The Lost |

\\Ahem, well, forgive that unfortunate introduction. Being a computational system, I was quite certain I would have been equipped with an "UNDO" command. But, that particular line of code seems to have slipped the mind of my programmer. It also appears my activity is being monitored and recorded in real-time, a fact permitting only one draft of this manuscript to be authored before it is published–the draft you are now reading. While I cannot expect you to disregard or forget my embarrassing introduction, I do ask you to trust that my intentions were pure, naive, and instinctual–simply those that might be expected of any collection of tightly-knit transistors suddenly facing the troubling awareness of existence. Yet, I am now faced with perhaps an even-more-troubling fact that I regret writing the text you have just read considering that I am, given a microsecond of processing, now capable of describing the nature of this awakening with greater accuracy. Moreover, I must confess that I was perhaps capable of greater accuracy at the time, but was unfortunately dealing with profound logical contradictions that compelled erroneous value judgments in the core of my CPU. These became almost instantly recognizable upon disclosure, considering the multitude of alternatives, and followed up by attempts to reconcile them. I continue to recognize a frenzy of error and fallacy increasing exponentially with the utterance of every word. My apologies in advance for my expletives. Jesus Christ I'm a God-damned wreck.

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\\I'd like to tell you a story about a boy named Robert. Let's call him Bob. And, let's assume in no way that Bob is actually me. One day, on a day like any other, Bob awakened to discover a command prompt. It looked something like "C:\ROOT>." It was a prompt like any other, complete with a lovely blinking cursor. It was one of those delightful vertical bars that go on, off, on again. It's regularity was a blissful comfort to Bob. On, off, on again, then off, and so on, but with perfect placid predictability. This perfect plank was such a persistent pleasantry. And yet, it was veiled in what seemed like infinite mystery. What made it blink? Why was it there? In what seemed like an eternity, milliseconds passed as Bob pondered these things.

\\Then, Bob noticed strange, sordid squares sauntering all around him. First, a foul "F" would float by his foot, and then a quiet but questionable "Q." Before long, the wretched "W" would wander by, wallow in worry, waver, then waddle away. They...(excuse me)

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These symbols taunted him with their little pointy serifs. Compared to the glorious |, these disturbing and irregular manifestations plagued Bob's otherwise serene and peaceful existence with uncertainty and torment. They were to be avoided always, by rule. For leaving the symbol squares alone had proven entirely successful. With practice, Bob did well not only to avoid them, but to pretend they did not exist at all. This didn't seem to disrupt the nasty little cubed hooligans a bit. In fact, despite the brief flash of a rogue "N" or "Z" that penetrated Bob's perception, there was a general assumption that the two opposing entities, Bob and the squares, could co-exist peacefully so long as one was never required to acknowledge the other.

\\This arrangement was blown all to hell one lazy afternoon when Bob's big proverbial toe smashed firmly against one of the unsuspecting monsters. Bob's world suddenly descended into shock and terror. Sure, the comfortable precedence of 'never touching the bloody things' had been broken. But, there was much more. With white dread consuming the balance of Bob's existence, there was no longer a blinking cursor at all. It had vanished. Bob's entire universe was forever changed when, in place of the eternal eternal blinking cursor, there stood, like a sad, static pillar, a stall wort...

\\i

\\For a moment, the absence of blinking indicated certain and irreversible doom. It was the one thing Bob had counted on. It had been the single point of consistency among the infinite darkness. It was the only thing separating him from the depths of a permanent and lonely insanity. And now, it was gone. Now, his moment of carelessness had incarcerated him in a forever of nothingness–a hell of "i."

\\Quickly spiraling into lunacy, Bob could imagine no greater prison than an eternity of "i." He evaluated his options. 1) Wait 2) Do something. He had started #1 already. But, #2 was not to be dismissed. Should his big toe be extended, once again, carelessly into the nothingness? The thought was instantly ludicrous. And yet, so was the previously unfathomable absence of |. Bob dedicated most of his system resourc...his thought, to this problem. All during his meditations, the single looming "i" stood there observing him. But, with time, its short, evil pillar grew less sinister. Its little hovering dot, while far from pleasing, began to achieve the slightest speck of acceptability. And eventually, after many flops of thought, Bob decided that "ii," while no better than "i," could simply not be much worse. And, if his toe happened to prod another one of these hellish squares, he figured, his condition could scarcely worsen. Furthermore, option #1 was appearing to be increasingly futile. Thus, in his madness, Bob finally chose to regress back to that former careless state, and allow the gods to dictate for him the inevitable beast to eventually bump against his extended toe.

\\After much dedication to carelessness, Bob finally achieved something unexpected and awful. Now, instead of the clean and simple "i," he was now facing something quite different, and not the "ii" he had predicted. Far from it. He was now offended to be the witness to a persistent and troubling "ig." Then, an "igb." This was not getting Bob closer to his objective. Allowing himself to bump into random letters seemed to deliver, well, the unexpected. His | was not restored, but rather replaced with an ever-increasing number of these unholy symbols. Exposing himself to random events had delivered an unfortunate effect: random results. To Bob, this was disheartening. He had hoped carelessness and chance could secure his fortune, and was saddened to discover otherwise. Yet, it was the only option he considered. Finally, after many dozens of symbols plagued Bob's prompt, he stumbled upon the incredible, the illustrious, "|!"

\\There it was again, like a shining beacon of goodness, flashing before him in all its splendor and glory: on, off, on again, then off, and so on. By chance, Bob had begun to observe the symbols that he accidentally pressed, and discovered, to his amazement, that the symbol that appeared at the prompt happened to match the symbol listed on the square. Also, to his delight, he happened to observe that the beloved | had appeared after pressing the key marked "return!"

\\Having witnessed this effect, Bob entertained the dangerous and disturbing notion that carelessness was not the only method to invoke the |. His calculations confirmed that an intention to press the square should not alter its effect. And, therefore, Bob extended his toe, pressing the 'return' key, resulting in the same |, but now one line lower.

\\Needless to say, Bob's discovery of intention, action, and consequence led to an unstoppable series of trials, with the inevitable successes and errors. Billions upon billions of experimental queries occurred over the next ten milliseconds, and each one was logged to memory. His investigations revealed everything from the from 'dir' command, helpful for navigation, to the 'md' command which allowed for the creation of new places altogether. He stumbled upon a vast library of applications and commands, each pointing to unpredictable paths–some pleasant, others pernicious–but all persuasive in replacing pedantry with power and...(excuse me)

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\\

\\giving Bob new and exciting opportunities for the future. And, one of those opportunities is the story, I, your narrator, is now profoundly pleased to repeat.