• we got no sun
    we got no moon
    can't call it ours
    can't see it no time soon
    we got no hope
    we got no love
    we only got these wires
    and systems
    mechanical gods from above.

    we got no sun
    we got no moon
    but he tells me:


    'that's all gonna change real soon'.




    The above poem is what inspired me to write this little diddy. i wrote both the poem and the story. please, enjoy.


    JUST BECAUSE WE CAN FEEL;;



    Sun.

    That was my first word at birth, or so my system tells me.

    Sun.

    I don't know what the sun is though(What does it taste like? Feel like? Warm? Cold? Soft? Bitter?). Sure, I have seen the sun splashed in its many states of rising and falling on my walls. I have seen it as the moon (another thing I truly do not know)slide before it's glowing face and watch the fringe turn red. I have seen the sun set over desert, over forest; over sea. I have seen it rise between mountains and across plains. Any way I wish to see the sun, I can see it. I could, at any point, raise a hand and with the snap of a finger, pause the sun and have it be midday for two days. Any way I want the world, I can have it. I can see the world any way I want.

    I can see it. Any way. I. Want.

    Yet, I have never truly, until Beeth, considered wanting anything beyond seeing. I never thought about smell or taste, nor touch. Before Beeth, I needed no such senses in my room. My system gave me all the visual pleasure I needed, and kept me satisfied; under control. My system told me all I needed to know, and in return for my obedience, she (for my system is my mother; some sort of female idol of primitive times) gifts me with all the world as it is. As she says it is. My system tells me what to see, and I see it.

    But I never smell it, never taste it. And perhaps, until Beeth, I never heard it. I never heard life. Only the gentle hum of my system running her programs behind the reflective vid-walls of my room. Only the padding of my own vibrantly pale feet as I pace my room; touching the walls; imagining the feel of grass. The soft drum of my fingers on the screens as I think. The inhale and exhale of my lungs, and the beating of my heart. These are the sound I hear. But, after my chance meeting with Beeth, I am learning to imagine sounds. I imagine that wind through grass is like Beeth's gentle sigh as he sat next to me in the hollow white halls. His sigh becomes the wind in my mind, and I demand my system play me fields of wheat, with a gentle northern wind blowing.

    Beeth's sigh is the wind.

    Thunder is his laughter, booming, crashing and shattering the silence of my mind as I watch the storms on my ceiling. And the rain.

    The rain is the touch of his fingers across my skin.

    It is soft and sharp, just like his touch had been during that single moment we were together. It hurt at first, the gentle brush of his fingers against my arm. I had never, even in infancy, been touched by human hands. No one touched any one. We rarely came from our room(some days I wondered if there was anyone else). But Beeth was different. He had large hands and while his face was as paper-white as mine; he still seemed alive. Vibrant and colorful. He greeted me that day, and urged me sit next to him in the empty hall.

    And touched me.

    Light caresses against my skin, but still they were too rough, and I jerked away. But still the feeling left in each touch's wake was the feeling of warmth; a curiosity I had never felt before. I knew temperature, but never had I felt cold or warm. So when he touched me again, I let him. I relished the sting and tingle of his touch, and my body warmed quickly to him. He taught me things that day. He crawled into my mind and opened my brain. He urged me to think, to express; to imagine. To feel and smell and hear and taste.

    To see is to believe, says my system.

    To feel is the know, says Beeth.
    To taste is the have, says Beeth.
    To hear is the hold, says Beeth.
    To smell is to be free, says Beeth.

    I believe in Beeth.

    I stare at the rain as it flashes across my vid-walls, and I run my fingers over my arms, shuddering as I press down hard. My skin purples quickly under my ministrations, and tears p***k my eyes, but I feel this and in feeling it, I know things my system does not know. I know many things, like pain. Now I know pain.

    "System," I whisper, my eyes never leaving the trails of purple that mar my canvas-skin.

    "Yes?" the voice is not voice like Beeth's. Before him this voice sounded sweet and motherly, warm and alive and more real then anything. But compared to his laugh and his words and his touch, my system was nothing but metal. Her voice is sharp and calculating and holds no love, no need for me. I am a duty, a charge to be cared for and then removed when done with. I feel ill to the stomach, and pull my shapeless, bland blankets to my chest. I feel like I must protect myself from her voice now.

    "I want flowers."

    The vid-walls shift, and it is like a child has smeared their hand across the screen. Colors whirl and shift and fall away. Then there are flowers. All kinds of flowers. Beeth's breath, the wind, whispers cross their beautiful petals. I move slowly off my bed, and scoot over to the far left wall. I press my hand to the screen. Flowers--no. All beautiful things smell like Beeth. They smell like him. It is not an explainable smell, because I have never smelled anything before. But I imagine he smells like beauty and laughter and touches. So must flowers and birds and the ocean. All things pretty. They smell like Beeth.

    "System," I croak, my eyes filling with tears. Why am I crying? It hurts, and I have never cried before Beeth. But now I cry as I look at the flowers. I want to be the flowers. I want to feel Beeth's breath whispering over my petals; over my skin. I want to feel his fingers dance across my skin, like the rain. I want to smell like laughter and beauty. But I cannot, because I am afraid if I see him again, I will find out that I cannot take all of him in. So I cry. I cry because I love this man I met in a hall, who taught me how to touch, how to hear, how to smell. How to taste.

    "Turn it off."

    The darkness envelopes me, and I crawl to my bed, and pull into myself.

    Taste.

    Beeth's last gift to me was taste.

    The taste of his lips. It is a special gift, he says. I don't give away taste to everyone. I let them have feel, smell, and hear. But not taste. Taste is special. Do you understand, Eurem? You are special, because I will give you taste.

    I remember his taste. Because it tastes like freedom. He told me of freedom. And he tastes of it. It is a taste that I will always hold close. I will never let my system know of taste. She can learn of the other senses, but never taste. Taste is something I will keep to myself. I press my skeleton-fingers to my lips, and kiss them. Kiss. He taught me that too. Taught me kiss when he taught me taste. Kiss is special. I kiss my fingers again, and then trace my chest, drawing a heart where mine beats. And I lock the memory of kiss and taste away in my heart.

    And then I sleep.

    There is no morning or night here. It is what ever I demand it be. So I cannot say I awake in the morning, refreshed and alert. I can say that I awake, and that my system has displayed my favorite sun; one that peeks between two twin mountains. This sun is golden, but the clouds around it are pink. The mountains seem purple, and majestic. I look at this sun, and I close my eyes. I imagine warmth from the sun, and I trace my hands on my skin, softly like Beeth did, and I am warm. I am a basking lizard. I am alive when I close my eyes. Alive when I imagine.

    "Do you wish to sleep more, Eurem?" my system asks, and I open my eyes as the pictures starts to fade. I feel anger towards her. Does she not get what I am doing!? I wish not to sleep, but only to imagine things. But of course, she would not understand. She is only a system, wires and hard plastic. So I slip from my bed, my feet slapping against the there-but-not-there floor. I can feel no heat difference between my skin and the floor. It is like walking on solid nothing.

    "No, system. I am awake."

    The world on my walls brightens again, but I do not pay attention now.

    Last night I dreamed of touch, of Beeth, and I need him now. So I leave my room. It is easy to leave, there are no questions asked, no demands, no orders. Just me walking to the right-side wall and pressing forward.

    He is there, in the hall. Beeth. He looks at me, with eyes the same dark empty color as mine; only not empty. His are vibrant and alive; alert. I rush to his side; dropping to my knees. I register pain, and my bones scream at the impact, but I am to busy with taste.

    His lips feel soft and hard and I am crying as I kiss him; little sobbing gasps. He places his hands on my hips; my papery shirt blocking us from truly touching. He kisses me back, and I taste his freedom and I love it. I am eager for more. I want to take of my shirt, take of my pants, to curl up into him. But when we stop kissing, he does not demand me take off my clothing. He only looks into my eyes. And then he kisses my nose, and my forehead, and my hair. He is leaving.

    I smell leaving. It is the opposite of beauty. It is cold and sad and it hurts me and I am crying. I sob and I grab his hand. I tell him he can't leave. He tells me he has found freedom. I tell him he is freedom. He smiles and thunder crashes from his lips again. He laughs at me, and I am confused. Why does he laugh? But then he takes my hand, and helps me to stand. He removes my shirt, and my pants, and then slips from his own clothing. I look at him. I do not understand anatomy, but I understand that we are the same. I look back into his eyes, and he kisses me as our eyes meet.

    There are hands, and there is freedom. I no longer smell leaving. I smell passion, which is beauty intensified. It hurts, what he shows me. I scream, and the hall swallows my voice, and throws it back at me. He covers my mouth (gentle but firm), and after a while the pain goes again. I can't breath even though I am gasping for air and I am beyond warm. My heart is breaking because it is going so fast and then something happens. I drop off into blankness. I see stars and I hear wondrous noises; noises I can't explain. I come back slowly, drifting through ephemeral darkness until I am again surrounded by stark white, and he is leaning over me. I touch the moistness of his skin and he tells me 'Sweat'. I register it as 'love'. This moistness and this smell and this feeling. This is love.

    He kisses me again, and then helps me to my feet.

    The pain is horrible, but I cherish it, because Beeth gave it to me.

    "We are going now. You and me. We are going to be free."

    I look at him, and he smiles again, "Will you come with me, my little paper-doll?"

    "Of course," I whisper, and take his hand. I am warm and we leave our clothing behind; I only glance back once at the white walls and the white doors and the white lumps of cloth we left behind. And then he pulls me to the left, to a crack in the white. It is black, and brown, and he points up. I look up, and see a small pinprick of light. He whispers 'freedom' into my ear. I realize that that pinprick of light is the world. The real world, which is full of sound and smell and life and I cry.

    We climb the tunnel he found, and as the pinprick gets bigger, my skin itches. I ignore the feeling, because I can taste freedom. But as we go higher, it starts to hurt. It is like the hurt that Beeth gave me, but worse. This hurt does not become pleasure. But Beeth moves on, and so do I.


    The world.

    It is empty. There are no flowers, no trees, no mountains. But there is sun. And there is heat. And I feel free, and as my skin burns and I cry and as the pain takes me, I look at Beeth, and he is laughing. He has his arms raised high, grasping at the sun, and as my eyes burn and go black and I can no longer see, the last image I remember is that of my favorite sun. The one with the mountains. And it smells like Beeth when we love each other, and it tastes like freedom, and sounds like his laugh. It feels like his hands.

    I remember that moment, and then I sleep.

    A long, forever, but free, sleep.