Once upon a time, before the advent of Microsoft co-pilot, before the sing song serenade of strobe light sounding sights blinded the eyes and turned every intelligent human into a hypnotized stoned stupor, there was magic.
Magic, for novices at least, was personified by the wizard. The wizard’s incantations brought G-d and the angel’s emanations to earth, brought to life through the vibratory fields that channeled emotions, feelings, and states of existence into human beings that they in turn could use to act upon reality.
These individuals, who knows if they still exist, could broadcast these channeled energy forms through the written word.
The word itself was meaningless. It was the energy it conveyed, a garment whose essence, whose insides carried the stuff of legends.
Artificial intelligence tries to recreate the impact of words on existence. But in many ways, it is still humans who still can transform words and ideas into actions on a physical and spiritual plane. The ideas we generate, the writing that help us organize our thoughts and convey ideas and emotions through persuasion, metaphor, and art, these ideas carry the essence to act upon reality and transform the heavens themselves.
“Cough,” she said. “That sounds like a lot of nonsense.”
“No, its true”
“Sounds like baloney. A fancy way of saying you like writing. Tell me something else.”
“Ok fine”
So here is a story. It begins with a dog. The dog was thinking too, thinking of a bone. The bone would be an appropriate size. It would be tough. Tough enough to chew all day. A meaty, big bone. A real bone. Like when his human overseers and their companions had a big party. There were always bones from the meat they ate.
He could smell when it was about to start. They would clean the house. He be locked behind a big white door. There would be chatter, conversations, human speak for hours outside. And finally, when the last guests left and the roar and laughter subsided, the door would open.
He rushed forth and there was his dirty plastic bowl where he slurped up water and chewed bits and kibbles, gross homogenized dog food. Right there, sometimes, there was a big meaty bone.
He could chew on it for days. It was great!
He was an inside dog. He ventured out for five minutes twice a day, always chained to a leash. He always had a collar, with a dangling chain that the leash could hook onto. He was born with the leash it seemed. He would die with it.
The dog loved the outdoors, but he wasn’t allowed to run. He wasn’t allowed out to leap freely through the air, chasing cats, squirrels, and other dogs. He was trapped within four feet of his overseers, pushed and commanded by the leash, the collar yanking against his neck when he stopped to sniff other animals pee, and poop, and flowers, and insects, and all that was good and holy in the outside world.
One day, thinking of that bone, thinking of his collar, and the daily five minute walks to pee and poop, he had a dream.
There was a field and trees, and no pee or poop covering a patch of grass where he always did his business outside the building where he sat and lay, his hind legs mush and weak, dreaming of bones.
He could run and jump, wag his tail and rush about, leap through flowers and grass, roll around in the free and undisturbed dirt, smell the foliage and musk of tree bark, and search. He could chew grass and berries, and drink water from a stream that flowed down through a patch of trees in the meadow. There were no kibbles and bits, no homogenized dog food, no dirty plastic bowl, no waiting behind a white painted door for the party to be over to eat a meaty bone.
He didn’t wear a collar, he didn’t have a leash, his neck didn’t hurt from the strain of being pulled from sniffing another animal’s pee in a patch of grass for five minutes where he pooped and peed outside of his overseer’s home.
He didn’t want a bone in his dream. He wanted to find a mate. A she-dog to sniff, and small creatures to hunt together. Somewhere out there were rabbits, squirrels, and even deer. It would take a pack, a she-dog and her whole family, to corner our prey. To attack, to kill, and to eat good.
He woke up. The humans were talking. It wasn’t the exciting chatter of party planning. No, it was too somber. They turned on the television. He hated TV. All the lights and sounds startled him. Stopped him from dreaming.
On TV there was a news anchor, speaking in authoritative declarations, narrating the flash and bang of missiles hitting a foreign city, of national guard deployed in an American city, of arrests and assassinations of politicians who dared to question the authority of the new leader.
The dog could make out the sounds. He was smart. Sounds like the ones who pulled his leash now had leashes of their own. Could he go outside for five minutes still?
Maybe before curfew.
“Good story”
“Thanks”
“Want to go for a walk now?”
“Sure”
“Come on boy, let’s go”
The end.