New recruits are very grateful and never complain.
We build the train backwards as we go, in motion.
Workers construct new cars with great devotion.
They haul in evermore raw materials at each stop,
process them in the train’s hi-tech machine shop,
and soon our big metal snake’s tail grows longer.
There is no limit. Development makes us stronger.
The train runs in perpetual motion with an infinite
entropic energy supply. Quite impressive, isn’t it?
We travel the globe in a certain course, calibrated
with the Earth’s rotation. The tracks are elevated
and magnetized so as to actually help the planet
spin faster. It’s very good how we’ve planned it,
because each faster rotation provides us excess
energy to use in the train. It’s been a great success.
The only negative is that we can never see the Sun.
Solar radiation screws up how the calibrations run.
Traveling always at night, running from the dawn,
automat-calculations ensure the train’s always on
the side of Earth not facing the Sun. Some doubt
its existence now. Protestors say it burned out.
Asking newboards if they’ve seen it yields silence.
They don’t speak our language or grasp science.
After they have been educated, equal numbers
confirm or deny. I don’t remember, they mumble.
But even if it still burned when these dopes got on
doesn’t mean it’s still there. That’s not a foregone
conclusion! the paranoids point out in defiance,
not trusting how the train works. (It’s just science.)
After all, we can still see the moon, lit by reflected
sunlight. Still some cult members have suspected
that this glow comes from within a newly hollow
moon. Why this is, sane passengers cannot follow.
We wonder why the restless minority believes
there was ever a sun. Is it a myth they can’t leave
behind? Honestly most of us don’t care either way.
We knew Sun would die and Earth would decay,
but our train is made to survive all that. It will stay
on the tracks, floating in space. We’ll find a way
to survive in plenty of time. Our room-sized CPU
plans everything in advance, and all we have to do
is contribute to its input, work a bit, and have fun.
Ours is the smartest leaderless existence, bar none,
ever achieved. Smart training allows us to advance
technology while removing all threat of chance.
This structure makes us mirthful, friendly & cool.
Long ago we named ourselves the Train of Fools.
We are not idiots; rather we take as our inspiration
the figure who walks off a cliff without trepidation.
This old Fool appears on the Number 0 tarot card.
His leap of faith isn’t stupid or easy. It’s very hard
but very necessary. Our leap of faith is paradoxical
in that our system, society, & science all chronicle
the diminishment of superstition. Our allegiance
is backed by repeated results that earn credence.
Still, the greatest leap of faith humanity can take
is away from antiquated notions, which are fake.
Our train continues to train some clergy as ushers,
for they’re more comforting than robot conductors.
New passengers feel reassured by spiritual faces,
but trainlife soon reduces their religiosity to traces.
Despite the infighting of those slower to adjust,
the majority can acknowledge without disgust
humanity’s true nature: We are a random accident,
nothing more. Finally free from holy sacrament,
we can pursue art and pleasure, reveling in desire.
We can keep science stoked with promethean fire.
We bring our offer to those who’ve not yet heard,
as the Train of Fools continues to roll westward.
*
Won 2nd place in my year with the essay above.
Lost for not saying how the train facilitates love.
But I never really understood it and couldn’t fake
that part like I did others. Only so much I can take.
Though writing many such treatises has been fun
for me overall, that one will be my last. I am done,
burnt out. I can’t understand how Allie and Sam
like it here. Irreligious, I still feel vaguely damned.
Lying awake at night, considering a future planned
and unplanned in equal measure. Our trip spans
the globe, but there’s nowhere for me to travel.
Free to do anything inside the train, I unraveled
after the first decade aboard. Sure, there is diverse
everything here: food, tech, lifestyles to immerse
ourselves in to whatever real-virtual degree suits.
But there’s no danger, no purpose, no tree roots.
My child sleeps below me in a nice cot of his own.
There’s lots of room here. We live in a nice zone.
Five years ago I applied for an external pregnancy.
Tech harvested my egg for me. It went pleasantly.
Two-thirds of mothers choose this modern route.
Those less likely to go for it are newer recruits.
While our train has long had a declining birthrate,
newboards make for the highest population to date.
I don’t mind more boarders. There’s no crowding.
It’s a fairly peaceful train. Not loud. No pounding
even when construction takes place. Silent tools
on the Train of Fools. Everyone follows the rules.
Or nearly everyone. There’s room for disobedient
dissent and protest. But the computer is expedient
at rearranging us, our conditions and employment,
in ways that replace complaints with enjoyment.
Still, I feel a sense of emptiness inside, frequently.
How can everything be perfect but lack decency?
That’s our situation. Don’t know what I’d change.
Whole system itself likes to constantly rearrange
vast swathes of the train anyway, to keep us busy.
Otherwise we peddle electrobikes till we’re dizzy,
creating surplus energy for no reason. It’s phony.
My son gets infinite toys. Gram only had a pony
when she was young. Here I have synthetic kittens.
And neat and nice as it is, the reason I can’t fit in
has to do with my coming from a place so different.
So it’s strange my two siblings love it here, isn’t it?
I can’t figure it. I buy old books from new recruits
—but reading no longer feels organic or grassroots,
not when all texts ever seen come up on any screen
and normal action feels like historical reenactment.
I climbed aboard when I was bored. I don’t regret
my decision. Still, with nagging unease, I suspect
strongly that all this was not supposed to transpire.
Something’s gone wrong and is amiss in the higher
spheres still. They say our train runs on magnetism
and happy thoughts: we’re all taught the catechism
of how evolved and harmonious is our science.
There are no motors; that’s the sound of silence
new passengers profess to hear for their first year
or so aboard—you get used to it. My worst fear
as come true now, though, because f
inally I hear
the sound again louder. I get up, go out, creep near
to its source while everyone else sleeps. It’s a door
I’ve never seen behind before, the CPU room door:
Room lol, it’s marked.
With the sound still louder, so loud I can’t ignore
it anymore, I open the door, unsure what’s in store.
*
Looks like an old outhouse inside, so out of place.
On rickety floorboards sits a chamber-pot or vase
with SLOP written on it prettily with gold fringes.
The opening door stops squeaking on its hinges,
and from the pot two small heads emerge slowly.
They appear noseless, earless, eyeless and unholy.
Then they laugh, and in their mouths are red eyes.
What’s the matter, sweetheart? Haha! Tongue tied?
They climb out of the filthy pot. Nasty little arms.
Like Halloween puppets—too small to do harm.
These guys run the show? Where’s the computer?
They chuckle: You want a robot? Ain’t we cuter?
like they read my mind. I ask: What’re you doing
here? One snorts, turns around, and starts pooping
out his mouth. The creatures have no other cavity.
See what we eat! I peer over, expecting depravity.
But in the toilet (deeper than it looks) I see books
we never read or wrote, pics of trips we never took,
friends we never made, silence we never enjoyed,
houses never built or lived in—burnt & destroyed.
All this we regurgitate and play with! they squeal.
You forsake all this to us freely—we don’t steal!
Our SLOP bucket is our throne is our cauldron.
We’re sexless, but all this shit gives us a hard-on!
Life unfolding has tested the truth of our thoughts.
We give whatever’s wanted to haves and have-nots,
whether its needed or not. We deal in ease & desire.
Purveyors of art, we stoke your heart’s fire higher!
And the secret ingredient that keeps the train going
is Confidence you give us without even knowing!
O Lady who never complained cuz she felt so above
the protest groups: Stay with us and be our love!
Let us teach you how to engineer, implant & reap,
or go back to your cabin now and just try to sleep!
I looked down at these gross goblins, who seemed
to glow orange. So weird, it really felt like a dream,
not a nightmare but an opportunity—I had to turn
down. It wasn’t that I didn’t deserve it. I’d learned
how the train operated. But no way could I like it.
Maybe I’m naïve. Somehow I wanted to fight it.
As I began formulating arguments and diatribes,
the goblins preempted them, mocking and snide:
Stop the train? That’d make you the biggest fool!
Graduate to master—or else go back to school!
You’re never going to leave this place, you know!
Piercing the hull? Ha! You’d never survive in snow
or desert or jungle or forest or sea or wherever
you’d land. You and everyone is home here forever,
trapped but safe and in the right place to imagine
fruitlessly, to fuel our train with impotent passion.
Again I began the process of turning my feelings
into words. Again they deterred me with squealing:
You worry about life and wonder what it was for!
Oh, figuring out what to contribute to is a chore!
But science knows no akrasia! There’s a solution!
Just contribute to knowledge—you can’t lose then!
Whatever you’d sacrifice here would be worth it!
We are the hidden priests of all divinity emergent.
Humans believed in gods in order to build cities.
People got self-conscious once they grew too witty
and started doubting priests. But they need believe
again in something else they cannot quite conceive.
Other riders like distraction, or political division,
but you, strange girl, can enjoy a different position.
Aren’t we beyond you, whether we’re real or not?
Believe in us and we’ll share our food for thought.
*
I didn’t join up but returned to my baby, who shares
my DNA. I didn’t much worry, because—
Who cares!
VI. “Eleventy Billion Customers Sold”
A New Homophobia
Notable scholars & hacktivists have come together
to admit the term as misnomer and decide whether
a gala parlance-change campaign would be prudent
to inoculate into the current generation of students.
‘I must lobby for a sweeping society-wide diction-
switch instead, introduced via dialogue in fiction,’
said one expert. ‘We should settle on a stable, plain
interpretation of homo to denote human, not same,’
said another. ‘As it stands, to be honest and clear,
the term makes no sense. Most haters don’t fear
gays. And homo is human; that’s what that means.
So, homophobia is the fear of humans. This seems
a more accurate definition anyway. I’d say today
we fear our own humanity more than we fear gays.’
i. Snow Zone
Sunshine on blankets of snow
and pine trees show me where to go.
Cold air and a runny nose
tell me that my brain hasn’t froze.
There’s nothing better than this atmosphere
on a clear sunny morning like this one.
Even within my controlsuit I can sense the cold—
purposely breaking protocol to take off my helmet
—and it is wonderful. Everything’s wiped clean,
you know? Starting fresh again every second.
Anonymous, lost and free, all at once.
A type of psychological protection,
and reinvention,
aided by the camo of my white snowsuit.
I am on skis, carry a rifle across my back
but there’s not much need.
The Northern Council woke up again and sent me
to find the lost retriever robot who came up empty.
I stay out here for a year or till I find the device,
whichever comes first. Jerks. What’s really nice:
if I find the ’bot but he isn’t working (i.e. moving)
I have to carry him back. Yeah. It’s fucking stupid.
I find him on the tenth day. I say ‘he’ out of habit.
He’s frozen down in a lake, only his kitschy rabbit-
ear’ antennae sticking up. He takes nearly an hour
to thaw out. My laser pointer’s drained of power
and has to recharge. Of course the robot is broken.
The panel on his chest is jammed. I force it open.
We’ve lost the knowledge of how these units ever
worked in the first place. Humans sure were clever
for a while, but to us it’s a fucking guessing game,
with wires and circuits everywhere. I’ll get blamed
if I break him, so if I break him I’ll report it already
broken. It’s a bucket of bolts anyway. I’m unsteady
due to the cold wind, but it’s not like I got a choice.
As the pointer warms I remember a friend’s voice:
‘When you stick a digit in a crazy humanoid, crazy
events will follow.’ Callback to HAL singing ‘Daisy’:
Soon as I shoot a single spark inside, he spasms
alive and runs through a familiar speech pattern:
‘U…bucket of bolts!Ubucketofbolts!’ He loops it,
plays faster then slower. I thump his head—stupid!
—and that breaks his habit.
It’s a real long way back to civilization, but at least
we’re both moving. He thinks I’m a sort of priest.
The conversation isn’t bad, though. Before he died
totally he says he dreamed about a train going by:
‘I know it wasn’t real because I never saw tracks.
I was freezing, trapped in a lake, wanted to relax
and pass away quietly. My fear was that the train
would stop to pick me up. How will I ever explain
this madness to my creator?’ I tell him that none
of that matters anymore, and that he will have fun
in the new setup. I don’t know if that’s lying or not,
but I’m not traversing the badlands that time forgot
with a pessimist. Forget it. And in all likelihood
he will like life more now. Yeah. It should be good.
ii. ‘Impossibly Innocent Princess’
?
Huh?
What?
I never pretended to be that.
But you say it like an insult.
I do wish I was innocent.
So you decided you’re not talking
to me again.
Fucking drama queen.
Honestly.
After all we went through and shared.
You know I never expected
to be with you FOREVER.
But I expected longer
than this,
you scaredy cat.
And I never expected
you to go out by
flipping things this way.
Or for you to run such a
scorched earth policy
on EVERYTHING
at the end.
‘Overwrought gibberish language’?
Fuck you.
You liked it before.
I know it sounds stupid to use
‘Uncle Gus’ to rhyme.
But I really had an Uncle Gus,
so what the fuck do you
want me to say?
What the fuck to do you want me to do?
I don’t like to lie as much as you.
‘Overwrought gibberish language’.
YOUR shit is overwrought
gibberish language
ON PURPOSE
but you criticize ME that way.
I don’t care if you have the degrees.
OVERWROUGHT GIBBERISH LANGUAGE.
I don’t care if it’s academese.
OVERWROUGHT GIBBERISH LANGUAGE.
I don’t care if it won an award.
OVERWROUGHT GIBBERISH LANGUAGE.
People read it and are bored.
OVERWROUGHT GIBBERISH LANGUAGE.
And I don’t give a fuck about sales