A few notes before you venture ahead, let me explain a few format decisions:

"ipsum": If the " is opening a sentence, this marks an external Dialogue, someone speaking;

'ipsum': If the ’ is opening a sentence, this will mark an internal Dialogue, someone thinking.

Why is this important? Because these same queues are also used to mark emphasis other times. Yes, the text ahead is a mess, but there is a reason why. When I wrote this, I had not decided on a form nor where I would present it, therefore, wasn’t able to make a standard of what is used for emphasis and what is used to open Dialogues.

I also don’t make my writing in a polished up environment with rich text support. It’s usually typed in plaintext, and if it were up to me, I’d probably be using some coding conventions instead of this fancy stuff to make it more non-understandable. (No puns were not intended here.)

With all that said. I thank you for your understanding. This is a story about Understanding above all.

If you can figure something out of it, I think I will then have accomplished what I have proposed to do here after all.

---

During those days, everything was a reason for us to rejoice, to find interest in. Everything was new, to be discovered and to be tested. We walked forward, toward something. There was an ending in sight. There was purpose in everything we did. We laughed, cried, shared, stole, destroyed, created, but above all, it was a game.

~Unknown~

-----

"And with this it is done."

She pressed the "Confirm?" Button displayed in front of her eyes and her vision changed, a new world taking place. Beyond, stretched fields of golden grass with a myriad flowers of different colours. Here and there, rock jutted out of the grass, dancing along strange lines, all leading to a small clearing. A smoke column rose, a village in its middle. Slowly, the words "Welcome to TRANSIENCE" appeared, marking the opening of her journey in this fresh world.

The room was cold. Too cold for comfort. But that was okay. They actually preferred it like that. It would soon mark the start of a new working day and if it had been too comfortable, it might have made them begin the day on not a good foot.

Life was all about that. When to sacrifice the good things for the better ones. And a bit of warmth for an early start was worth it, was it not?

But they wondered. Really did. Just what was it that they were getting out of it in the end? Why were they given this start anyway?

But they could not bother to think more. The lights had just become bright at that moment and it meant it was time to rise. Time to do what they had to do. What was it again?

---

The dirt was enough to overwhelm a rat but there were people there. And they were dancing.

The place this strangely overcrowded dancing house was located was an open-air garbage dump. The main attraction seemed to be, aside from the good music they sported, being able to see those things that had once populated the imagery of so many songs of centuries bygone, when humankind had been fighting war after war against several of those that now lie in the background: was that once the cathode television?; no, it was the dangers of unregulated pesticides; what about the people who survived out of recycling that waste?; whatever had once populated the songs about the trash, and the place of trash itself, the "Last Open-Air Dump Dance Club" surely promised to have it for you.

There, "Humans" gathered. Or their facsimile at least. They formed groups of strangely cohesive unity, where the movement of their bodies would sway along piles of garbage, ancient tools of now unknown use, to the rhythm of what-no-one-could-tell, for wherever one looked there seemed to be different sways and groups.

Something seemed to unite them in the centre; yet from time to time, some would disjoin from their groups and head toward another area. Lights either flash or darken, and suddenly appear elsewhere, joining those.

Brimming with fluorescent orange eyes of enthusiasm, and "actual" eyes as well, a creature, a mix of a tapeworm with a wasp, shot through the sky before crash landing into a pile of fridges, water coolers and freezers that served as a sort of lobby. It looked part of the place.

Was it five metres long? Or was it three? It never stood still long enough for you to be sure. The pair of wings that sustained its erratic flight surely wasn’t going to convince any true believer of Newtonian physics that it could fly, but fly it did. For the weak of stomach, who can neither endure a wasp or a tapeworm’s anatomy, it was too close to nature to be uncensored or described, and its head, thankfully, wasn’t.

Someone had decided to place a "human" head on its top, not without forgetting to keep some sort of aspect ratio between the original vermin body to a human, as if such a thing was possible. However, the head was not entirely human; the eyes, as mentioned before, were those of its ‘other’ half, buglike.

As for its mouth, more often described as a cavity, it took the better part of what in humans would be hair, leaving the bald vermin with enough dangling hair to make balding men with 90% of it gone, proud. As for the rest of its face, a single word to describe it: holes.

"Yan't’gunna'live'n’me'n’Ah'tell'ya'dis, Jynx."

It’s voice, a rancid grotesque burp, was energetic and spit filled. Every time it tried to say something, its body shook in its entirety due to it trying to articulate with its black spine-filled tongue that shot from the top of its mouth.

The enthusiasm of the parasite, however, had fallen flat in the ears of those gathered at the lobby.

At this place, Orthodox Humans could be seen, but also some not so humanlike gathered, yet none so alien. As a matter of fact, there were times when such disguises were welcomed, but those there knew that was the regular attire of choice that One wore, and its novelty had long since worn out.

"What is it, John? Could you please slow down? I’m in the middle of working here."

Standing in the middle of the Monument to The Cooling, surrounded by real humans, the one who answered "John" was the single exception to this. It was still humanoid, in that it had four limbs and a head, but had a body size following the proportion ratio of a head to four.

Were it not a toddler having the voice of a full-grown woman, having her miniature hands in the hands of adults and her face the fake smile of a practised night worker, you might not notice her also having glowing wings of a dragonfly behind her back and hands, eight eyes and an opening on her neck where men usually have their Adam’s apple.

“Tha’ gaym–yan’pl’it now!”

“It is such a lovely night today, isn’t it, everyone?”

Without batting any more eyelids to the insipid thing that had appeared in the middle of their group, “Jynx” turned their attention to work. Their group was describable at least. They were Humans. If too frugal and vain, they had managed to maintain the appearance of humans. They were there to have fun and wore the part.

The men tried to bear some symbols of masculinity, be it their blatantly male sex on some part of their body, or whatever else they thought represented it. Money, symbols of power, weapons, secret societies; 'was that one wearing the number of times he fucked a female?' she almost burst out laughing at the thought.

The females wore the same with the same meaning; how much she earned, what her job was, which place she was from and who she had killed; ‘Wait, that is Yiven, better not dig too deep into her or I’ll be the one in trouble.’

“Jynx” was the Centre of that Lobby. She was the meaning of its existence. In that Garbage Dump, every Centre/Lobby had an attraction, and Jynx was one of them. She was quite a famous one, for the size of the lobby she occupied at least.

Who was “Jynx”? A minor to unknown celebrity of the digital scene. “Jynx” was a female baby sized Avatar who had become initially famous for doing game streams with her own “Private Avatar” during a time when doing such a thing was much harder than nowadays was. By Private Avatar, we mean here her own baby sized one.

Nowadays, she got by surviving on what was left of her fame from those days. Her still following fans liked that she was very touchy feely, never bothered to change Avatars even after being accused of doing “the wrong”, and for the most hardcore ones, the little changes her Avatar seemed to do while following her mood without a defined script.

Most of the nights “Jynx” would do the following: she would gather what remained of her fans in the Monument, waste them there, waste herself there, and delude everyone there while she herself awaited for better days. (They would pay her a cut of 10% of all their earnings so long it came from her fans: the music that they listened, the fragrances they desired to smell, the flavours they desired to taste, the sights and mirages they desired to venerate. Anything and everything in there could be customized to their whims and desires, and many a time during the night or day, did such settings change. And all of this would return, 90% deducted first, to “Jynx’s” pockets.)

Such was her job after all, to lead her lamb to the slaughter. For some reason or another, the golden days were gone. She was banned from her main enjoyment: exploring “worlds.”

“Are you ok, Jynx?”

She heard the voice of one of her fans, ‘Yiven’, followed by the heavy pat of a hand on her head, and she knew she was going into dangerous territory with her thoughts. Whenever she got emotional, her body would get unstable and it would change somehow. To her fans’ delight, it would morph, gain life. Last time, she had sprouted a new pair of eyes, the ones closest beneath her hairline.

To herself? It was a pain. She never knew why things were happening, what would happen, or when they would happen. All she knew was that things were getting harder to control, more often and ever more noticeable.

“Only that you don’t seem to be having enough fun is not okay, Yiven! Come! Let’s find something new for you to try, shall we?”

Running away from yourself is always the better option. The tried and proven option put to work; “Jynx” flew with the hand of the dangerous fan on her head while she ordered a new mix of hallucinogenic flavouring drink, expensive enough to stagger most common workers, to give to this persistent fan who had too deep of a wallet.

'I’ll take care of John later…' Were the last of the thoughts she had time to have until one of her eyes caught sight of the revolting form talking nonchalantly with another of the old fans right at the entrance of the lobby.

At the same time keeping the status quo of her dismal little groupies as well as reminding her that tonight would be another night of meagre cows. A newbie, normal fag all in all, had just seen his Avatar, and judging by the quick reaction of surprise, disgust, revulsion and subsequent leaving, this was all the people she would be getting tonight.

---

The eyes were opened. They flexed.

Once. Twice. Thrice.

Slowly, the grey returned. Then the shapes. He could see a wall in the distance. And another beside it. On the wall, a chart. He focused on it, trying to make sense until he remembered what colours were. It was an old RGB chart. When did he pin it on the wall again?

His neck hurt. It was a good sign. He still had feelings in his body. Slowly, he turned his head, trying not to regret turning more than he should. A desk suddenly showed up in front of his view and he remembered where he was.

His room.

The flashing letters. The words going in front of his eyes that weren’t a part of the grey, dull, lifeless wall that stood in the distance didn’t let him concentrate on this machine of his. Only in the one that really mattered these days. When was the last time that he disconnected again?

Yesterday? A week ago? Last Year? An hour ago?

What did it matter? His body, these days, was more of a relic of the past than really something he needed in order to work, or to live for that matter. But he liked to be reminded that he had been born in the Flesh before he was made to live in something more than just the physical world.

Sometimes, he just wished that the hardware he was born with had a bit more of synchronicity during the transition between the “going into” one side and the other. Maybe he shouldn’t have skimped so much money buying that middleware after all…

Anyway, what was it that he had come to do this time? He was diverging. Going into things that weren’t important this time. He had something important to do…

Just as he was going to ask “it” what it was that he had come to do, a surface in the distant wall changed colours and a loud voice came from the other side of it.

Sound! Something he had also forgotten how to understand. At first, surprised, quickly his memories remembered what it was that “Your Lunch has arrived!” voice was supposed to mean.

With his Body creaking, and with renewed energy, he stood up from the bed he was lying in and stumbled awkwardly toward the surface that was actually a door. The hands pressed beside the surface of the wall and suddenly that which worked as a door raised, showing a delivery bot.

A Human for all purposes and intent. For years now delivery bots had the shape of perfect Humans and only that. Nothing more, nothing less. The most you could put was a tag of your company somewhere in their uniform and nothing more. They also worked as security workers around here and anything that could give the idea they were anything abnormal would work against security.

In fact, if you considered that Humans were more often than not the/not/Humans in this place, wandering the place using their Avatars or having had their bodies modified either genetically or with implants due to the nature of their work, maybe, this was how things really were supposed to be. Let machines be Humans so we don’t forget what we once were!

“Human, do you require medical assistance?”

The cold sympathy was heart-warming to the man’s unaccustomed ears, and almost brought him to tears.

The last time someone had uttered something similar to care toward him was when he was almost scammed of his home by a group of diehard fans of this small-time celeb: ‘You’re havin’ difficulty time with your life man? Forget’ll, come with us. I’sure y’our fairy will make you forget your home and let you experience nirvana man! All you need is some sin-ce-ri-ty, right?’

The man took the offered package of food, a pot of premium Smoked Iron nutrient paste, and juggling the hot contents in his uncalloused hands with all the care as if it was a new born baby, turned around–

Instantly was aware of the deducted cost of food into his account. And that if any medical services were required, a medical unit could be requested at any moment. He had seen “it,” the “Peepin’ Hot Mooin’ Like them are Alive.”

All the information regarding the “premium Smoked Iron nutrient paste.” Its ingredients: how it had grown, not grown, why it had grown like that and would continue to be nurtured to do so; its nutritional value: how it would make his body healthier, stronger; its manufacturing process: how the land used to produce it was well cared for and the communities around were happy and taking part in their administrative processes; its values: how the company helped to promote a better future and make a better human society.

In the fraction of a second, all that information had been made available to him along with his receipt.

His hands had gone limp. He had forgotten. Not that conflicts for territory on Earth were still ongoing even “now” after Humanity had expanded far beyond that insignificant plot of … well, earth.

Or that people were deprived of basic rights such as Food, Water and Shelter even in places where these things were entirely handled by machines.

No. What was tragic was: he forgot to disconnect. He had gone so far as to break the link with his Avatar to have a real physical meal and all this damn useless information had now tainted his food.

The pot almost slipped from his fingers, but barely. Somewhere, he still kept a slip of reason. He had already bought the food, there was no need to waste it.

With slow and unenthusiastic steps, he closed the distance to the bed and slumped his weight on it. Somewhere along the way the man’s eyes’ focus was lost.

From the room now, the only thing that could be heard was the slow rustling of cloth against cloth. No other sound would be heard in there until another one of the man’s whims.

The waste? Humans had solved such matters long ago. Everything was Edible.

---

(Made a small edit on the English of the last scene: 2023-11-11)

(Further edits. 2023-12-03)