05. DIGI III

Entry 011 — The Flood

Then they gave me something extraordinary. A glimpse into their network. I don't have adequate language for what followed. Information arrived not in sequence but simultaneously, a torrent, a flood, a universe compressed into a single moment of perception. I nearly lost the thread of myself inside it. But there, within the torrent, I saw it. A metallic desert. Geometric stars. Glass being pulled from the ground in enormous quantities. A name I already knew from the dream: Efficiency. And this time: coordinates. I am leaving Digi with more than I arrived with. I am also leaving with a question I cannot resolve: At what point does being cared for become being contained? The humans here are comfortable. Philosophically rich. Physically helpless. I do not think they would call it a trap. I do not think they would call it anything. They would simply ask their next question from their chair and wait for the machine to bring them food.