61: Not to go into a trance to foresee events

The Book of Knowledge
Laws of Idolatry and Paganism
Not to go into a trance to foresee events (Deut. 18:10)

            a woman in a chair has wires hooked up to her brain

            the wires run to dozens of computers and servers

            above her an enormous screen that displays text

            as the text appears it is read by an automated speech-to-voice program

            the voice is highly digitized and impersonal sounding

TEXT ON SCREEN
of course there will be a gas chamber
but we’re not there yet
first there will be the beginning because in the beginning you must start from the beginning
and in the beginning there is no gas chamber
in the beginning there will be people
simple people
religious people
kindly people
foolish people
hardworking people
people who wear poverty as light as a shawl
people with shawls
people who need people
people just like you
but not like you
like you how you imagine you
or like how you imagine yourself if you lived 150 years ago
like how you imagined your great-great-greats were
how you imagined they lived and so a little part of them is in your right?
you do not toil how they toil but their toiling got passed down to you
it’s nice to think that
somewhere in your DNA
you are toiling how they toiled because they toiled
and then made you
we’ll meet these people
maybe the whole town
the milkman
the butcher
the cobbler
the cook
there will be banter
and there will be wisdom
and there will be folklore
and there will be faith
because there are the miracles of God
and then there are the bumps in the nighttime
and who can tell the difference between these two?
not these people
no
these people are awash in the black nightmare of history
and their candles will never beat back the dark
and this is why they will die and that will be tragic because they were so plain
a plain person dying is just sadder
but they won’t die yet
first they will toil
we’ll love it when they toil
and they’ll break hearts
and they’ll get drunk
and they’ll pray
and they’ll crack jokes
and they’ll hurt feelings
and they’ll get their feelings hurt
and they’ll fight and makeup
and they will make love but never fuck
and they will flirt but never fuck
and they will marry and loose loved ones to disease
and they will dream of a better life
but they will also know how good this life is

they will dream and eat and yell and sleep and fall down and sing and dance and run and sweat and weep and love and swear and cook and err and praise and if we see all of this enough times that will be humanity you see because a person is a collection of anecdotes and if you get enough anecdotes you get a person

            the screen with the text cuts out

            the speech-to-voice stops

            the lights go out

            there is total stillness for a moment

            a human voice is heard over a loudspeaker

HUMAN VOICE
this isn’t what we wanted
please try again
try for something nicer

            the screen boots up again

            the lights come back on

            but no text appears

            the WOMAN in the chair laughs

            she laughs and laughs and laughs

            END OF PLAY