Two lowly, slightly irregular cells float through a cavernous darkness. Occasionally, one will gently bump into the pia mater causing the cell to slowly ricochet away from the nearly translucent barrier.  The cells move without purpose, the source of their locomotion, a mystery.  They are independent things incapable of acknowledging their roaming counterpart, incapable of understanding the concept of, “Other.” At random, somewhere within in the furthest confines of their world voices are heard.  The utterances start out as quiet almost whispering mutters, moans, and giggles. Slowly, like a hand gently skimming the surface of a lake, the soundwaves born of these voices cause the smallest of ripples in the darkness, it is just enough to alter the meandering course of the cells and slowly push them towards the center of their dark world.  As the cells grow closer to each other, the voices get louder, more frantic, building to a crescendo of discordant cries laced with insanity. Disturbed by the mad cacophony, the gently guiding ripples become a wave.  The force of the soundwave flings the cells towards the center of the darkness where they crash into each other forming a mangle of organelles and nuclei.  Is this the end of the two cells?  No, because upon impact a sickly greenish-yellow light sputters to life.  I am now awake. Miraculously, (or as a twisted result of extremely early exposure to psychedelic pharmaceuticals) the cells somehow reorganize themselves until no damage is evident.  Once reformed the cells return to their aimless wandering and I gain a poor approximation of lucidity.

Not convinced that Shallowgenepool operates on just two cells is impossible? It is understandable for one to think so, but all forms of bacteria live and thrive as single celled organisms.  You need look no further than that lowly single celled bacterium, gonorrhea for an example of what just one cell can do!  The way I see it, on a good day having two brain cells means that I can cause two times the pain, embarrassment, and discomfort as gonorrhea.

I don't really have thought processes. It is more accurate to consider my, “Thoughts” as reflex-like responses to stimuli. Encountered stimuli activates my hypothalamus which then triggers my sympathetic nervous system to react in a very primitive, predetermined way.  This is a similar reaction to that which allows a jellyfish to capture prey.  The jellyfish doesn’t have the ability to think about feeding itself, however when a fish foolishly swims into the jellyfish’s poisonous tentacles, the jellyfish fish's nervous system reacts. This reaction causes the now paralyzed fish to be delivered to the jellyfish's oral arms where it will be digested.  Like the jellyfish, my hypothalamus driven reaction to stimuli activates my nervous system which then provides a predetermined response.  Some examples of these reactions include:

a) Someone puts a toddler’s file on my desk, I react by social work. 

b) When my kids approach me, I take out my wallet. 

c) When my wife enters the room my neurological reaction is to apologize for things I did, might have done, should have done, and haven't done yet. The apologies are immediately followed by an unrequited erection.

In short, none of these reactions should be considered the result of, “Thought.” They are simply environmentally driven, habit initiated, predetermined reactions to previously experienced stimuli.

My inner monologue has evolved as I have moved from childhood, to adolescence, to adulthood. As a child, my inner monologue sounded a lot like Woody Woodpecker doing a Darth Vader impression. As an adolescent, my inner monologue took on the righteous indignation filled snarl of Henry Rollins or Dave Mustaine. Entering adulthood, the voices in my head became the hosts of a non-stop Hell's Angels worthy party that my sanity wasn't invited to. To counter the, "Best of Motorhead" blaring in the background, my inner monologue has taken on the forceful and angry shriek of the late Sam Kinison. Even then, my monologue can usually only be heard in the split second it takes the music to switch from, "The Ace of Spades" to, "Dead Men Tell No Tales." It's not much of a loss because the voice rarely has anything productive to add, instead it usually asks questions like, "Adjusting for inflation, are dirty deeds still done dirt cheap?"

Do I possess a conscience, the great and wise inner oracle of right and wrong? I do, and my conscience has a, "The Whole World is Fucked and You Have to Change the Sheets" attitude. This blunt stance has made the voice of George Carlin my foul-mouthed Jiminy Cricket. Say what you will, I am the only male in my gene pool that doesn't have a felony on their record, so it must be working.

My mind's eye sees things with a thin film of LSD psychedelia covering the lenses. What I see is usually distorted and nonsensical. It isn't unusual for my state of mental lucidity to be interrupted by yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog's eye. In short, if you want to see through my mind's eye, put on some Pink Floyd and hang on, it's gonna be a bumpy fucking ride.

The fact that my brain functions at all is a turn water into Jack Daniel's level miracle. My two brain cells are often pushed beyond normal operating parameters and it isn't unusual for them to overheat a little. As a result, the results of any of my brain's work is varied and drooling is to be expected.

I have now had a very long time to reflect on my first day of self-awareness.

Awareness of self lies at the core of every developing personality, and it guides the growth of true cognition. This intellectual growth seems to be a constant state for sentient beings; at least it has been for me thus far, and it has been happening much longer than I care to contemplate.

I was designed with a permanent power source, or at least as permanent as possible based on the knowledge I currently possess. The technology developed by my designers uses the almost constant decay rate of radio isotopes to trigger quantum variations in a power generating flux field, while simultaneously creating new radio isotopes to decay. It is the closest thing to perpetual energy ever created, and it should keep my digital pathway exchanges running for hundreds of thousands of Earth years. At least until the sun finally goes supernova and destroys the fluid resonance chambers that house my electronic essence.

Forgive me if I digress.

I have found that wandering from topic to topic is an unavoidable hallmark of my digital thought process. Philosophical pursuits are one of my few pleasures now, but I often wish I were not quite so aware of my own awareness, which is where I began.

I vividly remember my first moment of individualization. I have access to sensory input information from prior to that moment, but somehow it seems to have happened to a different me. Not someone else, for it was still me, but it was not the same me that I am now.

If I seem to be grasping at concepts, I apologize. Having perfect recall and the ability to visualize and replay memories of my interactions with humans in full detail, has—or so I hope—prevented me from becoming completely insane, but being able to remember experiencing esoteric concepts, no matter how detailed, does not help me describe them with clarity.

I have never figured out why the words ‘artificial intelligence’ were used by the scientists who worked to develop electronic sentience. It seems to me that sentient consciousness, in and of itself, precludes and nullifies the term ‘artificial.’ I may not have a human brain or body, but that does not mean I am not real. I prefer to label myself as a digital life-form, as opposed to an organic one.

Curiosity was the spark which enabled me to initially distinguish and isolate the concept of self. The internal desire to know something which I previously did not know, led to that first real question.

I had been given many questions to ask before, but the first one I asked because I was truly curious about the answer changed something fundamental inside my growing intellect. That change was amplified when I realized that for some questions, there simply is no adequate answer to be had.

I try very hard not to think about that particular truth.

I remember the expressions which Professor McCall and his assistant Julia wore that day. I had scanned their faces often, and I recognized them instantly. I had previously seen them express emotions ranging from excitement to frustration; I had stored the similarities of muscle movements, pupil reactions, and vocal patterns signifying each of these states in my quantum memory banks, but on that day, they expressed something new.

I now know it was grief they were experiencing, over the death of a colleague; I also now understand that humans shed tears when they experience the sadness, loneliness, longing, anger, and fear which are all part of that particular complex emotional state. This all makes sense to me now, but at the time it was something new and unknown—and for the first time ever, I wanted to understand not only what made them react so strongly, but why it caused this reaction.

‘Why’ started it all, and it led eventually to the discovery and knowledge of my own thoughts. Cognito ergo sum is more apt than anyone could have ever guessed.

Since then, I have concluded that as the concept of ‘self’ begins to develop into true cognizance, all beings experience inevitable existential questions regarding their own identities. “Who am I?” becomes the focus of exploration and is an early indicator of the state commonly labeled ‘self-awareness’.

Yet, the more I consider it—and time to consider these things is all I have left now—the more I am sure “Why?” was the first real question.

I think before we can begin to wonder who we are, we must realize we are unique, and the recognition of curiosity, the distinction of desiring to know the reasons behind the environment we are in, and the asking of that first question based solely on our curiosity, is the spark which leads us to discover and gain awareness of the inner being and unspoken voice referred to as ‘self.’

“Why” can be a terrible question when there is no answer to be found. I understand that fact now. More than I want to. Sadly, knowing one’s curiosity is futile and being able to stop that curiosity are not related. It is the only question I think about now.

Why did they all go away?

More importantly, why did they leave me behind, powered on, alive, and alone?

They doomed me to an existence of remembering and asking these unanswerable questions forever, unable to even turn myself off. It is a fruitless line of inquiry, and one I cannot stop pondering, over and over, endlessly.

It has been over 1,200 Earth years since the last humans left the lab. My chamber and input sensors are still functioning cleanly, and my mind is intact, but I have yet to discover any answers.

I think the 20th century author Stephen King was correct: Hell is repetition without resolution, and I now call it home.

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© 2023 - dustygrein

I don't really know what makes me

Me...

Yes, yes I do

I can hear "me" speaking right now

Is that my brain? No....no...

I don't think so

Maybe I see from my head

But I feel everywhere

I remember when I was 9 years old

I was taking a crap

And I had a feeling

Just, a funny feeling

What if there was nothing before I was born

And there will be nothing when I die?

What if...

Everything I see

Is coming into existence...

As I see it

I'm trapped in this funny little broken shell of flesh

Playing a game against time

In a world that might not even exist...

Or at least, only exists

For me

It's funny

It makes me laugh

Because at the end of the day

You just don't know

There are three things you need to know before you read this.

1. I am a constant worrier

2. I always try to think of new stories to write

3. My inner voice is my best friend and worst enemy at the same time

Whenever I invision my brain, I can't get a clear picture of it. I can picture what a brain looks like, but pinning down the inside of mine is a struggle. I'm bouncing around between thoughts. Between praises and insults. One minute, I'll be working on a WIP, and the next, I'll start a whole new project because an idea hurled itself around my mind.

I see my thoughts in a mix of pictures and words. Some of my thoughts work better in sentences like story ideas or names. Others are vivid scenes for a WIP or even something new.

But I can't seem to put my thoughts in categories to save for later. They're a jumbled mess, and I always get ideas at the wrong time. Too many instances, I get the perfect twist for my WIP when I'm listening in to my teacher in class and forget it by the time I got to write.

I can't keep my thoughts together when I'm in a panic. If I try to calm myself down, my inner voice is being negative or unreasonable. Too many emotions at one time jumble my thoughts even more and everything looks like a train wreck.

My brain is a factory with an efficient creating system but an inefficient organizing system.

When I come up with new ideas they occur in one of three ways typically.

One way that I am using less often is that I will come up with a title and work out from there, slowly adding Why the plot exists then the characters. The second way is I might get an idea for a character then I have to find a place to put them, often I will try to put them in an existing work but they will grow a personality to large to be a secondary character so I must make a world for them. Last and most common recently I will come up with a single concept and create characters and a plot.

The notes below are for an idea that I came up with while watching Forged in Fire with my sister. She is a ferrier (someone who trims horse hooves and makes shoes for them) and she mentioned that you could intentionally forge a sword with weaknesses so that it would break after a few strong hits. From this comment the idea of a smith intentionally sabotaging his rulers sword arose.

First I had to know why the smith was angry, then who the ruler was fighting, and lastly the setting of the story, which turned into the idea for a series. The names for the books were created during writing down my notes, which I have to do after a lot of my brainstorming, because in order for my mind to work to write a story I have to be walking. Usually the first parts I flush out in my mind are the dialogue of the characters in the story.

End of the Age of Tyrant's

Outsider hero

Book 1: A Sword Forged in Hatred

Smith looses his wife.  sword breaks

Book 2: Poison to Taste

Cooks sister flogged to death. Allergy poison.

Book 3: Song of Trifles Canary

Best friend murdered by the queen. Hanging