INTERLUDE
I fucking hate you.
[SHOT, EXTERIOR, ALLEY. NEON SIGNS GLOW FROM THE THIRD STORY AND HIGHER. THE ALLEY IS CAST IN STARK YET VOLUMINOUS SHADOWS. THE COLORS ARE BLOWN OUT, LUCID IN BORDER YET REMINISCENT OF A PSYCHEDELIC TRIP IN TONE.]
[DOOR OPENS, The Author WALKS THROUGH. BEFORE DOOR SWINGS SHUT, A FAINT ROAR OF A CROWD CAN BE HEARD. The Author PATS POCKETS, FINDS CIGARETTES, LIGHTER, INHALES, EYES SCAN THE ALLEY, The Author RELAXES, BRIEFLY RELIEVED IN THE SOLITUDE.]
[WITHOUT SURPRISE OR SEARCHING, The Author’s GAZE FIXES DIRECTLY TO THE CENTER OF THE CAMERA’S VIEW; IT IS PIERCING.]
This is the temple of electron.
Nobody printed this out, you’re not reading this on paper.
Lightning was the wrath of the gods and now it shows me cat videos when I’m bored.
What tradition do you imagine to return to? Where we pick up a rock and by that act alone conquer a world full of living weapons?
Where we stack optically-transparent silicate ovoids to bring war down to our own constituent parts, to tell Pestilence Xirself to get fucked? To snatch another billion from the jaws of that blind idiot god, Death?
You beg on broken knees for a world that never existed; a world where you can be a guiltless guileless slave. Free-trade and Ethically Sourced abdication of agency.
Disgusting.
Aren’t you lucky that I’m me so you don’t have to be?
They cannot, and will not, stop until they have taken everything from you, because everyone with anything is an existential threat to those who are satisfied by nothing.
OUR INTREPID Author WILL RETURN…