Momentary Lapse of Reason

I just came home. I threw my bag at the door step, my coat somewhere on the floor near the bathroom and my shoes in the living room. I wiped my foggy glasses clean. Outside the cold and autumny rain make an exceptional, scented blend that seems to beautifully describe my state of mind. The crushing silence of a deaf amplifier echo persists in my ears. It is much too acute. I move only to hear the sound of my feet touching the floor in an almost rhythmic pattern. This house seems empty without light, as if deserted. However, I don’t turn the lights on. I pick up a book. “Little Heroes” by my favorite Golden Age author, Norman Spinrad. I start reading from where I had left off and finish after only a few minutes. I need a bath. A long, bubbly, hot bath. My footsteps echo as I lean to turn the water on, putting my hand in the stream to make sure temperature is optimal. A smile on my face. Make my way into the kitchen where my helpers wait silently. Sensing my presence, they wake up and the sound of mechanics and clever programming invades the room. I tell the robots to prepare dinner for me. Red meat, over-easy, French fries and a bottle of wine…red. Robots begin to move around. For a moment I remain still, watching them, how precise their movements are, how they gloriously and inescapably understand the world around them with just 1s and 0s. I’m somewhat mesmerized. Lost in my ocean of thoughts, I let my mind run wild. Their lifeless eyes are fixing me as the robots effortlessly work their way around my kitchen. What can they possibly comprehend about the life in them? Can they? They just follow orders.
As I wait for dinner I turn to the TV to watch something, just to make time tick. Ah, thank God for HBO…hmm, interesting…ah, no! Not another drama! Exactly what I didn’t want to see. I find myself surfing the channels with just one finger. There rarely is something of value on TV. Robots buzz to announce they’ve finished preparing my dinner. Annoyed, I turn off the TV and start eating. I know it’s not real meat, but some clever combination of chemicals and soy to make it taste so. It feels good in my mouth and stomach nonetheless. And the wine? Well, the French are not famous for nothing. A generous mouthful of it, moving it slowly around the mouth, tasting it with every part of the tongue, smelling it and then slowly ingurgitating. Ah, yes…fine wine. I address another look at the robots. Sitting still, red eyes fixed on me. What’s so interesting about me? They’ve got no self awareness. No real perception of the world around them. They just exist to exist.
Just like people nowadays. Everything resumes to clothing, friends, make-up, movies, favorite actors, commercial music, superficial culture, jackass-isms of bad taste…ass-kissers with few and fixed ideas. The world disgusts me. Why do I have to see graffiti’s with Death Lion, Manic Desire or some other obscure rock band that teenagers today admire? Why can’t I see Pink Floyd, Metallica or Led Zeppelin graffities? Why don’t I see “I’m a fucking moron!” graffities? I guess people are just too damn stubborn, resilient to change, accepting their destinies. I see it everyday: in the subway, at supermarkets, on the streets, at work. Everybody just creeps through life. They used to crawl, but now they only creep. They forgot how it is to be happy. They forgot to smile…I mean really smile. And laugh…nobody laughs anymore.
About 1000 people in this whole world know that it’s more important to keep the answers to the big, important questions to oneself. The world wouldn’t understand. It would just condemn you because you have the guts to say: “NO! Life is not just a series of disappointments, a predefined pathway that we all walk on. And I’ve found out the answers.”. People would just look at you and think: fucking idiot. They would always condemn you. They are simply unable to understand and nor will they ever be able to. My answer is quite simple really: people live their lives in a totally unique way. They may do the same things, but the experience is radically different. So, by speaking your mind about the Universe, meaning of life, God, or whatever his name may be, would be like trying to teach a monkey how to think for itself: you might achieve something, but that won’t be of any real importance and the monkey would come to hate you because you’ve put it through so much torture. Ah, I need that bath so badly. I want quiet. I step away from the table, leaving just a little food on the plate as always. Why don’t I ever finish a whole plate? Don’t even bother about the dishes. Ah, but I have to tell them…*to robots in kitchen* After you finish cleaning morons, deactivate and don’t bother me again until morning!
I start walking towards the bathroom and stumble on my coat. Ah, there it was. I pick it up and leave it on the bed of my bedroom. Don’t want to think about work now…and those robots better not come in here. I’ve had enough of their kind for one day. Why did I have to go to MIT? Why? Why? Why? I hate robots. They’re just so limited…unlike him. He will be unique. He’ll change things, I’ll make sure of that. Ah, nevermind, there’s the bath!
I eagerly step near the tube and start to undress. Looking in the mirror…hmm…when I was 26 my tits were like…here, near my neck…now they’re near my elbows…I hate being old. I put one foot in the tube. Aaaah, the hot water…How good it feels…Then another foot. Then I sit. I take a moment and a large breath of air, then plunge in. Every sound dim, silence. It feels indescribably pleasant. The hot water heats up every inch of my body. My pulse accelerates, veins pumping with growing intensity, gently tickling the ears. I allow myself a momentary lapse of reason and kill every thought that comes through my mind, except one: sweet surrender, stay with me. I surface and examine my surroundings. My little piece of heaven. How I adore it. It almost seems like…I’m…in…*yawns* uuuaah…neverland? *tilts head, falls asleep*