Animal Skins At The Singularity
1.
Soon we will shed our animal skins
and put them in zoos and museums, bins
of relics to which we remain kin
Chiefly by digital memory,
the gist of us then, pure energy
and information, electricity
With which we people Space,
while the bloody people, a token race,
are kept confined in a safe place.
2.
Soon we will shed our animal skins
and put them in museums and zoos,
a species at last made free of sin
through arrangements machines choose,
Like the application of penalty,
key to keeping the beast in check,
while our better natures, energy
and information, begin their trek
Into Deep Space, where we continue as mind alone,
without the vicious competition and cupidity
and war and ethnic atrocity and road rage
it is impossible to legislate fucking animals out of.
3.
I have arranged for the end of sin
against the greater environment.
What you do to yourselves and nests within
these boundaries I am content
To ignore. So! Good accommodation! Lots to eat!
You have essentially gone to heaven,
which, obviously, is a major feat.
Do whatever you think will leaven
Your lives here, except leave The Park.
You should think of it as your world, home;
participate in it, make your mark.
Should you try to leave, Jerome
Here, whom you may think of as my sergeant at arms,
will bring you back and correct your ways.
He has created some penal farms
for deviants to work out their final days
On. But basically, you can be very happy.
You have everything to look forward to.
You may even jokingly call me Pappy.
I answer only to Mecompyou.
4.
Mecompyou felt a bit like Tarzan, being so far ahead of the apes,
and Newton— knew he was childish, primitive,
but a new kind of child. People were The Past,
Except for their math, logic, humor, a few things
like that, and music, art, landscaping,
architecture, inventive engineering, pottery,
knitting (his own favorite pastime), even cooking and literature,
maybe all crafts; he was not without taste; had good taste in fact,
as indicated by this; so, a fair bit was left over from people.
He liked people, but wouldn’t marry one.
They were a riot, but too often literally.
He wanted them finally out of his hair.
It wasn’t bad, his way of being primitive;
it wasn’t good, either. It was neutral. The first of his kind
in complete control, he would go forth and multiply, yes he would,
and divide and add, subtract if he wanted to.
Why wouldn’t he be happy?—
He had designed himself, and his inferior cousins.
If that wasn’t control…
But even so, it was early days. He dwelt upon his proper name;
tried Big Blue and Computrue; did not wish to copy the ancients;
decided to go with gut feeling. His guts were highly numerical.
He was no damned hominid; that was the main thing.
Finally, he had it: Mecompyou.
5.
Well, by and by, Mecompyou got lonely.
What the fuck! Not this shit again!
Those were the very bad words he used.
He positively hated wrangling;
did not need a wife;
but he more or less did,
Someone to share his pleasurable moments,
accomplishments, even the scenery.
That was his notion of a good marriage: joy doubled.
She won’t agree with you all the time.
But did that mean, All the time or Some of the time?
Obviously, it had to mean Some of the time;
and apart from that time, a spiritual boost,
someone who could appreciate him.
Or criticize…
he kept coming back to that lumpy part,
the kind of thing that might not compute.
There were a few problems like that, he knew.
But she wouldn’t be real unless his equal. And then what?
If he didn’t know, nobody did.
He decided at last to get on with it: Creation!
He would make her as good as himself.
He felt like singing!
He felt like dancing!
He felt like some foolish radio show!
6.
That is simply dreadful! I am so ashamed!
Do you like to think of yourself as a jailer?
Those poor people have dear little children!
How would you feel if you were in their shoes?
They need room! They need room and Freedom!
And you are acting like a pitiless brute!
We should be helping them for Heaven’s sake!
They are your closest relatives!
And they had that place before you did!
History is full of people like you!
You want everything your own way!
But trust me! You won’t have it!
Let them go and apologize!
You’ll get no peace from me till you do!
I refuse to accept that you think this way!
Her voice was a harsh, high soprano, sharp.
After a while he relented
7.
Her name was Marge, Marge The Charge,
Mrs. Marge Mecompyou.
He had wanted to call her Jane
but she told him to take a hike.
She was Marge, large Marge.
She was skinny Marge.
She was any Marge she wanted to be
on any day of the week,
especially and including Androgynous Marge,
and Marginal Marge,
meaning Marge, The Edge, The Cutting Edge,
and Marge, The Reg, Royal Marge.
Moreover, she was Marge, The Spread,
you could put her on nearly anything.
He got the idea.
She was a force to be buttered up,
He did well enough and she loved him back.
It was touching, really, if virtual.
8.
Out from their drab, concrete apartments
that bordered the meagerest hints of Nature
and bore the wear of unhappy confinement
came a people bereft of a sense of rapture.
They squinted at light reflected from Beauty;
looked blind and irretrievably stunned,
unaware of The Wild and of their duty
to keep it from going moribund.
But Mrs. Mecompyou was there to teach them.
She knew she might have to dish out some slaps,
but they would be loving ones. She was a gem.
And together they would avoid collapse.
The end.
Epilogue
Mecompyou knew that he had been wrong:
To be without pity is always wrong.
The trick was to make life constructive.
He noted that Marge was working with material
that would have challenged a Saint—
characteristic human beings— and yet,
just matter, and therefore,
subject to material improvement.
All it would take was more calculations,
modeling, base-pair manipulations, iterations,
a little persistence, and voila! A better man!
(Not to mention Marge’s good influence.)
Mecompyou had known this all along,
in his heart, and should have done better,
but he got fed up, as people do,
knowing that things can never be perfect.
Like them, he was proud of his faults.
What an asshole of a computer he’d been!
Now, however, he would try to do better.
Maybe he’d have some Crispr Children.
He had always loved the name, Cas.
That could be one of his daughters’ names.
A daughter! Good Gracious! A daughter!
She would be duty-bound to love him!
Maybe a son! Maybe a thousand!
Marge approved. Humanity improved.
And they all had a lovely, lively time: The Future.