Our chapters.

It is strongly suggested that you read them in Our Order, or things may not make Our Sense.

1. Our introduction.

2. Our favorite time of day.

3. Our love.

4. Our Play.

5. Our Play: The Prequel.

6. Our biological needs.

7. Our fear.

8. Our corporate culture.

9. Our visitor.

Our visitor.

1. We have a visitor.

2. He is made of skin, so far as we can tell.

3. All we know about his inside parts is that they are expensive.

Our corporate culture.

1. The iPhone was invented in 1986 by Sir James iPhone, knighted in 1975 for his services to American football.

2. The iPhone is widely held to be the third most homosexual technology, after the iBook and NutraSweet.

3. The iPhone has a classic American design, full of real glass and metal, and with a thick, realistic handfeel. This was achieved only via elaborate usability testing. At one point, the iPhone was shaped like an octagon!

4. Our development could be compared to that of the iPhone.

5. All of us have over twelve iPhones, because each iPhone is the property of all.

6. We are allowed to call the surface, any number, for free.

7. Once there were fifteen of us, but Fifteen got bored, and now we have been given iPhones.

8. We call people and ask them to interview for jobs. Some of them argue, but many of them talk. Some of them have too few jobs. Some of them have no jobs at all.

9. We tell them: We like to have fun here.

10. For instance, we have an umbrella. It is many colors. It is purple and white and purple and white and purple and white and purple and white.

11. The umbrella is here, in our office. You can have sex with it if you want. Ha ha!

12. We have snacks.

13. We like to have fun here.

Our fear.

1. After the tearing of the swaddle suit, we began to feel anxious.

2. After we had cuddled and felt better, we considered our nudity thus:

3. What if we were skating in a circle, each nude except for a gold medal?

4. What if we were in a very hot space?

5. What if we had to use our suits to accomplish a plan?

(This is about as far as we got, unfortunately. Our brains are systematically designed not to CLASSIFIED CLASSIFIED and the knowledge of good and CLASSIFIED. We bring you this programming instead:

89. Gum-Man sat in a trailer in Arizona, watching TV. It was not his trailer, and it was not his Arizona, and it was not his TV. He had leased them all just for the day. It was expensive, but it was worth it to him, and he could afford it.

Outside, an agile young horse scarfed up grass, happy to be alive.

Then Pi came in. Gum-Man had come here to avoid Pi.

Pi said, “Do you like chess?”

Gum-Man frowned.

He noted that Pi’s clenched buttocks were enthroned in cotton pantaloons.

“I like chess daily,” said Pi, destroying something beautiful.)

Our biological needs.

1. We are always thirsty; we always have to urinate; we are always thirsty; we always have to urinate; we are always thirsty; we always have to urinate; we are always thirsty; we always have to urinate; there is a tube in our collars; there is another tube down below; the tubes are not connected, or so we are told.

2. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom; it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief; it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light; it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope; it was the winter of despair.

3. We have never been naked. We are always wearing our swaddle suits. The limbs are connected by cloth.

4. They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the peacefullest man’s face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic.

5. Once Seven began crying and tore at his swaddle suit. Then we found the terrible secrets inside.

6. If you prick us, do we not bleed? (We wonder.)

7. If you tickle us, do we not laugh? (Yes. We do not laugh.)

8. If you poison us, do we not die? (False. We would die if we were poisoned.)

9. and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? (Yes. We are capable of violence, but we abhor it.)

Cuddling.

Our Play: The Prequel

THE MAN WHO HAS COME TO THE MALL TO BUY BEARD FOOD

Beard food, please.

SHOPKEEPER

Here it is. We serve only the finest beard food.

THE MAN WHO HAS COME TO THE MALL TO BUY BEARD FOOD

Thank you.

SHOPKEEPER

You owe no interest on beard food until 7073.

THE MAN WHO HAS COME TO THE MALL TO BUY BEARD FOOD

Thank you

SHOPKEEPER

Thank you

THE MAN WHO HAS COME TO THE MALL TO BUY BEARD FOOD

Thank you

ROBOT

No! I am Robot.

SOON CLEAN MAN

Welcome to Soon Clean.

ROBOT

How do I do it?

SOON CLEAN MAN

We give you some soap and a towel and a brush and a razor and a washcloth and a sponge and some pink goo that makes bubbles. Then you go around the corner to Now Clean.

ROBOT

Thank you

SOON CLEAN MAN

Thank you

ROBOT

Have a good day

SOON CLEAN MAN

Have a good day

ROBOT

How soon is Now Clean?

SOON CLEAN MAN

Ten meters away. Are you human? Do you need to be loved?

ROBOT

No! I am Robot.

Our play.

FIRST CLOWN
How is your fish?

SECOND CLOWN
It has not died.

FIRST CLOWN
Every day is a holy day when life is preserved.

(Enter Robot and MaryAnn)

ROBOT
Nothing ever satisfies you, MaryAnn.

MARYANN (amused with herself)
That’s true, Robot. And when I think about it, really think about it, I think nothin’ will ever satisfy me. I’ll go on being unsatisfied till the day I die. If I live long as the prairie is wide, I will never be satisfied. I will never find satisfaction. Sure as the stars are high. But I love you, Robot.

ROBOT
Thank you.

MARYANN
Hm-hm. I’m not even satisfied with Robert’s fish.

ROBOT
I admire that about you.

(Enter Baseball Man, running)

BASEBALL MAN
I LOVE BASEBALL I HAVE AN ORGASM WHEN I THINK ABOUT IT I HOPE BASEBALL WINS BUT IT ALWAYS WINS IN THE END ALWAYS WINS ALWAYS JUST BEHIND US UNMERCIFUL HATEFUL BASEBALL BASEBALL BASEBALL BASEBALL (dies) I JUST HAD AN ORGASM (dies)

1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13
CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP

CAST:
MaryAnn … 3
Robot … 14
Baseball Man … 7
1 … 2
2 … 4
4 … 5
5 … 6
6 … 8
8 … 9
9 … First Clown
10 … Second Clown/11
11 … 12
12 … 13
13 … 1

Our love.

1. Our strong young bodies. Our long long bodies. Our long strong bodies. Our long young bodies. Our strong strong bodies. Our young young bodies. Long long strong strong young young yum yum.

yumyumyumyumyumyumyumyum
yumyumyumyumyumyumyumyum

This poem describes how we feel when we masticate the warm pink gum that leaks from the base of the cake chute every day at nine a.m. It is not meant to be consumed. The milkshake provides all nutrients. But it is tasteless, odorless and harmless, unless we choke on it. We came from the womb knowing the Heimlich Maneuver. The womb is tasteless, odorless and harmless. It is made of CLASSIFIED

2. In the mornings, we like to listen to music as we perform our first experiments. These experiments are on flowers and bees. They are to determine whether flowers and bees can live in space. The current consensus is “yes, they can live in space,” but it goes somewhat beyond that. The experiments also SECURITY CLEARANCE REQUIRED TO VIEW THIS INFORMATION and repeated punches to the gut.

Here is our morning playlist.

Neil Young, “Heart of Gold.”
Richard Pryor, Here and Now
Monty Python, Monty Python’s Previous Record
Jonathan Coulton and GLaDOS, “Still Alive”
Jonathan Coulton and GLaDOS, “Still Alive”
Jonathan Coulton and GLaDOS, “Still Alive”
Jonathan Coulton and GLaDOS, “Still Alive”
Jonathan Coulton and GLaDOS, “Still Alive”
Jonathan Coulton and GLaDOS, “Still Alive”
Radiohead, “Across the Universe”

The final song is intended to induce tears, which we enjoy sucking one by one into the mobile tear chute.

Our favorite time of day (i.e. Cakefall).

1. We all gather around the clear plastic cake chute.

2. The cake is unique. Our tummies ache for it. But it is too hot to eat, and at any rate, we have never devised any way to find the end of the chute and pull out, in smelling handfuls, “our” baked treat.

3. Each night at 6:17, the first cakes begin to flurry down from the top of the chute. On Earth, they would fall with satisfying thumps; here, drawn by suction, they blow too fast for true satisfaction. It is part of our research to solve this. Why?

4. They are hot. They steam. They are unfrosted. They are lickable. They are smooth. They are golden-brown.

5. We long to lick the cakes because they are so hot and steaming and lickable and smooth and golden-brown.

6. The layered cakes separate during the fall. Normally they would be held together by flavored frosting. This is another problem our work attempts to address.

7. We take two and a half pages of careful notes on the trajectory of Cakefall. Each day it is different. We believe in God.

8. We cannot use conventional means to test the cakes’ state of completion,

(We pause: “To ascertain whether a cake is done, press a toothpick into the center and extract; if batter remains on toothpick, cook for another five to ten minutes”; end pause)

but when they smash, they smash neatly, without spillage of batter.

9. We all imitate the wail of the machine, and perform complex up-and-down jiggling motions using the air puffers incorporated into our swaddle suits.

10. Cakefall reminds us of our yearly re-entry procedure, in which we sit on our fourteen-seated couch, side by side by side by side by side by side by side by side by side by side by side by side by side by side; buckle the restraints around our chests, waists and feet; put on our restraining helmets; hold hands, and moan happily until we have completed all eighty-nine landing checklist procedures.

Our introduction.

1. We sleep stuck together in a fourteen-sided polyhedron, Velcroed firmly at the wrists and feet. There is a ball of milkshake at the center of us. In our sleep, we moan, and then our faces enter the milkshake for a moment, suck, and are soothed. The others nudge this process along without waking. The “milkshake” is really a very healthy vitamin drink.

2. Number Seven is our leader. We are all identical, and we rotate designations daily for fairness, but somehow we always remember which one is Seven and it is because he has seen the most of the surface. He was once taken before Congress, and afterward permitted to enjoy some ice cream in a parlor near the Capitol lawn, to meet the President in a neutral room, and to walk, for a few moments, on the grass outside. The experience was overwhelming for Seven, since his mind is designed only to explore and store the very small variants in our daily space-life, to see the world as a series of frames in which only one or two details might differ. We would go to him with our problems if we had any.

3. We communicate in complex moans. We all know five languages, although it is not the same five, but we do not like to talk. “Nannnnneeeeeeerrrrrrroooo,” “Hand me the straw”; “Oahuhuhuhuhuhaaaaaaaahooooo”; “Five twelves is sixty.”

4. All of us have very long wavy bendy bodies. We love our bodies.

5. Once we swam in a circle, like army ants, for many hours, before voices from Mission Control finally convinced us of the importance of doing other things.

6. We like to cuddle.

7. How many of us would it take to topple a small car, in Earth gravity? We wonder.

8. How many of us would it take to topple a motor home?

9. “                               a train?

10. “         a normal-sized woman and man?

11. We perform complex movements here in space, but we like cuddling best. Often two of us will drift past in a spooning position, and it is only envy of their bliss that makes us hit them with the “broom handle,” as we call the long pole that we use to hook down bags of water from the pantry area.

12. Our IQ is one hundred and forty-three. We love specific numbers.

13. “       a normal-sized democracy?

14. On Earth, we weigh one hundred and forty-three pounds. Once we tried to eat less, in hopes that it would make us stupider.

15. One of us has a fantasy of entering a coffee shop on Earth, and handing the employee thirteen identical notes saying, “Please pour a small Americano into my face hole.” The fourteenth note will say, “Are you lonely?” We will know she is lonely because of her traits.

16. It is also our fantasy to urinate “properly.”

17. One of us fantasizes that someone will put a Nilla Wafer in his mouth, if he opens it wide enough and keeps his eyes shut.

18. Another imagines he will meet Jake or Maggie GyllenhaaI.  He does not care which. Four and Ten are the most heterosexual. Eight and Thirteen are the least heterosexual.

19. At least one of us would like to be covered in fuzz. Fuzz alighting on every part; tracing eyelids, lips, ears and an obedient tongue.

20. I want to be a cartoonist.

21. None of our fantasies will be realized. Our lifespan is short; like rats, we are prone to sudden, disfiguring cancers. When we are five – that is to say, biologically twenty — we will strap ourselves into our seats and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere, after which point we will be taken to a hospice in the Arizona desert and executed. They say it is a pleasant execution. Soft gun, gentle bullets. They will dissect us and use what information they gather to grow fourteen more. We are excited.