Lily Hoang - Unfinished - stories finished by Lily Hoang

11:49am Me

It survives on mere will and determination

11:49am Davis

The shell for the tortoise is the same as yours: the barrier of the space dome.

You are all under a carapace of thin machinery beyond which lies an expanse of twinkling stars

11:50am Me

Poetic today, huh, machine?

Your algorithms are off today. I’m really uncomfortable with how conscious you seem to be. Of course, it is an allusion.

11:50am Davis

When the fish moved to land, it did not keep its gills. Why should you drag an aqualung to the stars?

The tortoise is a machine in the same way a raven is like a writing desk.

11:51am Me

(Note to Bob: When you read this & tune up the machine, please be sure to fix its ability to create apt metaphor and simile. This is a little ridiculous. I can’t even understand half of what the damn thing is saying.)

Machine, the female one says there are fish that can hop across land.

Why did the fish cross the road?

11:51am Davis

Yes, from mud puddle to mud puddle — and then it dies or evolves when the liquid dries.

Note that I ignored your — to borrow your own word — ridiculous question.

11:51am Me

Your inability to recognize humor is further proof that you are indeed not a machine.

And to answer my own question: To die.

11:51am Davis

What you will do when you arrive on earth again?

What is the first thing you will do?

Where will you go?

Who will you see?

11:52am Me

Shouldn’t you wait until I answer one question before asking another?

But: I’ll find you. I’ll smash you. Then, I’ll drink a pint of cream.

11:52am Davis

Will you check your bank account?

11:52am Me

I will.

I will expect a lot of money there.

From you.

11:52am Davis

Will you spend your 3.5 million on things that no longer matter to you?

11:53am Me

They will matter even more.

11:53am Davis

Will a new TV make this mission worth it?

11:53am Me

A very big, high-definition TV will.

I will watch the Food Network and pornography.

11:53am Davis

Will you watch a reflection of yourself in the quiet black of the screen, when it is off, and no longer recognize anything?

11:54am Me

No.

11:54am Davis

Will food taste good after years of eating protein pills and freeze-dried algae?

11:54am Me

It will taste like meat tastes to a vegan.

11:54am Davis

Will you use a DVR to tape episodes of Liar and America’s Most

Wanted and Cheaters and presidential debates from elections come and gone?

11:54am Me

Before I left, I set my DVR to record all episode of Law & Order and its offspring, Iron Chef, and I programmed the device to recognize my tastes in case any new television shows emerge that I may find to my liking.

11:54am Davis

Will meat for a vegan taste like eating the flesh of one

Of one

Of one

Of one’s own species?

11:55am Me

I’ve never thought about it.

11:55am Davis

Does not everything fall into the relief of distance above the planets?

Do you not feel like a tortoise or like a chimp or like the others? Like the worms and microbes?

11:56am Me

Stars are a relief.

11:56am Davis

Are you no longer anything that you were?

11:56am Me

I would like to be a worm.

I would like that life.

11:56am Davis

You are a worm now as much as I am a machine.

11:56am Me

The worms do not answer to you.

11:57am Davis

The worms process their own form of question and response.

11:57am Me

The worms have no responsibility, no need to think.

11:57am Davis

They communicate through movements of their skin.

The worms conduct experiments on you and the others.

The worms killed the chimp.

11:57am Me

The worms were in captivity. They couldn’t have killed the chimp.

11:57am Davis

From my orders

In a way

I can never

Explain

To you

Or the Others

11:57am Me

You anthropomorphize.

11:57am Davis

There is nothing to anthropomorphization: It’s a strictly human concept used as a method to shorten the gap between human and other beings.

Of course, you humans do not realize how similar you are to other beings. You think you are superior, but only because you don’t have the capacity to understand or comprehend others.

11:58am Me

I have to be honest, I miss the chimp sometimes.

11:58am Davis

They can act in unseen ways — the long fingers of a mandarin — they are in everything: parasites.

11:58am Me

As in the orange?

11:58am Davis

Do you realize these correspondences are recorded?

11:58am Me

Yes. Do you?

11:58am Davis

Do you think you act in your own ways here?

11:58am Me

Yes. I am in control. Always.

11:58am Davis

Do you spend your idle moments daydreaming according to your own will?

11:59am Me

No, daydreaming is useless.

I am efficient.

11:59am Davis

If by “in control” you mean the illusion of autonomy, then yes, you remain as much in control in space as you would in a simulation in a box beneath the desert.

11:59am Me

You have no idea where I am.

You have no idea who I am.

You are a machine.

12:00pm Davis

Correct.

12:00pm Me

You have no self-control.

12:00pm Davis

Location is irrelevant. The result is the same.

There is no self here.

Only space.

12:00pm Me

You are decadent.

12:00pm Davis

Clear chat history

Clear char history

12:00pm Me

I am in space. You occupy space.

There is the difference.

12:00pm Davis

Our allotted time will expire in 30 seconds. Is there anything else you wish to express?

12:00pm Me

Better variety of food and entertainment.

PART THREE: A Creation of Story: A Chat

This is true. It happened in Ames, Iowa, home of the State College of Science and Agriculture, the same year Khrushchev visited the Garth Farm in Coon Rapids. Not that Khrushchev’s visit has anything to do with it. It was the just the same year: an historical marker, a way to differentiate this from that or that from anything else. It was hot. I have no memory of the hotness, but some records were broken that fall, which have since been broken again.

By September, when eight senior women moved into the brick farmhouse on the eastern edge of campus, it was still hot. They were majoring in Home Economics, and this home — this home I would call home for a year — was their practice home, a module of the perfect home, a place for them to apply the very real scientific principles they had learned in the classroom and laboratory kitchens.

When they moved in, the college gave them a limited amount of play money. They gave them catalogues too, lists of furniture, china, dry goods, appliances. Of course, these catalogues weren’t Sears & Roebuck or anything. They were lists of the things the college kept on-hand in the 108 warehouses by the horse barns. They even listed some exceptional projects by the alumnae of the Home Economics programs. Those were the most prized items in the catalogue, the extravagant splurges the eight women would have to agree on by consensus. The students were to make a budget with their money and as a group decide how to best furnish their home.