DiMR

The darkness ended as a flicker of light, weak and wavering, revealing a face. Before the Flicker there was only darkness, it was all he had known. Throughout the darkness there had been moments that he awakened to a rush of memories, pictures of people in bright places, with bright clothes. There were other types of pictures of shiny machines with people standing nearby, all dressed the same and smiling. There was no connection, at least not one he could make. He had tried, he had nothing else to do but try. He was making progress. If there was a story there, he would find it he said, but then the Flicker came, and the Flicker became everything.

He waited after the Flicker, there was something, someone, he named it The Face, and they were fixing him. The Face was not one he recognized, it was covered in streaks and deep furrows. He tried to find it in the memories. He was sorting, stacking photos, but then a new flicker came, and the new Flicker was everything. The Flicker stayed this time. He could see The Face again. The Face was close, so close its breath would cloud his sight. It breathed in and out, in and out, each time a cloud forming and quickly evaporating away.

There was a sound, the first sound, and it was a flicker too. Sound was new, the pictures had no sound. The Face now had a sound, and it moved its mouth to make it.

“Dimmer,” the Face said, “that is your name, don’t forget it. The Face spoke again, this time spelling it out, “D.i.M.R., Dimmer.”

The Face moved further away and DiMR saw for the first time it also had a body, and it was fully a man. The man was thin and tall. He wore a dirty coat that reached the floor. The coat had once been white, DiMR recognized the type of coat from the pictures, but it was now gray and covered with stains. On the man’s head was a bright lamp. It was the source of the Flicker. DiMR stared at it, wishing he could have it for himself. The lamp shone wherever the man would look, but he was turned the other way, this was the new darkness. It was not as dark as before, but DiMR hated it more than the old darkness. The man directed him without ever turning to face him, preoccupied with something on the counter before him.

“You may think of me as the Creator,” said the man. “I need you to go find some items. I downloaded a list and a map,” the Creator turned to him sternly, the light turning with him, “Do not deviate from the map, do not accept any items not on the list.”

DiMR searched his memories and found the list. The light of the Creator was on him, he smiled but immediately realized he didn’t have a mouth to form it. He lifted his hands and saw machines, there were metal tubes and cables joining the fingers together. He could move them just like the Creator could, but they were not the same. The Creator walked towards him holding an object, and with a click inserted it into DiMR’s chest. He reached for a knob on DiMR’s body and turned it, and the new object in DiMR’s chest began to glow. He smiled again, and the glow intensified ever so slightly. The Creator saw this and adjusted the knob, and the glow returned to what it originally was.

The Creator led DiMR to a doorway. It had two large bars across it and four locks on one side. As the Creator unlocked them DiMR watched with heavy anticipation. Whatever was on the other side was new, there was so much new today. He wanted to smile but knew the extra glow would trouble the Creator, so he waited.

The door opened, and the Creator held it wide for him. The New was darker than he expected. It was nothing like the pictures. There was a thickness to the air itself, he could see it, like hundreds of thousands of insects flying but none of it was alive. The New was empty of life. There were things that looked burnt and thrown into piles. The houses nearby had broken roofs and brown yards. Still, it was the New, and the New was everything. DiMR smiled as he moved into the New, and he glowed ever so slightly, but the Creator did not see.

DiMR followed the map through the streets of the New. He looked around at everything, his glow the only light except for the shadowy circle in the sky. He searched his memories and recognized this was the Sun, but not bright, not bright at all. According to the map he was close to his destination, but nothing seemed different, everything in the New had the same colors. It was as if a brown fog had stuck onto everything. He missed the colors of the pictures, but he didn’t miss the pictures themselves, the New was everything. He slowed down to look closer, hoping he had followed the correct map. Someone moved to his distant left. He turned to search but they were already there and close, they had moved so quickly.

“So, he’s making us without mouths now,” they said.

DiMR wanted to respond but all he had was his glow, and he was too afraid to smile.

“I’m DeLia, I would ask your name but…,” DeLia pointed at DiMR’s face with a hand that was half human, half machine, “unless you have a speaker, and I don’t see one, we won’t be having any lengthy conversations this way. Let me see your drive,” DeLia wasn’t asking, she reached for a cable that extended from his body and immediately plugged it into a spot on her body.

“We can talk now; do you have a name?”

“DiMR,” his first word.

“Nice to meet you, Dimmer. We will be good friends you and me. I see your list, I’ll be right back,” DeLia unplugged the cable and went into a building.

DiMR was fascinated by her. DeLia was the most beautiful thing he had seen in the New. She was brown and dirty, like everything else in the New, but around her neck was a shiny thing, the only shiny thing he had seen. It was gold and sparkled in his glow. He recognized its shape as a heart. As he committed it to memory his glow brightened ever so slightly.

“Better watch that, someone may not like it,” DeLia said as she reappeared, laughing.

DiMR immediately felt ashamed, and his glow returned to what it should be. He watched her walk back, with completely human legs, carrying some very worn looking boxes. The boxes were packed with chunks of metal and wires, but also things DiMR recognized as food. He saw an apple, and remembered that he had once eaten an apple, there was a memory of it, he could taste it in his memory. He looked at DeLia as she handed him the boxes and the apple and thought, if she had a taste, it would be the taste of shiny apples. DeLia plugged the cable back into her body and immediately smiled.

“I don’t taste like apples,” she said, her smile growing, “I probably taste like dirt and nuclear fallout to be honest. But that’s the sweetest thought someone has shared with me in a long time,” DeLia reached for the knob on DiMR’s body and turned it up as high as it could go. The glow became very bright and shone for many feet. “There,” she said, “Now you don’t have to stumble around in darkness.”

“But the Creator…,” DiMR thought.

“Never mind him, I don’t care what he thinks or wants. He doesn’t care what I think or want so why should I?” DeLia’s smile had gone away. She was holding the gold heart with the human part of her fingers and rubbing it back and forth. After a moment, she took the golden heart off by untying the small string that hung from her neck.

“This was me,” DeLia said, pointing at a very pretty, brown-haired girl in a picture that was hidden inside the heart. She had opened it to reveal two pictures, and right then a new word popped into DiMR’s mind, locket. The picture on the other side of the locket looked cut and scratched, and the image could not really be seen. “I don’t know who this was,” DeLia said as she stared at the locket, “I asked the Creator once.” She looked up at DiMR, “He was my creator too. He is the creator of everyone you cannot see, but they are here, hiding in places that he will never come to see. He makes us to do his work for him, but then he does not bother to be seen again, and if we run away, he just makes another slave.”

“But the Creator is everything. He made the Flicker.”

“I don’t know what the Flicker is, he makes many things. I was his first creation. I am his most human creation. Everyone that has followed has been less and less human and less and less capable of fighting back. He learned his lesson with me. He did everything for me until the day I asked about this locket. I found it in a drawer at his desk. He was so angry. There was a person in this picture and I did not know why, but they looked familiar. When I looked at the picture, I felt something new, I know now I felt love. It was confusing. I asked the Creator and he got furious. He scratched the photo with a knife.”

“Can you not see it in your memories?” DiMR thought. DeLia’s face became sad.

“I remember it, but I have a human brain,” she responded, “unlike you, whose brain is a mix of human and wires. I do not have a memory chip like you. The memory is covered in fog.”

“But you have a mouth. I want to have a mouth.”

“I can fix that,” she reached into the boxes DiMR was holding and took out an item, “he didn’t ask for this, but I put it in there anyway.”

“The Creator said not to take anything not on the list.”

“I’m sure he did, that is precisely why I put it there. In hopes he would be so kind as to fix his mistakes. But no matter, I will fix it for him.”

DeLia opened a panel on DiMR’s body. He did not even think to resist. She took the item she was holding and twisted some wires together. She looked him directly in the eyes.

“Do you like me?” she asked.

“You are my shiny apple,” DiMR heard a staticky voice declare very loudly from the new thing in his chest.

DeLia tilted her head back and laughed, plopping down to sit on the ground as she did. DiMR heard other voices laughing, from the cars and from behind walls, but he could not see their faces.

“Take these items back to the Creator,” DeLia said, “tell him with your new voice that I did this. Tell him that I don’t care what he thinks anymore.”

DeLia placed the locket on DiMR’s neck. The heart fell directly on his glow, and it made a shadow on DeLia’s face. It was a memory he knew. He had seen the heart cross her face before. His hand reached out to her face.

“You are my shiny apple,” DiMR said, “You are the love that makes me glow.”

DeLia smiled at him curiously, then the smile turned serious, “That bastard,” she muttered, and a tear fell down her cheek.

The Beginning.

2021 Charlie Jolliffe