[1031] in Central_America
When the old man died
capsalad@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (capsalad@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Sun Nov 6 01:40:23 1988
I was reading the words of Central America, reading what the people wrotem, when I saw a band of light flicking eagerly over the rim of the horizon, waitingto tell me what might happen next, waiting to tell me what time it was. I
watched, listened, sat. It let me type for a while.
Shadowed now, the bars at the edges of my screen had rolled into the
image of a smile, a disquieting and cruel smile. I waited, unhappy. People
had smiled at me that way before; people mostly occupy center screen but some
few hide along the borders. I thought I heard a clock ticking.
When at last my laboratory report was finished: scriben, scripted, gone;
The lighter band on the horizon brightened, rolled right to the middle of my
screen.
I rolled left, blinking.
Central America was drained dry. There was nothing left to write nor reead.The machine quieted to a bored hum, and the source of the merriment jarred me
suddenly, dropped like a soft heavy cloth from the roofbeams. My wristwatch
had stopped while I'd begged the time from a sophisticated box with no face
or eyebrows or teeth to help it smile. I'd let myself be lied to.
My watch had stopped. Never to go again. I feel now both comic and
tragic, a game for the Machines our servants.
I was there when he died, but I didn't see him go. I was looking at the
center of my screen, the Center of America.
