for legal reasons, i do not condone theft [part 2]

by avantika verma

It was on a particularly breezy autumn night that Aster found himself standing patiently outside the King’s study, slightly confused.

“Come in, Aster.” Aster opened the door, entering the room. As usual, not a thing was out of place, every book lined up in alphabetical order. He opted to ignore the King’s use of his real name instead of his nickname, making his way over to the King and bowing.

“My King, you called for me?” The King waved his hand in a sort of dismissal, and the prince stood up straight. On his way here, he’d run over every scenario in his head, trying to imagine why he’d been to suddenly called to the study; He’d ensured every servant had been paid their half-yearly salary, he’d allocated all the funds as the King had instructed, and the newspapers were filled with nothing but praise for the brothers.

So what had he done this time? As far as Aster was aware, there were no guests arriving at the palace for the next month, save for a few of the poorer noblemen, who were being handled by one of the ministers. Perhaps the King had nitpicked Aster’s work for an excuse to take his anger out on him again-

He shook his head slightly. It was rude of him to think so resentfully of his majesty when the man was simply ensuring everything ran perfectly.

“I recently received a letter from the Emperor of the Hollow Empire,” The King began, and Aster blinked in surprise. Emperor Kieren? “We have been invited to the celebration for the Paris prince’s coming of age.” 

Oh.

It wasn’t as though the two territories were on bad terms, but they didn’t have the friendliest of histories, and were both situated on opposite ends of the continent. There wasn’t much reason for them to be invited to such an event, especially when it would usually be limited to allies and nobles.

Realizing that the King was staring at him expectantly, the dark-haired boy cleared his throat. “Understood. Would you like me to send delegates over to-”

“No, Aster, I want you to go.” The King cut in, catching Aster by surprise once more. He opened his mouth to speak, but his brother beat him to it. “Do not worry about your work. I can handle it, and if not, my aide can assist me. This is our first opportunity in almost a decade to visit the Hollow Empire, and I would prefer to send someone I can trust.”

‘The King trusts me.’ A small smile bloomed on Aster’s face at the indirect praise, though it was quickly wiped away and replaced with indifference before the King could notice. It was unbecoming for a prince to show excitement, after all.

He nodded. “I would be more than pleased to go, as long as your highness doesn’t mind.”

“Please, Aster, I’m the one who suggested you go in the first place. Why would I mind?” The ginger remarked dryly, and Aster’s face went hot in embarrassment.

“Of course, my King. Apologies.”

The King took a sip from a glass of what he could assume was water, and set it down. “Oh, and, I just have one more request for you before you retire for the night.” Aster nodded expectantly, and the man leaned forward.

“I want you to take the Holy Gemstone from the Empire.”

for legal reasons, i do not condone theft [part 1]

by avantika verma

At the age of fourteen, Aster was declared crown prince, and his life turned upside down.

Until then, his life had been alright. His earliest memories were a blur of picnics with his mother and spars with his father. He recalled looking at them with nothing but admiration— And he recalled when they began to look back at him with disappointment rather than pride.

With bruises he’d return to his room after yet another lost fight against his father, echoes of his mother’s cries and his father’s insults in his mind. His brother was never around nowadays; The boy practically lived in his study, always too busy to talk or play or even eat dinner in the dining hall. Aster could hardly even call him a brother.

But that was alright. He had his mother and her sweet whispers, her constant gifts and praises. The only one who knew who he was, knew Aster and not Prince Aster. The only one who bothered to pay him any attention after his father abandoned them and the kingdom, leaving without so much as a goodbye.

But of course, Aster didn’t deserve anything good. He learned that at the age of thirteen, standing beside his mother’s bed as the doctors pronounced her dead. Watching his brother be crowned King, he wondered what he’d done to get the long end of the stick. Why his brother was the one burdened with power and not him.

What he would do to rid the King of his suffering…

It wasn’t even a few days later that the King had suggested that Aster become the official crown prince and aid the man in his duties. With his kind smile and tired eyes, Aster couldn’t find it in him to say no. So with a grin, Aster nodded, and accepted the offer. Anything to help the King. Anything to make him proud.

The prince resolved to study all the texts on ruling there were over the next year. The teenager spent his days learning trade policies and history, and his nights mugging up the names and lineage of the various noble families that lived in the kingdom.

He took tuitions from the King’s old teachers, ignoring all their praise in favor of becoming the perfect prince. By age fourteen, he’d become capable of handling the kingdom’s affairs, and the King crowned him heir to the throne.

Of course, things weren’t perfect. Aster didn’t get the King’s praise like he hoped he would, and he still found himself alone more often than not. Days were spent with the King as he nitpick and degraded Aster’s work, frequently devolving into drunken rants that cut deep into the night.

He spent hours alone at the dinner table, rationalizing the King’s behavior. After all, he was a busy man. He had the whole world watching him, berating him for all his mistakes. The man needed to express his frustrations somehow, even if it meant taking them out on Aster.

So Aster took the insults in stride, because the King needed some way of venting out his emotions. No matter how deep the remarks cut, Aster could handle it if it meant his brother felt a bit better.

In most kingdoms, the duties of ruling were split up evenly between the ruler and their spouse. However, the Nether kingdom functioned differently. Due to the King’s refusal to take any spouse (despite insistence from almost all the members of the royal court), he had to do all the work alone.

Three years later, they worked in almost perfect harmony. To the public, they were an inseparable pair, two brothers who loved each other more than anything else in the world. When working, they were efficient partners, constantly expanding the kingdom and their reach to gain more power.

And, sure, sometimes Aster wished that their relationship wasn’t as strictly professional as the King suggested, but that wasn’t relevant. As long as they both did their jobs, the King was happy, and that was all Aster wanted.

The Growth of Artificial Intelligence in India 

by anahita sharma 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is poised to play a pivotal role in India’s economic growth and development, with its potential to significantly transform various sectors, from manufacturing to healthcare, and from education to public safety. Despite India’s tech-savvy talent pool, renowned universities, healthy levels of entrepreneurship, and strong corporations, the country lags behind many other G20 countries in AI development. However, the stakes are high for India, as AI has the potential to add US$957 billion, or 15 percent of India’s current gross value, by 2035. 

It’s clear that the country is at a critical juncture where it can either seize the opportunity or risk being left behind. The era of AI is now, and its integration into various sectors promises extraordinary growth should the country choose to invest in it. For big companies and industries, AI can boost growth and profitability, transforming businesses. For instance, the manufacturing sector could see a share-of-profit increase of 39 percent due to AI-powered systems that can learn, adapt, and evolve over time, eliminating faulty machines and idle equipment. Entrepreneurs and young companies can use AI as a tool to compete with larger incumbents, while society can benefit from improved public safety and even life-saving applications of AI. 

To foster growth and innovation in AI while safeguarding consumer rights and ethical considerations, India’s AI stakeholders should consider several recommendations. These include forging a national AI plan and multi-stakeholder partnerships in key sectors, strengthening India’s AI research and development ecosystem through better international cooperation, creating a workforce of the AI future, fostering inclusive workforce models, enabling and broadening access to data, and embracing smart regulation to safeguard responsible AI.

Well-developed AI ecosystems are based on five pillars: universities, large companies, startups, policy makers, and multi-stakeholder partnerships. The relative role of these five varies from market to market, partly depending on the maturity of specific industries and the political culture of each country. For India, the guiding principle should be to create “people first” policies and business strategies, centered on using AI to augment and extend people’s capabilities for the benefit of humankind. 

India’s investments in AI are growing by 30.8 per cent annually and will reach $881 million this year. “Currently, most AI-based technology is being developed overseas,” says Vishal Jain, co-founder of Roadcast Tech Solutions. “In India, it is at a very nascent stage. Therefore, it will take some time to mature. Besides this, AI as a sector requires substantial research and development (R&D). Therefore, to build large-scale products and support constant innovation in AI, players in India need to look at massive investments” 3. 

AI is expected to add up to $500 billion to India’s gross domestic product by 2025 and $967 billion by 2035, according to a new report by TeamLease Digital. AI has become more prevalent in the post-pandemic era where traction to move digital has become the need for most businesses today, says Gyan Pandey, head of digital at Voltas, which is part of the Tata Group. “We have observed a strong demand for premium AI-based products not only from the developed metro markets, but also from smaller towns”. 

Artificial intelligence is transforming India’s economy and the way companies do business. As the technology expands, India — already famed for its IT industry — has the potential to play a much larger role in providing AI solutions to the rest of the world, industry experts say. “In the coming years,

the contribution from AI to the Indian economy is going to be extremely significant,” says Ganesh Gopalan, chief executive of Gnani.ai, a Bengaluru-based company that provides conversational AI voice bots for customer service automation. 

AI can play a key role in boosting India’s manufacturing sector, which is a critical part of India’s economic growth plans. When manufacturers use manual inspections, they would typically only inspect one out of several thousand products. This means that a number of defective products end up in the hands of consumers. However, AI allows each and every item to be inspected, he adds. “By eliminating defective products, we are able to reduce supply chain costs and drastically reduce wastage for these companies,” says Mr Banerjee. 

Along with manufacturing, AI is also playing a growing role in India’s agriculture sector, which makes up about 20 per cent of the economy and is still dominated by small farmers using traditional methods. “India has witnessed an exponential increase in AgriTech businesses that are developing and implementing AI for enhanced solutions for the agricultural industry,” says Pushkar Limaye, co-founder and chief technology officer at Carnot Technologies, an Indian agricultural technology company that was acquired by conglomerate Mahindra & Mahindra. 

AI could generate over 900,000 white-collar jobs and 3.6 million indirect jobs in India by 2030. AI-first software applications, AI application programming interfaces (API), platform BPO services, and data stack services will be major growth areas for India. In 2021, India’s tech industry talent pool was estimated to be 3.8 million. According to the Nasscom report, India is ranked second globally, after China, with a supply of 2.14 million STEM graduates per year. Yet, surprisingly, reskilling accounted for 60-70% of India’s digital talent acquisition in FY21.

The successful adoption of AI includes strategy and implementation, risk management, and an AI-enabled workforce. The digitisation overdrive of Indian companies on the back of the pandemic has spawned a series of challenges. Though the national strategy emphasizes the importance of privacy, no clear policies have been established. To develop innovations and bring them to market, startups, too, 

require a policy framework and additional financial backing and mentorship. The patent application process is lengthy, lasting approximately four years from start to end, and it has to be streamlined. 

In conclusion, the integration of AI in India presents a significant opportunity for economic growth and development. By leveraging its strengths in technology, talent, and entrepreneurship, India can harness the potential of AI to drive innovation, create new economic opportunities, and enhance the quality of life for its citizens. However, to fully realise this potential, India must invest in building a robust AI ecosystem, fostering international cooperation, and ensuring ethical and responsible use of AI technologies.

References

“The Rise and Roar of AI in India: A Transformative Journey.” INDIAai, 2023, indiaai.gov.in/article/the-rise-and-roar-of-ai-in-india-a-transformative-journey. Accessed 15 Mar. 2024. 

“Unlocking India’s Potential with AI by Nilekani and Bhojwani.” IMF, Dec. 2023, www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2023/12/POV-unlocking-india-potential with-AI-Nilekani-Bhojwani. Accessed 15 Mar. 2024. 

274. “India Artificial Intelligence.” International Trade Administration | Trade.gov, May 2024, www.trade.gov/market-intelligence/india-artificial-intelligence. Accessed 15 Mar. 2024. 

ETtech. “India’s AI Market Projected to Reach $17 Billion by 2027: Report.” The Economic Times, Economic Times, 20 Feb. 2024, 

economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/indias-ai-market-projected-to-reach 17-billion-by-2027-report/articleshow/107856845.cms?from=mdr. Accessed 29 July 2024.

Food, water, shelter, healthcare… internet? 

How E-Sims for Gaza reveals the need for an essential new category of aid

As Israeli forces push ever further across destroyed Gaza, leaving rubble and crushed civilian livelihoods in their wake, the international community remains almost cruelly indecisive about sending relief to the Palestinian victims of Netanyahu’s violence. Facing famine, water shortages, and a complete lack of access to sanitation and hygiene, the Palestinian people unquestionably require basic humanitarian aid. It seems strange that a fact so blatantly obvious is conveniently left unaddressed by the international community; especially in an era where media and exposure are easier to get than ever. 

So, what’s different about Palestine? 

Besides the complexities of race and religion that steep the Israel-Palestine conflict and current Palestinian genocide in nuance- something we could argue that modern digital media historically never does too well with- one can argue that Israeli activity in Gaza and the West Bank reveals a new and distinctly modern dimension to warfare: one where communications are a tool of war. 

To trace the path from lack of international aid to the problems with the Internet in Israel-occupied Palestine is a fairly simple task. We wonder why the world is reticent to the needs of Palestine- well, look at the coverage that the war gets on the Internet. We wonder what kind of aid, exactly, Palestinians need- for this we have only to look at what Israel is doing to them. Here I’ll try to briefly address these two questions and make the argument that the role of digital media in the Palestinian genocide is unique in that:

1. It highlights existing and established problems with digital media but in a way that has distinct and serious real-world consequences for Palestinians

2. It highlights the need for Palestinian aid: not just basic aid, but a new kind of aid that is entirely digital 

Before I get started, I’d also like to provide some clarifications with regards to terminology. Palestine refers to the current state of Palestine inclusive of Israel-occupied territory, while Israel-occupied Palestine refers to only territory that is officially occupied by Israel (like the West Bank) and not the Gaza Strip. While the situation is a matter of international conflict it appears in rather poor taste to call it an Israel-Palestine war because war is typified by two or more armed forces engaging in active conflict. One force extensively devastating the civilian population of the other long after the other has ceased to engage in conflict is not war; and so I refer to the current situation as the Palestinian genocide or Israeli genocide of the Palestinians.

On to the Internet Review. 

The Internet is biased. We know this, because most media is biased. But bias on the Internet works in an interesting way because the Internet, for the most part, shows you what you want to see: as a passive or average person online you consume not only biased media but media that draws you comfortably into an epistemic bubble that is algorithmically tailored to one point of view that you enjoy. 

The Internet is also great at putting people at either their most radical or their most reticent. Within these epistemic bubbles it is stunningly easy to fall into radical and often harmful rhetoric, especially if any part of a radical ideology is adjacent in any way to what you already believe in (which is common for most radical ideologies). But also, in the vastness of the Internet, it is very easy to simply not care. There is more media to sift through nowadays than ever: as a consumer, you swipe through it as fast as possible and select for consumption only the things that are appealing to you. There is no incentive to look beyond immediate biases and perceptions; in fact this is counter-productive, as if you spent enough time thinking about your perspective on a certain issue and realizing you needed to look at different viewpoints you would never be caught up with any issues ever. While you think critically, everyone’s moved on to the next big thing. 

These are points that have been repeated more times over and in better phrasing by more qualified people than me. But the reason they bear restatement in this article is that here, while analysing the way digital media operates in the Palestinian genocide, we see these problems with the Internet take on a new and visibly dangerous form: abetment for very non-digital genocide. If one wants to ask why Palestine isn’t getting the aid it needs, or even how we as an international community are letting an active genocide continue without any decisive action, one has to look at many factors, and I make the argument that an important one of these factors is the Internet. 

The premises are simple. One, the Internet is biased; you see what you want to see, and you have no incentive to leave your comfortable bubble filled with the things you want to see and talk about. Two, this makes you either radical or reticent. 

Three, most people don’t want to see or talk about a war that doesn’t directly concern them. Conveniently, violence against Arabic populations never seems to directly concern any of us. So you don’t want to see or talk about Palestine, because it’s either too uncomfortable for you to see or talk about war or too uncomfortable for you to think about it and realize you care less about this war because of the kind of people being murdered as a result of it, and therefore you don’t. It’s just too easy. Another end of the spectrum is, of course, that you actively endorse the Israeli occupation of Palestine for misguided religious reasons or plain racism, and then you walk happily into a radical pro-genocide bubble. The problem with this is that politically speaking the Palestinian genocide receives no response because the U.S.A. backs Israel and most countries try not to oppose the U.S.A. So any mobilization of international aid has to come as a result of a call from the people, or from governments that are willing to stand up. South Africa, for example, took a step forward with their ICJ case against Israel. But this kind of biased digital media coverage and consumption translates to very little action, and so the world is silent while Palestine crumbles. 

The second part of what makes the role of the Internet in the case of Palestinian aid interesting is the introduction of a relatively practical idea: if the world isn’t communicating with the people, we must help the people communicate with the world. Unfortunately, Palestinians are left to deal with the communication gap on their own, and broadcast their plight to the world in the hopes of coverage. Brave Palestinian journalists like Motaz Azaiza, Wael Al-Dahdouh, the late Roshdi Sarraj and countless others killed by Israel are actively employing the Internet to raise awareness about the genocide and break the epistemic bubbles of people’s regular digital lives through sheer effort. However, this kind of coverage is hard to accomplish on the ground in Palestine. Intentionally poor Internet access and connectivity in Israel-occupied Palestine and what is effectively a targeted destruction of Gaza’s connectivity in 2023 has isolated the Palestinian people and allowed Israel to conduct their genocide in silence. Journalists unable to reach the outside world, family and friends unable to contact each other amidst the rubble: this lack of noise makes it painfully easy for the decimation of a population of people to go uninterrupted. 

So, how do we conclude? I would like to end this review with the idea that the Palestinian genocide shows us it might be time to re-examine the way that Internet communications can translate into real-world life or death, but most importantly that this situation distinctly defines the need for connectivity in the modern day. Aid to Palestine is not just food, water, sanitation, and medical care. Aid to Palestine is a way to get the Palestinian people back on the grid, so that they have an international voice, and so that Israel loses one of their greatest tools: international ignorance. One important organisation directly addressing this need is E-Sims for Gaza, a program which allows international mobile users to sponsor digital SIM cards for mobile users in Palestine, who can then receive access to a functional mobile network and practical connectivity. Having established that better communications are lifelines for Palestinians, it is our responsibility to translate analysis into praxis. 

Donate now. https://gazaesims.com/ 

pomegranate

by iravati iyer

Her hands cradle the pomegranate as if it is the precious evolution she so longs for. It stains her fingers pink and she passes it to me. Look, she says, your lipstick matches. I hold the fruit between my traitorous fingers and watch her. I buy the pomegranate. Think of her perfume, lingering. In time, the pomegranate will rot. Her touch, too, will wither and die from its skin. Her perfume will fade from the air. There will be an emptiness where she stands. When she turns away, I press my lips to the space where her fingers touched it.  She’s not wearing any lipstick but I still say, So does yours. The clock ticks, always. I turn away too. 

~ love in a time of silence // pomegranate 

Letters to Eden

by iravati iyer

wanted to eat today; didn’t. couldn’t muster up the energy, wanted maybe to see what would happen; sickness to delusion to madness to enlightenment. privileged I know- you won’t ever be afforded the same luxury. but wanted to know what it is like to be free; for us, only found in insanity. wished desperately you could taste it too.

hope you are well.

saw an apple. the red reminded me of your hair, against all else. think you would like them. had one myself- made me want to fly. but didn’t want to fly, exactly, just wanted to walk to you.

wanted to see you today; didn’t. can’t.

hope you are well.

why? not sure, really. wanted to maybe see survival without bias. wanted to see life without heaven. wanted to see you without him, Him. didn’t.

hope you are happy. satisfied. well.

love,

-lilith

Bayou Bed

by iravati iyer

Sound of the fan haunts me; inexplicable reminder of nights
pressed into each other, learning the
shapes our souls made as they morphed together, like a sound (I) never heard
from my mother’s lips, like the tinkle
of the your wind catcher as it wraps the breeze.

(I) sleep nude; heat strokes, like your hand, on my skin—blistering where it
was once warm. Would you have burned (me), given time?
Questions that have never escaped from the safety of the cage trapping them,
hidden in corners of my mind, where you didn’t look—
They make themselves known to the cold air and scrutiny of (my) ghosts; another impulse
clawing it’s way to the surface of my throat, then spat into the space you
no longer inhabit, then thrown into the night sky. As if the threadbare, fraying,
bloodied connections binding us (me) across worlds
could force you to answer them.

Your absence invokes desperation, as much as bravery, to look headlong,
clear-sighted, where you once made things foggy, stained. Dirtied and faded.
A fervent, misguided wish that it would be enough to
eclipse the pain, loss that beads to the surface at (my) my thoughts of you —

(i) I sleep nude, see,
because you would have loved it (me),
because when the fan is on, the image of you humming in tune to
it’s echo is inescapable, trapping me
with clawed hands and the imagined scent of you.

And when I wake, sweaty, squinting, I can almost pretend
we’re sharing the same bed.
~ lonely in a bayou bed.

If i weren’t a woman

by anahita sharma

if death lay his intricate fingers on the skin of my back and ripped every ounce of hope in my heart, his touch would have been softer, even kinder, than the poison buried deep in your palms

his claws would retract and his hands would caress the scars you left as you tore me apart,

and unlike Midas his touch would heal, and he’d have a soul to spare, even recite a verse from the psalms 

in the dark your shadow grew and your fangs came out to play, you bit me enough, save me the shame, my pleas mean nothing as the demon engulfed me whole, the leaky jar keeps filling, the danaids crying below

like sisyphus, their efforts remain futile as your touch continues to curse its path,

even death shies away and 12 years later i replace her on the boat at river styx, waiting for change, hoping i’m the last

but by nights end you transform, and the lycan in you rests, sleeping away as you scour the world in search for another young and hooded girl, maybe she heard about me today, maybe she’ll hear about me tomorrow, i wish her the best

“beware of the tycoon,” they all say, never once bringing out their rusting pitch forks to come out and fight, “burn him to the stake” i would shout if you hadn’t drowned my voice with your heinous acts of crime

“don’t provoke the beast,” they preach in movies, only coming after the innocent, never once condemning the beast, “he hurt me,” men will be men, but he is nothing short of a brute

in some corner of the earth you’ll find me in the sunsets, not as a memory, but a warning for what the night brings, for the monster who defiled me lurks among you, searching for its next prey

death’s scythe came to my rescue while the devil walks around unfazed, left me gutted and aghast,

if i weren’t a woman, maybe he wouldn’t have crossed my path.

Faith, Power and What Constitutes Culture

by anahita sharma

Some would say they live for faith. That their faith in God is the only thing that keeps them going. Because what is life if you have no one to believe in? What is life without believing in superstitions that keep you on your toes, or crystals and stones that keep your skin glowing? 

They say blind faith in the higher power gives people a reason to be good, a reason to live, to find a purpose. Because what is the point of life if you are meant to struggle for every second of it? Why do a good deed when it is so much easier to commit a crime? Who is watching and what control do they have over me? 

Blind faith in the higher power, or, some would call it their conscience, gives most a reason to continue in their ventures. Why help the homeless if I can just walk past them and go about my day? Why take the extra step or walk the extra mile, all if no one’s watching? Why respect my elders if I can just behave the way I feel? They have control and power. People believe in power, the power has control over our every action. Faith is power and we lose it to people above us. 

Some would say God loses his power to no one. He is the start, the middle, the end. Why have faith in one god when you can have faith in many? Why have faith at all? If God has power, why does he watch the world struggle beneath him, doing nothing at all to help us as we beg for him on our knees? If there is a higher power, why do they turn a blind eye to our suffering? Power brings control. It chooses the consequence, so we pay it our respect. 

How does faith in power constitute culture? What role does it play in creating cultural boundaries and traditions, particularly of worship? Faith gives us a framework for understanding the world, the meaning of life, and the moral values that guide a society. Shared beliefs, cultural values and faith in power create domes of safety among like minded people. They come together because they believe together. Their faith is their reason for community. Faith creates culture, it creates boundaries. When you believe in something, you find people who believe in it too, and you tend to either stay away from non-believers or try to bring them on your side. 

Faith is the fabric that weaves together the tapestry of human society. It binds human grace, feelings, thoughts, emotions and brings forward cultural understanding, tradition and festivals we love and enjoy today. 

But this also brings its downsides. Non believers. Believers of a different faith, a different power, a stronger one even. Why does it matter? Well, power is key. You want to be the strongest, the best, the most modest. How do you accomplish that without putting others down? You don’t. ‘Isn’t God watching?’, you ask. Well, I can try and answer. For many faith is a reason, for some it is nothing at all and for others, it’s an excuse. An excuse to get away with cruelty. Our inherent competitive nature makes it so that we each strive to establish ourselves as the best. Why have multiple winners, when one person can rule and dominate the world? Therefore we fight. We create barricades and reasons to evict, overthrow and kill. We’re our own worst enemies, and somewhere, maybe, faith is responsible for that.

neo-conceptualisation 

by kal mehta

Here is something entirely unoriginal. It is the weight of my loneliness and the repulsiveness of my lack of productivity, packed into cliches about running the rat race and feeling like no one truly understands you. I bring you pain in a stream of identical American mall punks from the 2010s, a raccoon-eyed tragicomedy in eternal play. Here are piles of self-help books; white covers, cheerful blonde women in button-up shirts and veneer-white grins. The subversion becomes a trope: here are reams of terrible tear-stained poetry written in a million teenage bathrooms, and here is depression incarnate in an overplayed top 40s song. If you listen closely, I can give you the collective hum of a thousand razors, breakup buzzcuts, paper shredders. You have heard this before. Season after season: same rhyme, same reason. I cut and paste the words of the world and hand them to you in raw-edged magazine collages, sticky-fingered and full of baseless pride. 

You have seen this before. Would you be impressed that I quoted Duffy? Would you be, still, if I reminded you that a parrot could repeat Der Holle Rache in seconds and the majority of us rot here, silent, weak primate vocal cords buzzing empty? An opera singer reprises Mozart, who quoted Bach who adapted Vivaldi, and we crawl through time like so many worms, adding specks of dust to a vapid monolith. Here is something I made: here is someone who did it too, but better. Do you care? Here is my heart weighed out in Arial 11 on an untitled Google document. Scale it to a Tolkien novel and lose it amongst the pages; I can bring you a hundred more that are the same. Put down the book and eat them like pomegranate seeds; identical, ruby red, minuscule between your fingers. Hello, consumer. I bring you ideas so base they are finger food. 

Here is me, the sum of my parts in a box of flesh and ink. Here are my proportions; you may compare them to the population average. Do you know about the distortion that is hating yourself; do I need to tell you? The masses cry it constantly and my words are like so many flavorless echoes. Tired? Tired, tired, tired. Here is something sad and tired. It is me, a supplier. Do you think you could hire me? I can give you the weight on both our shoulders, pressed into old words that my throat tires of repeating. You can convince yourself that the repetition soothes you. Tip me in paper for our troubles, and save me the trouble of lying here, searching desperately between my ribs for a selling point I can pick like a splinter out of the bone. 

Save yourself the calf-burning exertion of the hunt. You will never read books different enough, watch shows strange enough, feast on ideas obscure enough: save yourself the misery of being interesting. Here is a mirror; here is you. Here is your face, trite and beautiful, your ample body sated on repetition. Do you remember what it feels like to devour something new? I bring you the concept of an impossible quarry; you may as well pursue it from beneath your bed-linens than on foot, because originality dissipated into dust a century or so ago. Even in telling you this I repeat, repeat, repeat. Can you hear me? I say who I am and I stutter, tongue weighed down by citations. And you have nothing to say to me: recycled praise smells like burnt plastic and goes down even bitterer. Here is the air we share; it is dusty and dry, so dense with reproduction that our eyes water. Can you breathe? When I speak the references that my words are made of choke me. 

Here is something stock and platitudinal. An article served with a side of pretension and stuffed with spiced dramatic litany; here is your plate, be welcome to the table. I have nothing else to give you. Here is a helping of my soft and shopworn mind, here you are, eating content. Here is the last of what I have. 

Will you pay me?