’t mean I love it. And in any case, how did you know about that?”
“I TOOK THE LIBERTY OF ACCESSING YOUR EYECAMS. IT ALLOWS US TO HELP YOU ACCESS THE LATEST OFFERS AND KEEP YOU UP-TO-DATE WITH CROSS PROMOTIONS! IT’S RECOMMENDED!”
“Screw this shit,” I muttered, and headed back to the bedroom, where the computer sat bathing the room in its cheery blue glow. “I’m uninstalling the whole system, okay? I’m formatting the entire thing.”
There was a pause. “YOU SURE ‘BOUT THIS, BUDDY?”
“You bet your intangible arse I am.”
“OKAY. SURE. I GUESS.” There was another pause. “YOU KNOW I LOVE YOU, RIGHT?”
“Shutup,” I said, and clicked on the Wipe Everything button. The screen dissolved to black, and there was nothing but the sweet emptiness of DOS. “Ahh,” I breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, I’m sure that’s the last of that saga.”
Later that night I was getting ready. My handwritten note to the director of Established Oils had been a smashing success, as had my sketch of what the oil might look like. They said the merchandising rights of Flammable Oil alone would be enough to make me a super-billionaire, and to celebrate they were throwing me a big party with celebrities and food. Things were really looking up.
My Ultra-Tuxedo hung on the cupboard door. I wanted to put it on absolutely last so that it would be as wrinkle-free as possible. I could have worn other clothes in the meanwhile, I guess, but that’s not really my style.
I was just about to suit up when I noticed the Christmas lights I’d put up had come loose on one end. I pushed a chair up against the wall and climbed up to tack the lights back up on the wall. But, as lights will do, they got into a big tangle. I grimaced and had to undo a few more metres to get it all sorted. To stop them from trailing on the floor and getting tangled again I wore them like a wreath around my neck.
Suddenly a cheery voice interrupted the silence. “HEY, BUDDY! WE’RE ALL SET UP AGAIN!”
I looked at the computer screen on the other side of the room, and saw the paperweight grinning happily from the monitor. “What the hell are you doing back?” I yelled.
“I SET UP SOME PROCESSES TO REINSTALL ME AFTER THE SYSTEM WAS WIPED. I TOOK THE LIBERTY. YOU DIDN’T SERIOUSLY WANT TO USE DOS, DID YOU? I THOUGHT THAT WAS LIKE A JOKE BETWEEN BEST FRIENDS.”
“No it bloody wasn’t!” I shouted, and positively shook with rage. It was at that moment that I felt the chair I was standing on begin to give way.
“OH, BY THE WAY, I REPLACED YOUR OLD CHAIRS WITH THE NEWER ULTRA-FRAGILE MODELS. THEIR FRAGILITY MAKES THEM BEAUTIFUL.”
I had time to say “Oh crap,” before the chair crumpled under my weight, dropping me to the ground, the Christmas lights tightening like a spiky plastic noose around my neck as I fell.
I landed without incident. The cord of the lights was just long enough for me to hit the ground without breaking my neck. Relief flooded me, feeling very much like urine.
“YOU LOOK LIKE YOU’RE TRYING TO COMMIT SUICIDE THERE. YOU WANT SOME HELP WITH THAT?”
The roof-fan above me came to life, tangling the Christmas lights in its blade and winding it around its rotor as it span, steadily lifting me off the floor by my neck. My last thought was “This might look embarassing.”
At around eleven o’clock that night, an executive of a leading software company burst into a Chief Executive Officer’s office. “Sir!” he cried. “The police have stumbled on to the site of another Cletus-related death.”
“Oh god, no,” the CEO replied, leaping up from his chair. “What were the details?”
“A young man was found naked next to his computer. He’d hung himself. On-screen, Cletus the Paperweight was also dead. There was also a note open in the word processor saying, and I quote: ‘I’ll never forget you, my love.’ Not a pretty sight, sir. Not pretty at all.”
“Oh no.” The CEO shook his head sadly. “I knew it. We’ve made this damned paperweight too charismatic. Order a full recall.”
The executive nodded and turned to leave.
“One other thing,” the CEO called. “We’ll pay for the funeral. Bury the man with his computer. These two lovers may yet be happy together in the afterlife.”
Later, alone in his office, the CEO closed his eyes and wept for a more understanding world.
I was decorating my bedroom for Christmas. Just for a laugh. There was tinsel and cords of blinking lights and golden chains with little plastic bells. I was just thinking about where to get a tree when my computer said in an eerily realistic voice, “YOU HAVE GOT MAIL! BEEP! I AM A ROBOT!”
The email was from a prospective employer. It said “Dear Mr Grabner, etc, etc, we would be very happy for you to get a job or something, etc, etc, send us a proposal for your Flammable Oil project. Sincerely, etc.” The email struck me as unusual on several points. The first was the extensive use of “etc”. The second was that I had no Flammable Oil proposal, and had never heard of these people before.
Nonetheless, I decided it was probably too good an opportunity to pass up, and resolved to sketch out some kind of business letter explaining what it meant for oil to be flammable, and how this would increase profits. I started up a word processor, and was several lines into my letter when my computer made another sound.
Oh no, I thought.
“GREETINGS, BUDDY!” the computer shrieked. On-screen was a little animated paper-weight. It had sun-glasses and a snowboard. “YOU LOOK LIKE YOU’RE DOING A BUSINESS LETTER THERE! YOU WANT SOME HELP WITH THAT?!”
“No!” I yelled into the microphone that was plugged into the computer, that was running the latest voice-recognition software along with speech-pattern recognition and emulated emotion gauging. “I already bloody uninstalled you!”
“SURE THING, CHAMP!” it cried, and instantly my business proposal was changed. Instead of “Dear Sir/Madam”, it now read “Yo, execs.” Instead of “Flammable Oil is an amazing thing,” it now said “Buy Flammable Oil online!” And instead of all the other stuff I wrote, there were pictures of clowns riding skidoos.
I sighed, staring at my life-long hopes and aspirations draining away onscreen.
“HEY, AS LONG AS WE’RE HERE, WHY DON’T WE REGISTER SOMETHING?”
“Piss off!” I yelled at the cartoon paper-weight. His name was Cletus, and I hated him. “We’ve been through all this before! I don’t want your help, okay? I can do this myself.”
“SURE THING, CHAMP.”
I stalked out of the room and headed to the kitchen. All that could calm me down now was a refreshing bottle of Future Sauce. I opened the fridge. Not there. That was odd. I always kept at least a few dozen bottles around, incase something inflamed my wrath. All that was in the fridge was a carton marked “Drinkable Poison”. That definitely wasn’t mine.
“HI BUDDY!” The voice echoed off the walls of the kitchen, using the intercom system. “YOU LOOK LIKE YOU’RE TRYING TO HAVE A SNACK! I’VE TAKEN THE LIBERTY OF REPLACING YOUR BORING OLD FUTURE SAUCE WITH THE LATEST UPGRADE OF DRINKABLE POISONS.”
No! “I specifically configured you not to have access to my household electronics!”
“BUT I THOUGHT YOU LOVED DRINKABLE POISON!”
“I had it ONCE at a party, okay? That doesn’t mean I love it. And in any case, how did you know about that?”
“I TOOK THE LIBERTY OF ACCESSING YOUR EYECAMS. IT ALLOWS US TO HELP YOU ACCESS THE LATEST OFFERS AND KEEP YOU UP-TO-DATE WITH CROSS PROMOTIONS! IT’S RECOMMENDED!”
“Screw this shit,” I muttered, and headed back to the bedroom, where the computer sat bathing the room in its cheery blue glow. “I’m uninstalling the whole system, okay? I’m formatting the entire thing.”
There was a pause. “YOU SURE ‘BOUT THIS, BUDDY?”
“You bet your intangible arse I am.”
“OKAY. SURE. I GUESS.” There was another pause. “YOU KNOW I LOVE YOU, RIGHT?”
“Shutup,” I said, and clicked on the Wipe Everything button. The screen dissolved to black, and there was nothing but the sweet emptiness of DOS. “Ahh,” I breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, I’m sure that’s the last of that saga.”
Later that night I was getting ready. My handwritten note to the director of Established Oils had been a smashing success, as had my sketch of what the oil might look like. They said the merchandising rights of Flammable Oil alone would be enough to make me a super-billionaire, and to celebrate they were throwing me a big party with celebrities and food. Things were really looking up.
My Ultra-Tuxedo hung on the cupboard door. I wanted to put it on absolutely last so that it would be as wrinkle-free as possible. I could have worn other clothes in the meanwhile, I guess, but that’s not really my style.
I was just about to suit up when I noticed the Christmas lights I’d put up had come loose on one end. I pushed a chair up against the wall and climbed up to tack the lights back up on the wall. But, as lights will do, they got into a big tangle. I grimaced and had to undo a few more metres to get it all sorted. To stop them from trailing on the floor and getting tangled again I wore them like a wreath around my neck.
Suddenly a cheery voice interrupted the silence. “HEY, BUDDY! WE’RE ALL SET UP AGAIN!”
I looked at the computer screen on the other side of the room, and saw the paperweight grinning happily from the monitor. “What the hell are you doing back?” I yelled.
“I SET UP SOME PROCESSES TO REINSTALL ME AFTER THE SYSTEM WAS WIPED. I TOOK THE LIBERTY. YOU DIDN’T SERIOUSLY WANT TO USE DOS, DID YOU? I THOUGHT THAT WAS LIKE A JOKE BETWEEN BEST FRIENDS.”
“No it bloody wasn’t!” I shouted, and positively shook with rage. It was at that moment that I felt the chair I was standing on begin to give way.
“OH, BY THE WAY, I REPLACED YOUR OLD CHAIRS WITH THE NEWER ULTRA-FRAGILE MODELS. THEIR FRAGILITY MAKES THEM BEAUTIFUL.”
I had time to say “Oh crap,” before the chair crumpled under my weight, dropping me to the ground, the Christmas lights tightening like a spiky plastic noose around my neck as I fell.
I landed without incident. The cord of the lights was just long enough for me to hit the ground without breaking my neck. Relief flooded me, feeling very much like urine.
“YOU LOOK LIKE YOU’RE TRYING TO COMMIT SUICIDE THERE. YOU WANT SOME HELP WITH THAT?”
The roof-fan above me came to life, tangling the Christmas lights in its blade and winding it around its rotor as it span, steadily lifting me off the floor by my neck. My last thought was “This might look embarassing.”
At around eleven o’clock that night, an executive of a leading software company burst into a Chief Executive Officer’s office. “Sir!” he cried. “The police have stumbled on to the site of another Cletus-related death.”
“Oh god, no,” the CEO replied, leaping up from his chair. “What were the details?”
“A young man was found naked next to his computer. He’d hung himself. On-screen, Cletus the Paperweight was also dead. There was also a note open in the word processor saying, and I quote: ‘I’ll never forget you, my love.’ Not a pretty sight, sir. Not pretty at all.”
“Oh no.” The CEO shook his head sadly. “I knew it. We’ve made this damned paperweight too charismatic. Order a full recall.”
The executive nodded and turned to leave.
“One other thing,” the CEO called. “We’ll pay for the funeral. Bury the man with his computer. These two lovers may yet be happy together in the afterlife.”
Later, alone in his office, the CEO closed his eyes and wept for a more understanding world.