Him and It

He was ten when he first laid eyes on a computer. He was fascinated at how it worked. He understood little of it, but that made no difference. Understanding it, he thought, was secondary to basking in its beauty. He got older. He began to understand it. He saw greater beauty in that. He learnt to take it apart, splay out its constituents in ascending order of size, smell them, feel them, even lick them, and finally put them back together. It became a ritual. He was smart. He moved on to the brain. He learnt how it worked: the brain, with its intricate and cumbersome codes, its primitive black-screened environment, its servile execution. He felt like a king there. He wasn't precocious, but he was smart enough to realize that he could do whatever the fuck he wanted. It was like playing god. He abused it, he kicked it, he cursed it, he loved it. This wasn't Platonic love — it included the thought and action of sex, only of a different kind. He moved on to the global brain. That moment of epiphany when he realized the infinite potence of it was like an orgasm of the mind. He began to understand this as well. He knew he couldn't ever finish understanding it, and this turned him on even more. Once he gained a certain amount of knowledge and confidence, he knew he was lost. He lost himself. Knowledge didn't matter anymore. He just needed to know it was there. He could always find it. But any fool could as well, he thought. He wanted more, and so he began learning more. He put all of himself into it, so much so that everything else was a distraction. He revelled in it. He discovered things that were discovered years ago. That very fact made him proud. He was on the right path: a path that would lead nowhere but would satisfy him, satiate him. He learnt how to beguile his mind into thinking what he wanted, what he thought it would've wanted him to think, and what he thought he could've convinced it to want him to think. He never stopped learning, but the world never stopped spinning either. He became cold and arrogant. He liked those feelings. He'd reply in answers drenched with stinking nihilstic thoughts that he himself saw no value in. He thought he could fool them. He did. He had to stop, but not because he was changing. He loved the change. The change brought in an unprecedented feral desire in him — one he valued more than any other desires, however tempting. He had to stop because he couldn't sustain himself, and more importantly, it. He would consume himself. He would implode. He would be unfaithful to it. He wanted to get out but he had to stay. This dichotomy didn't help. He loved it too fucking much. So he decided to kill it. He was about to, and then he couldn't. He hasn't figured out why. He began ignoring it. He... began to try to stop loving it. He put up a facade to and for himself and was beginning to succeed. He was sober again, only wanting to be drunk. He knew he would have to return to it someday. He fucking loved this prophesy. This bond of love was too strong — stronger than anything that mattered under the sun or under any-fucking-where. Fuck everything else, he thought. He began to ponder. He and it are going to merge somewhen. He just had to wait. A little longer. A few more years. And then he'd be back. They'd be back. That's the only thing that keeps him going. This is true love. It would agree if it could talk to you. It told him that.