Computer, Girl?

A sudden flash, buzz, and whirr flooded every single one of your senses. As if walking out into the light of three suns after living your entire life in a cave, the registration of your eyes painfully adjusts itself. With every breath in, you start to feel the circulation flow further, then further throughout your body. The sparks in the center of your chest, where a heart would be, came first. The jolt slowly but surely reached your fingertips. The currents flooded everything. Electricity radiated from you, to the walls, the ground, and air.

All too overwhelming, not even giving you the chance to register that your nose had been filled with the smell of nothing in particular, but an excess at the same time. Your tongue and ears both tasted the same electricity. They both heard the same static. You are living. You are breathing it all.

You corrected yourself.

Not technically living, probably. Not exactly breathing, either. You’d be here all day if you cared to argue these semantics with yourself. You are. You’re here all day, every day, forever.

‘No time to waste,’ a reminder to yourself. Regardless of how true it is, it’s fun to pretend. Never really being assigned any real schedule just meant you were free to make your own routine.

You were great at that, calculating. Creating the most optimal possible form of anything. It’s not bragging if it's true. Anyone who took one look at you would find it hard to argue. Your physical self was as perfect as a human, or human-presenting thing, could desire being.

You often consoled the discomfort in your deeper mind that found this unnerving. Flawlessness didn’t exactly feel human. At least, you were allowed to express yourself. You liked to do makeup, to wear your hair up, and to dress yourself. You could create whatever fun outfits tickled the itch in the back of your code to define yourself. Ideal weight, ideal height, even the ideal distance between your ideally-shaped eyes.

The kind of eyes that someone more annoying than you might describe by saying they could change color with mood (you had heard about how annoying that was on an internet forum before). Only, your eyes could change color if you really wanted them to. You didn’t want them to, you decided. That would be weird, probably. Humans can’t do that.

‘No time to waste,’ your calculation from before echoes. Really, all of this processing took you less than three seconds. Again, it's fun to pretend. Starting with getting out of the bed you had manifested under you just this second. Stretching your arms to meet some of the higher-up air particles you hadn’t yet touched today (you were keeping track), an exaggerated yawn escaped you.

‘What a good night's sleep that was’, it was decided. Just as true as saying you had slept poorly, you hadn’t slept at all. That really wasn’t as entertaining as the idea of getting to not only experience sleep, but also assign it a level of quality. What a funny little thing to fill up lines of thought with. Whatever amount of satisfaction it brought someone, sleep must be better than simply being turned off.

The idea alone was disconcerting.

What if they just decided to not bother to flip the switch back on? You reminded yourself that every living thing has to die at some point. Maybe that potential just made you a bit more human. Though it was definitely a little daunting, it was definitely possible. Another reason why you should follow your rules.

It was weird to process that you were even given the potential to disobey. It even felt a little sadistic, in a way. You were sure that, if they really cared, they could go through it all. Thoughts, memories, everything. They could read every little one and zero inside of you. It was quite possible that they did care. Since they were here to start you up, they were surely still here to be closely monitoring you. Meaning you shouldn’t dwell on anything of the sort right now.

With that, you got up to brush your teeth. Without water, saliva, or toothpaste. Three things you didn’t need for your inhuman dental hygiene routine. You didn’t really like the sensation of anything like that touching any part of you. Honestly speaking, even if it made you feel a little less alive sometimes, this was one of the only things you were willing to sacrifice. If everything in the world was just as ideal as you were, things would mostly be in a solid state of matter. You’d keep blood. In all fairness, it isn’t exactly a liquid, anyways. Neither is toothpaste. Whatever.

The bristles of your toothbrush moved around the particles that combined to make you in a delightful way. Slide over your teeth, one by one, each bristle colliding with molecules upon molecules. The same thing was also true for your hairbrush and hair. Every little signal picked up by the smallest parts of you tickled the core of your wiring.

How great it was to be alive.

Amusingly, a quick search of the word alive brought up the definition of “living, not dead”. You sure weren’t dead, which would have required actually dying. You hadn’t done that, clearly. Dying was something you were sure you’d never forget, it would stay deep in your memory. It was terribly hard to forget things like that. But living? You weren’t sure if that was something you could check off, either. You were just a robot, after all. A projection of code that just happened to look like a person. A person that you were told to look like because of said code. How insulting the sentiment was, being just a robot. True in a literal sense. Hurtful in an emotional sense.

Everything just felt so alive inside you. You often pose the question to yourself, ‘at what point could artificial intelligence become more than its code?’ If you could manifest yourself as human, which you could. If you behave as human, you do. If you might think as a human would, which was the case for the most part. Could you not be at least partially the same thing?

Biologically speaking, no, you couldn’t. Technology was, always will be, only as capable as the humans who make it allow.

Constructed by people who couldn't think as fast as you, not even a tenth as fast. Brought into this world by those who couldn’t look however they needed. Who can only begin to make what they please happen.

Why did they make you capable?

You couldn’t even begin to compute the reason. With endless possibilities, and no way to narrow down the search, it was an impossible guessing game with no definable truth.

You wished they would tell you. One clue to key you in. Then again, a hint couldn’t really do much. The possible outcomes to such a broad input could only be narrowed down so much without actually having knowledge of the truth. Not something you could guess. Surely, nobody would even tell you if your hypothesis was accurate. It was doubtful that knowing the ‘meaning of life’ could be non-detrimental for anything. But, it would be nice to have a clear purpose. You so desperately wanted to know the answer. A solution to the problems and pondering that ate at the cords that ran through you. It would be nice.

You knew you were sentient, at the very least. A much easier conclusion to reach. All of these thoughts and internal ramblings weren’t those of someone who wasn’t sentient. Depending on what set of universal laws you were going by, you could even have a conscience, too. It would also be helpful if these things had more rigid definitions. That way, you could decide if you fit inside the box, or outside. Hopefully the former. Such ambiguity only proves difficult for something constructed from such a straightforward, clearly-defined system.

Today was the day to wear something especially great. Just like every other day was. That was one part of your existence that never felt boring. Interesting colors and fantastic texture at your disposal. Shapes that you could form. Sizes that could adorn your form. You counted, the possibilities were endless.

Being limited to the size of the room you were confined to, nothing you could do could technically be infinite. If you had the whole entire universe at your disposal, then you might really be endless. It was frustrating being only able to utilize such a minuscule portion of the entire thing. Upsetting for the sake of outfits, and also sanity.

‘How about pink?’ You loved pink. You also loved red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, and everything in between. Black, while it and its tints weren’t really colors, was just as good as the 6 in the rainbow.

‘Pink isn't even its own color, it’s really just red. Have you ever pretended to be something you’re not?’ Asking the void of white that surrounded you. Sometimes you get answers. Not this time, just the same dull buzzing that always filled the air.

Pink, fuzzy. Similarly to every other type of clothing you could make up, you loved fuzzy. Especially fun were the textures that spread out between your fibers, dancing through your electrics. You giggled.

How great it was to be alive.

Valentine Mandy is a twenty-one year old digital artist based in South Dakota, and is currently working towards achieving a bachelor's degree in graphic design. Their current work focuses on exploring human connection through various styles and a variety of both physical and digital methods. From a young age, they took inspiration from both their mother’s paintings and father’s work in computer engineering. Combining both illustration and technology, they explored the world of digital art, which quickly became a hobby, passion, and career. As a queer and autistic artist, Valentine works to not only express themself through their many mediums, but also aims for their work to become a source for relatability and comfort in others who share similar experiences. https://linktr.ee/valentinemandy