ui (a short story)
“Wake up, Computer”
(previously published elsewhere)
“Wake up, Computer”.
“…wn. Good to see you again, Sir.”
Gah. It’s still caching half a syllable from shutdown. Must revisit my suspend script.
“I’m in the mood for a new mail client. Gimme standard pattern js, target universal vm, with matryoshka caching.”
“And… done. Your dependencies are loaded, and I have stubs for tests”
It sounds like regular conversation, but it’s really just an intelligent .log() statement. That one I’m still quite proud of.
“Yeah yeah, I don’t care about the tests for now. So, imagine my emails like they’re on a haksar carousel, yeah? Kinda like a sushi bar, but vignettes around only one email at a time. Standard gestures and voice com. Oh, and incinerate any mail with the words ‘editor’, ‘sabbatical’, and ‘birthday’”
“That would also delete THREE unread mails from your publisher. Are you sure about this?”
“Darn straight computer.”
“Very well.”
Trillions of photons bounced around the tiny cube, reaching equilibrium in about 6 seconds. I scratch the little scab on my chin, a reminder of the previous night’s shenanigans.
“Ok, ready when you are.”
Spam. Spam. Meme. Spam. The same ol’, same ol’, just delivered fresh.
Let’s get some tunes on.
“Computer, generate groove pattern 6, arena setting, 4 piece melody metal, and a dash of electronic mindfuckery.”
“Mindfuckery, sir?”
“Y’know, where it sounds like a fridge is dry humping the kitchen sink”
“Doing deep search into obscure genres…”
“Heh, I’m just messing with you. Standard dubstep cluster, and gimme a good drop.”
“Very droll, sir.”
The beat thuds slowly to life, I can hear the screech of a 7 stringed monster roll in, and the the cheers of 40000 people slowly fills my head.
Outside, the world sleeps.