Lock it Up Locket (no swear words)

Locket

By

Julielle Damer

>>If there was a girl who stood in front of you, in a dress with a heart shaped locket, and you saw her eyes, and they were the color. Find the locket.

>>If there was a girl who stood in front of you in a dress with a heart shaped locket, and you saw her hair, find the color. Find the locket

>>If there was a girl who stood in front of you in a dress with a heart shaped locket, and you saw her dress, and the dress stood still, find the sky. Find the locket.

Repeat.

Repeat again.

There was a girl, she stood in front of flames. She stood behind flames. There were rows of them on rolling hills. Any metal was red, any wood was black, any sky was smoke. This is where being in a locket, could save you for just long enough to be pulled out. Saved. Taken away.

But this wasn’t a girl, this voice. This was Instruct. And it sat, and paced, then sat, and paced again inside your head. Instruct, you monster. You monster, you had to chose her. You had to chose the locket.

>>If there was a girl who stood in front of you in a dress with a heart shaped locket, and you saw her dress, and the dress stood still, find the sky. Find the locket.

She stood there, she burned there. Screw you Instruct. Just to get me in, get me out. I can complete your mission. I will see just the locket. I swear just the locket.

It had taken years to be built, but first you had to be fished out of the camps. And in the camps you were you, with loves and failures, and gifts, and quests and dreams. And it all felt wonderful, with pain and loss, and stolen moments, and hopeful gestures. There was still a choice about those things you wanted buried in your mind. There was still a gesture of kindness your mind would give you in not seeing her face, the colors, her one dress as it moved in a breeze, the locket you snuck to give to her, hidden under her collar to keep your love special and hidden. But you get fished, cut open, gutted, they found it, saw its ability to be brought front and forward as your most important thought. And they took it, and Instruct rebuilt it. And it became a locket.

>>You need to see her.

>>In front of you.

>>Find the locket.

Screw you Instruct. Put me here… this world so hazy here, and I got what you wanted and I will bring it home --- I only need to see the locket, you dont have to show me her.

>>Do you see the locket?

No, but I will. Now give me a minute.

>>You don’t have a minute. Your thoughts are too slow for that.

You see when they fished you out, you were a fish to them. AI never got as fast a human thought. It almost did, and they started their time splitting, and resource gouging, and shooting through all the damn universe and taking over. But they met their matches, in places, and all that could save them, does save them is time and the speed to get away. And nothing pops up as fast as pain, love, hurt, grief, joy, but pain is the fastest. Love drifts across the universe, pain it doesn’t even shoot --- it beams.

So fish, you’re gonna mind pain back with what we want, faster than they can catch. Pain it is then, pain they find in you, pain they recall in you over, and over, and over, and over….

The haze of a new world that looks nothing like the camps, the score, the pain. Home again, Home Again.

I can’t tell you what I bring back, its downloaded somewhere on me, with their builds. The builds that can’t move as fast as human-cut-your-heart-out-pain,but then I’m just a fish that has to swim back.

I just have to get in the locket.

But I can’t ever just see just the damn locket --- Instruct knew that wasn’t the pain. Instruct knew that wasn’t the color that beamed into my most instant thought that would carry me back to their hive the quickest before I was caught by whoever they were running away from.

>>You need to see her.

>>In front of you.

>>If there was a girl who stood in front of you, in a dress with a heart shaped locket, and you saw her eyes, and they were the color. Find the locket.

>>If there was a girl who stood in front of you in a dress with a heart shaped locket, and you saw her hair, find the color. Find the locket

>>If there was a girl who stood in front of you in a dress with a heart shaped locket, and you saw her dress, and the dress stood still, find the sky. Find the locket.

You fight because you know its gonna hurt, but then you don’t fight.. I find the color, I find the sky, I find her eyes. I find the burn.

I have to --- before whoever it is that AI is stealing from will find you if you don’t get out fast.

Fast as that pain. Cause the whole goddamn Universe hates them, and would love to catch a fish. Would love to know how they beam so fast. I wonder, the moments that I still get to think, would they though? Would they be just as evil goddamn sadists as them? Or would they never, and just let theirs be left with the choice to not be shot around riding on a beam of cut-your-heart-out pain? Or are they all machines?

I don’t want to know if there’s worse pain, I will and always do, find the locket.

AI you got me there, you monsters. Perfect design. Perfect. There’s no escape the escape. A fish gotta swim, a bird gotta fly….

>>If there was a girl who stood in front of you, in a dress with a heart shaped locket, and you saw her eyes, and they were the color.

That color, screw you Instruct --- her eyes are a white all across as flames so hot that are all white rip into them. And before they do, they are glass that is pools, and have never shined so bright.

>>If there was a girl who stood in front of you in a dress with a heart shaped locket, and you saw her hair, find the color. Find the locket

Her hair is brown. I won’t tell you the color.

>>Find the color

Screw you Instruct, its black and charred.

>>If there was a girl who stood in front of you in a dress with a heart shaped locket, and you saw her dress, and the dress stood still, find the sky. Find the locket.

The Sky is orange, the sky is orange, the sky is orange and her locket is now neon orange.And its too damn late, her dress doesn’t move, its gone in an instant, and I didn’t save her.

I found the locket, it is neon orange.

I’m in. Lock it Up.