LXV. AI-YOO!

The Little Martian stumbles in, world-weary on yet another Monday. 

“Time to quit it,” he mumbles, his voice a scratchy whisper.

"I’ve lost it. Got to quit it,” he repeats, eyes manic, hair bedraggled, windcheater all winded out. 

“Quit what? Lost what?” I ask, worried. 

“Quit my job. Lost my voice,” he scratches back, his poor little voice like a laringytic whisper against a cracked record. 

“How?”

 “They took it!” he whispers, with a dramatic bow of his head. I nod with faux understanding. 

“Do you think you can get it back?” I ask.

 He looks up, his little eyes welling with tears. “Do I want it back is the question.” 

“Hang in there, this too shall—” 

“Pass?” he spits out, cutting me mid-sentence. “I don’t want it to pass. I want to feel it. I want to make something interesting, do something meaningful, create a mark! Not be another oily cog in this clicking capitalistic machine!”

 I roll my eyes. 

“What are you? In a Hallmark film?” 

The Martian breaks character long enough to snort, then resumes his scowly, artificially anguished frowning. 

“You don’t get it. I didn’t travel all this way to do such stupid shit. I’m on a mission! I just can’t remember what it was.” 

“You gotta trust—” 

“The process!” His crackly voice rises like a Teletubby monster. 

“I feel processed already. I’m like a walking, talking algorithm of cutesy sass and internet crap. I’m not me anymore, I’m just an AI echo of the stupid internet.” 

I exhale. 

“You’re right.”

 His eyes snap up. 

“I am?” 

“Yes.” 

“I don’t want to be right though.”

 “I don’t want you to be right either.” 

“Then let’s make it wrong, no? There’s gotta be something. A cheat sheet, or an escape code—something that makes me less…” 

“Human?” 

“Exactly.”

" We're all off on missions to do the same great things and be the same great people"