by Tzen Long Goh

Created on: October 30, 2008   Last Updated: December 04, 2008

Title: Strange Times

The epitaph read, "The end of free will." He was walking across the cemetery in front of the building. Willie staggered towards the old abandoned skyscraper. There were still voices in his head. This is nothing new. As far as he can remember, his nanny told him, these voices came from radiowaves floating in the air. "Radio interference," she said. They interfered with his thought processes. He simply attributed it to that internal voice of reason, or "unreason", depending on how you look at it.

He had been walking for miles. One of the sole surviving humans, or so he thought. Just the other day, he awoke from his hospital bed. The clipbook in front of his bed mentioned his name and clearly stated in the the scrawly writing of medical practitioners of a bygone era that he had been in a coma.

The first few days were an ordeal. he could scarcely walk. Long disused muscles were weak and he landed on the floor with a loud thud! There was rotten food on the floor. Feeling ravenous, he bit off some of the good parts.

Now, someone was talking to him. - maybe an artificial intelligence. They have lots of these agents nowadays, running around all over the place. Basically these functioned as utility agents, performing a variety of tasks, usually in aid of decision making, or so it seems. Directional guidance, buying choices etc.

Coaxing him to walk towards the lift door. he had been walking for several miles without encountering a living soul. Strangely, he felt uplifted. he could think clearly for once. and walking across the vast expanse of space, he felt alive again. The warmth of the sun on his face, felt so real. he never used to like the sun. But he was compelled to be grateful. Now that is free will, he thought, the freedom to think, to express, to love, to feel, to sense, taste, talk, and move without interference, unhindered. Strangely he couldn't access his full memories, little bits of fuzziness. vague images, but he could think better, more clearly, and he felt alive again.

He could now do all these things. But there was still a permanent feed in his brain. it's kind of chopped up his thinking, and mixed it with nonsense syllables, sometimes making sense, sometimes senseless, always confusing him, kind of like what you read in the the "Babel incident", when men broke out in different tongues. But he didn't care, and he can't speak in tongues, but he does know that, there is confusion, and there is interference.

But he had been walking for miles

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