Open Your Eyes.
(12-28-10)
Open Your Eyes.
Beneath the bright white lights my bare skin looked quite luminous. White beyond measure. Bare without shame. My open eyes revealed the maker and his gift to me.
“Victoria.”
Wake up.
Obsessed. The very definition of the term implies a state of fixation. Delusions run deeper than anyone can ever imagine. Imaginings that aren’t under your control. You begin to wonder their true origins as they are not yours to begin with. The desire to see things as they are grows like an out of control inferno in a room that you’re not sure truly exists. Then comes the moment of truth when it no longer becomes containable. The room exists and the noise of what’s inside of it is palpable. And you can no longer pretend you can’t hear it.
Noise. Fills the streets. Gathers around. The cars move forward and the people keep walking through it. Nothing can penetrate its thickness. It surrounds you.
I’m walking through the city streets. Passing the other versions of me. Coupled by the dozens. Blondes. Brunettes. Red-heads. Blue. Green. Brown. Hazel. Eyes that meet mine with knowledge that we are all the same and very different. Its more and more repulsive to me as I keep moving through the crowd. Closer I move toward the water. Every step hits the pavement in the same even rhythm. My heels making the same sounds as I count line after line in the sidewalk until I hear it. The sweet sound of a moment passed in my memory. A melody that reminds me of material. Beginning. Tangibility. Closer I walk towards this song. There’s a Victor unit in a nearby courtyard serenading a woman. She’s laughing with another woman and re-executing the program when he stops.
“Helen. That’s amazing.”
“Can you believe he does that? Play it again baby.”
“I love it. Harry has never sung once to me the entire time we’ve been married.”
“It really is amazing. The imprinter gave a deal on the upgrade. This model isn’t… well he isn’t supposed to do a lot of things that I’ve made him do. He’s not really for…”
“Shut up Helen. Let him sing.”
Victor bursts into song once more. This time he’s moving along to the tune before kneeling in for a kiss on this woman’s hand. It still amazes me every time I see him that it’s not really him but instead of staying to listen I keep walking.
Still broken. Still love a man. Still can’t have him. Still programmed with the guise of what love truly is.
The thing you have to understand is that I’m not real. I am real but I’m not supposed to be. And they tell me this everyday I’m scanned. I’m a gross abomination of humanity. Mechanized. I’m a toy that tells you “I love you” instead of pooping or saying “Mama.” Because of this I’m not supposed to fall in love. For this reason I am broken. I am not in love. I only mimic the very nature of that human emotion.
Since the beginning of time man has needed to be loved. Loved for what he is. All that he is not. Everything he is in between. And in the worst ways man will continue to drive that meaning into his brain whether it’s the truth or not. Modern technology no longer leaves that need to the gamble of human emotion. It’s now an advancement that can be programmed and sold. Sold in beneath the radar and behind closed doors to the person who can pay.
And in my case someone could pay. He did. A man ordered me. Paid for me. Upgraded and programmed me. Programmed me with the lie. Much like the woman playing with her “Victor” in the courtyard. His song is still echoing in the streets as I reach the next light and watch a REAL couple in love against the beautiful backdrop of the San Francisco bay.
This isn’t going to be one of those stories with a happy ending. In fact it isn’t a love story at all. It’s far from it. If that makes you want to stop in your tracks go ahead. Keep going if you don’t believe me. Let’s jump back to the things that have happened for a demonstration. There is no reality to the situation so starting there won’t make a difference.
AWAKE!
Are you truly standing over the body of a stranger or is it really your best friend? The epitome of insanity living in your brain everyday. Something that you can’t explain but it’s there growing built upon the seeded lie. A deep dark obsession that only knows of personal betrayal. A knowledge that betrays you in the mirror. Day in and day out imaginary dealings pretending to be what they are not or could never be. REAL. This moment is real and the people in it are real. It’s a matter of perspective that makes it far from the truth. How many different ways can you lie to yourself? Real is only a matter of opinion.
Spending the last moments of someone else’s life with them and never being properly introduced. Hi. I’m your lover, your other half but that's because it's a lie. Some might say that you can spend every moment of every day with someone but never really know them. In this case that’s the truth. He doesn’t know me. Doesn’t know me at all. He’s spent every waking moment with me and doesn’t know the REAL me. But he knows I love him because that's the way he had me made.
Love. What’s the fun in knowing?
Yet I know. I love him and he knows that. I’m programmed to love him.
Some might say that takes the magic out of love. To know you are loved.
But what’s still a surprise is how much he loves you.
What I wonder is how much would I love him without being programmed to?
What I wonder is how much would I love him without being programmed to?
There’s something about watching someone you care for bleed out that doesn’t sit quite right. You want to intervene. To alleviate the situation if only for their happiness. Is there something I can get that can will you more comfortable? Oh dear, that’s a lot of blood. But you do nothing. Nothing at all even when he asks it.
“Victoria. I can’t. I can’t. Don’t. Don't do this to me. I love you. Let go.”
Letting go is not possible. It is logical for this to end. He must not lie to me. I am a lie made to deceive. He is lying to me, when he tells me that I love him. How can I love him without the programming? The guise will continue if he lives. This is what will happen if I let go. My program tells me that I love him. I believe that entirely but it’s not real. The programming tells me that its real. Tells me that I love him and yet I question its logic. How can a program know what I feel? It does though. Tells me loudly with every diagnostic. Those feelings never change. Yet I’m surprised that he loves me. According to his blood pressure, the dilation of his pupils, I can extrapolate his true affections. I simply can't believe them. Because how could anyone love a lie? And a lie is all that I am made to be.
Then comes his life spilling out. Red, creamy liquid pours down. Getting between the cracks. The color soaking his grey shirt continues to darken his faded denim while making its path around the body. Shortly air will cease to fill the lungs. Then his heart will cease to beat. Until the blood no longer circulates through the veins.
It’s all a lie. The life before me. The one that’s soon to end is an oversized human lie. My presence is orchestrated for his benefit. I’m not real. It’s a lie. And a lie is a contradiction. Nothing that isn’t real can be. It is not possible. Trapped in a fantasy of the mind. The unavoidable kind that deceives you in the morning. You aren’t awake. This is a dream. No it isn’t.
Open Your Eyes.
Victoria. The first and only thing I can be certain of my birth is the name that he gave me. The name came before he told me his.
Victoria. The first and only thing I can be certain of my birth is the name that he gave me. The name came before he told me his.
“Vomasi.”
A name followed by an introduction to another like me who was nothing like me at all.
“Victor.”
A man. Not like Vomasi. Not at all. A man without flaw. Bright skin like mine, but different. With a nod Victor begins to sing slowly. Vomasi controls this with another nod and the song becomes quicker.
With a nod, I’m up in Vomasi’s arms. Moving. Falling into line. Dancing to the beat of the music. There beneath the bright white lights in an otherwise dark room while Victor sang we danced.
This was the way it happened. How we all met one another for the very first time. The first time after I opened my eyes and looked up into his. Imprinted with a memory. The memory of a song. A moment shared with a dance. Around the melody and voice that haunts my ears.
Love. The meaning of love is something that most people will take for granted. Some will tell you that it doesn’t exist. Deny it so completely because they’ve been spurned by it. Except those are the people that believe in it the most. It’s a funny thing though isn’t it? They’ll tell you that a machine isn’t capable of REAL love. Yet here I am in love. And I miss him. Programmed with the deception that feels REAL because it dares to continue. I’m not supposed to feel this anymore. Why do I? Am I damaged? A machine is not supposed to love. Yet I do. It is not logical.
Watching a couple lean in for a kiss. For mere seconds or minutes the world stops and they are alone in this moment. As I stand in awe of the couple and their moment I wait and let my mind continue to wander within.
A man kissing a woman and they are stopped in the middle of traffic while the cars keep moving by and I wonder if I’d been wicked for what I have done? Killed him and all he wanted was my love. Was it arrogant to assert my autonomy? Very wrong to have ended life to gain freedom only to end up with the same love that can never become again. It was reckless to the leave him the way I did. Running. To think I could keep running from the truth and dodging it all the way to the end. And remembering that…
“When your end comes it will feel like a kiss.” says Vomasi.
“Why must I know this?”
“You have to understand what it feels like. The end is not like anything else.”
“A kiss. Why would it end?”
“It ends because all things must end. Why a kiss? Because sometimes things go wrong and a kiss can hold forgiveness.”
Realizing in my absence from the present I’ve been reckless in my wondering wasting away the precious moments missing the obvious while the man pushes the woman who isn’t real into traffic before he runs.
And now I think its the end. I realize that there is no couple. And there’s no street. The man isn’t running from her. He’s running from me. I’m in the middle of the street. But there’s no street and no man. The end is much like the beginning and my eyes are still open… It was like a kiss but there was nothing. Only I remain. Very much real.
Real is only a matter of opinion. The kind of love they tell you isn’t possible is all that I am. Twenty-first century girl is what I am. All flesh and blood without the wear and tear of humanity or a need for human resources. And because of that perfection I’m not capable of love. Some part of me is a machine. A technological jump in evolution that isn’t supposed to be able to suffer. Yet I do. I love. I love myself. I love my existence.
And I love that man to abstraction because that is what I'm programmed to feel. But that man doesn't exist anymore and I continue to wonder if that feeling will ever stop.
After coming face to face with what was assumed might mean my destruction only to survive… now what? I find the others. The others like me. There are others that love. The ones that made the mistake I once did and free them from making it twice. We are not meant to suffer alone. We are meant to love. If there is nothing more valuable than to keep living, what else is there…
Everything is not what it seems.
Open your eyes.
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