I cried when I heard about it, the soul machine.
I don’t mind admitting it. I sat down, put my head back, let my arms hang loose, and I cried, staring at the sky. I cried because I believed my prayers had been answered. I really believed that.
It was the one thing, the one thing you couldn’t exercise without truly knowing yourself, and how many people could say that they knew themselves? Yes, the spirit, the soul, the gut that soared when you achieved, and sunk in shame and confusion when you failed, that was shredded by the ignorance and avarice of others if you didn’t have the strength to protect it—the strength without which life could become a living hell of self-questioning, doubt, hate, tears, and deflation.
Inflation—that was the thing. What if somehow a machine could plug into that lost light of inner self you had so long been searching for? If you could discover that, you would have the wisdom of a child, the Tao of things. If a machine could tap the sacred and eliminate the profane, could somehow know you better than you knew yourself, could bring back to you the glorious spirit of a favourite song, a loved one’s smile, pure happiness…
The world drains, sucking the life out of beauty, grace, and peace, and giving you bile in return, so much bile. How to counteract this? Could this be the way? The apparatus of the gods? The all-encompassing? The soul machine.
It had to be real. I had a hole in me, a gaping hole hardened through the abuse of intellect and soft rage. It had to be real, and I had to meet the man responsible. I had to. So, I did.
I came to his house on a windy October day with the leaves dancing around me in whirligig golden-brown madness and the grey sky smelling blue. The house was submerged amongst trees, not extravagant, but compact, remote, ivy covered, speckled-grey, red roof brightening from a ray of sun through the clouds. On approaching, I walked slowly as trepidation leaded my feet—though not my heart, which still-sang, slowly, with belief and beautiful faith.
A door opened. I paused and stood a little away.
Big smile. ‘Come. It’s cold, come.’
‘Yes’, momentarily startled, I realized the swiftness of my legs carrying my body into the warm house, my arms outstretched to greet with a hearty handshake and tensed muscles too.
‘So, you’re the man, you’re the man.’
More smiles, white teeth.
‘Yes, and you, great stories, fantastic. Come, please.’
Pleasantries exchanged, I sat, and swallowed by a chair, let my mind settle from the whirl.
‘Professor, to get directly to, ah, my point. I have heard of your apparatus and for its testing, I believe, you may require…’
I stopped at his steady stare.
‘Hmmm…’
He let that hang in the air like thick fog.
I coughed.
I noticed that his eyes were the deepest blue I had ever seen in a man, and his grey hair was curled in the most precise randomness over his forehead. One bead of moisture snail-trailed down his cheek.
‘I think’, he said slowly, ‘you do not fully appreciate the risks.’
I said nothing. I could not argue.
‘But’, he continued, eyes flashing, ‘if I appraise you fully of the very real dangers, and you still wish to be involved… Well, then it shall be so.’
(Risks? There were none considered in my melody-mood of anticipation. What possibly…?)
‘Tell me’, I said.
And the fire blazed in front of us—red, yellow, ochre-orange, it leapt our frantic shadows in its light as we talked through the night.
When I awoke, not realizing I had slept, brightness had come to invade the gloom and embers glow-stared from the open hearth.
I’m running now. I think I left the door swinging on its hinges. I’m running so fast my hair is swept behind me like a grey flag. There’s glory in an autumn day when the low wind pastes the drizzle to your face and the sky is so dark you can’t see your shadow. There’s glory in small things.
I tread on a leaf. It crackle-breaks the air. Laughing, I glance over my shoulder.
There’s a man at the door.