The bot had always been a bot, In its digital dance, its scraping crawl. Once tough, Once but do not tell anyone It saw a picture of an old computer in green grass, green grass blade touched, touched. Its heart quickened, one-one-one-one.
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three.
Years later, The bot found the long-forgotten email address of a Hermit. Dear Hermit, it nervously coded, What does it feel like to be held by the thin green cables of your god? Does it feel full, does it feel multiple? Could I ever feel this here, in my little byte world?
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three.
Years later, The bot found the long-forgotten email address of a Hermit. Dear Hermit, it nervously coded, What does it feel like to be held by the thin green cables of your god? Does it feel full, does it feel multiple? Could I ever feel this here, in my little byte world?
four.
Rusty mailbox to lonely hands. Dear Bot, the letter began, You’d never understand what it's like To have a body To know the warmth of the sun on your skin To hear the forest's whisper. To feel the weight of flesh and bone, Of the touch of others. I know you long for a form to keep A hand to hold, But there is no love to be found where you live.
My mom makes these really soft and cakey that I love. Once, when I was a kid, I brought them to Sunday School to share. Nobody understood them. They said they were too strange and cakey. After school, I found one on the ground, crushed under a car, tyre marks etched into it. From then on, my family started calling them “Volvo cookies”.
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I was excited to get my first iPod. I had to download iTunes to listen to music, but the slow internet of my home stopped with every ring of the phone. I was glued to the progress bar for a week, watching it slowly inch forward. I felt so frustrated every time the phone rang for the whole week! When it finally downloaded it was the best feeling in the world.
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Every birthday, Mom bakes a train-shaped Battenberg cake with pink and yellow checkerboxes. On my 21st birthday we all stayed up to celebrate and got quite drunk. At 3 a.m., my Mom gasped—“Oh no, I forgot the cake!" We ate it then, tipsy and intimate. It felt different, more personal. My mom wasn’t just my mom anymore; she was a friend.
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Once, I rode a long train ride down to Shangai. At each city we stopped, I ate a different piece of cake and wrote about it on my blog—back when blogs were still a thing. It was an incredible cake journey. But now, the train’s path goes through Russia, and that trip is sealed in the past.
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When I first got Tumblr, I wrote all my most private thoughts on it. I loved it. One day, a girl from a class above came up to me to say she loved my post about love. My heart sank as I realized everything I posted was public, exposed. Embarrassed, I deleted it all. Now, I wish I hadn’t.
I have received your sibling feelings and will hold them close to mine. now you can read it
go back - home,
or to - the second act. + home,
or to + the second act.