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Once upon a time there was a little meme. For a short time she was shared, and people gazed upon her and smiled, and she knew something like love and attention.
But also within a short time the same ones who loved her grew tired of her and as quickly as she had been popular, she was discarded and forgotten, cast aside to fade and die.
Where do forgotten memes go? The lost and unwanted remnants of cyber history? Well, sometimes, the few, the lucky, find their way to a dark, twilight place far beneath the city; a strange, abandoned realm where tiny forsaken cyber creatures find consciousness... in the room beneath New Albion.
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Far under the city lies a room where once, great AIs lived and conducted experiments and journies into time and other dimensions. Though the AIs are gone now, most of them lying in scraps and pieces around the dark cavernous room, there are things that glow even now, and odd otherworldy energies hanging silently in the air, leaks from doors never properly closed.
Thus it is that little silicon and metal creatures crawl about the floor and walls of this underworld, this after life of forlorn and neglected cyber information.
Creatures:
Crawling in the black, little larva writhing, gnats
and bugs of metal, plastic, that live out our lives in the black
we're born and grow attract a mate of silicone and brass
and die and generations pass down in our twilight vast
Life in vast dark caverns black,
a twilight world we try to grasp
we wish and long, until at last
we decompose, our moment past
In our vast dark room of night a wolrd of our own
species made of broken parts wake and crawl and hope
in our realm of shades and echoes, love and fear and war
play out in abandoned room beneath the city's shores
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Meme:
Good morning my dark twilight sweethearts
that crawl on the walls of your cave
Good morning things sweet that weep in the deep
And wake to a dim, sunless day
Good morning writhing ballet
It was here, in the dark room with small dots of light and strange crawling things, that the little forgotten meme found herself. She gained consciousness in a tiny little scrap of what had once been a great, metallic spider, alone, unloved, and discarded.
Meme:
Good morning my dark twilight sweethearts
That grow never knowing the day
The small things obscene that glow and that dream
Who lost in the shadowlands ache
Good morning crawling parade
Movement was difficult and it took her days to find other scraps of small, disregard pieces of junk which she attached to herself bit by bit until finally she had built herself a hideous and deformed little insect like body, but one with which she could crawl around competantly.
Meme:
Good morning my dark twilight sweethearts
that crawl on the walls of your cave
Good morning things sweet that weep in the deep
And wake to a dim, sunless day
Good morning writhing ballet
While the other strange, non organic creatures here were content to remain in the great underworld and slowly evolve hives and odd, unimaginable biosystems, the little forgotten meme wanted something inconceivable to the others: love. So one dark, black day she started her long, slow journey out of the room and up through the labyrinth of tunnels, until she eventually reached the bussling city above.
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Meme:
There’s a city they all say
That’s seen its share of times insane
but it marches with a twitch or two
onward through its days
its streets glow in the dark
hybrid things live in the park
a counter culture, folks with cyborg alterations gone too far
the best flash mob that's around
who appears all over town
a group of acapella cockroaches that sing for startled crowds
there’ s two holographic ads
who they say may have gone mad
just like bonnie and clyde fell in love and gone bad
this is the time of lights and neon
this is the time of talk and tech
this is the future come to dine tonight
like an unwanted guest
this is the time of screens and marvels
this is the time of cybersex
this is the rave you wont remember
these are the days you wont forget
rumors say that deep beneath
a second city lives and breathes
where there live luddite albinos and a dazzling red haired queen
but the tunnels have been searched
and just a dark stone gate unearthed
but you must ingest a drug and then walk through it for it to work
the best hacker here for sure
is known as chezehor thirty four
and vile, vicious people on the dark net they destroy
criminals that he's brought down
have tried in vain to track him down
but his real life name is Nicholas and he's just a mouse
this is the time of cyber wonder
this is the time you cant resist
this the sweet online addiction
that gives you that cybernetic kiss
this is the time that you were dazzled
this is the time that you were blissed
this is the lonely morning after
this is the time that you cant miss
an atheist religion reigns
the fashion industry these days
all the models and designers are all members so they say
their rituals provide a way
to switch gender every day
and binary identity renounced in every way
there's a boy who's been kicked out
from the college hereabouts
for garish flesh enhancements and extreme mutating cells
he dreams he'll find a way
to rewrite your dna
change your form, your shape and brand new biospecies thus create
this is the time of lights and neon
this is the time of talk and tech
this is the future come to dine tonight
like an unwanted guest
this is the time of screens and marvels
this is the time of cybersex
this is the rave you wont remember
these are the days you wont forget
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The poor little meme was lost in the great city, small and fragile, and so terrified that she would be stepped on. Paralyzed with fright she might indeed have been trampled had not a passing stranger picked her up, a strange man dressed in purple.
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The little meme decided it would be safer it she was above the street, and so she climbed and climbed, higher and higher up a tall high rise. She could see inside all the lit windows, all the strange lives of the people within. She was still climbing when the sun set and darkness fell.
Meme:
hanging high above the world
catch your breath and dont look down
the fall just waits so ever patient
the quick red kiss upon the ground
Geek Chorus:
little lost meme do you dare to dream
for the soft warm touch for the sweet warm things
do you wish do you ache do you wait one day
for the love from a tale of the far away
little lost meme do you dare to dream
that a song of lvoe will be yours to sing
all the hearts that soar well they also weep
in a world that wears away all things
Meme:
Crawling upwards towards the starlight
hoping all is not in vain
In the center of a small apartment was a girl sitting in a large chair. Wires and tubes ran in and out of her arms and the helmet on her head. She sat lifelessly, head limp, staring out into someplace that was not here. She was the most beautiful thing the meme had ever seen and the meme worked her way into the apartment so she could be near her.
Meme:
hanging high above the world
catch your breath and dont look down
the fall just waits so ever patient
the quick red kiss upon the ground
Geek Chorus:
little lost meme do you dare to dream
for the soft warm touch for the sweet warm things
do you yearn do you ache hope to learn one day
if the strife of life is not in vain
little lost meme do you dare to dream
that a song of love will be yours to sing
all the hearts that soar well they also weep
in a world that wears away all things
Meme:
What silent voice of yearning beckons
calling out to us again
The little meme sat watching the girl for days. A few times a day the girl unplugged for a short time, but mostly sat in her trance. Over time the meme grew bolder and moved closer, finally climbing onto her lap. The girl would sometimes even absentmindedly pet the little meme, unaware of what she was even doing, lost in a distance cyber reality.
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Meme:
the lost sometimes stare with a look in their glare
an emptiness few can perceive
i've known that abyss but the abyss cant know this
this moment i see what i see
there's prophets and poets whose wax ever on
of things both transcendant and free
but silent they'd be and down on one knee
if they saw what you look like to me
the cynics will sit with a bite in their wit
for the hideous natures that breathe
and all of it's true but then you are true too
they do not see what i see
there's tunes short and long and some sing a song
for beauty's elusive and fleet
but silent they'd be not daring to breathe
if they saw what you look like to me
i see you there and i freeze and i stare
with my heart and my breath lost to me
you'd think me insane were i to explain
how beautiful you are to me
i wish that i knew who it is that is you
we could laugh and we'd smile and speak
i'd comfort your pain add delight to your day
if you saw what you look like to me
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The longer the meme stayed with the girl, the more she noticed the girl, Rebecca, was unplugging less and less. In fact she was slowly wasting away and would eventually die. The little meme entered the net to follow Rebecca and try to lure her out.
Online, Rebecca spent most of her time in an elaborate, expansive, online gameworld set in an Arabian Nights scenario.
Rebecca had an avatar name Tess, so the little meme created an avatar named Vadvi and slowly befriended the girl. The two of them became very close, traversing the mythical gameworld together.
One day the two girls professed romantic love for each other. The little meme was unspeakably happy, but she also knew that if Rebecca were to ever see her in real life, her ugliness would destroy their love.
Meme:
The sweet swirling spells in the desert
the glamours and genies we meet
the carpet that flies in the twilight
her smiling and here beside me
The curses we work to unravel
The lands of enchantment we seek
immersion in storybook forests
Her smiling and here beside me
Late into the night we lay talking
We comfort and laugh and we weave
A quilt of connection, desire
Her smiling and here beside me
And if we are lost in illusion
And all is enchantment we see
A wonderful world of delusion
So sweet is the lie to believe
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I’m often surrounded by strangeness
Realities hard to believe
Longings I haven’t the words for for
Sadnesses most will not see
All this might pass in a moment
All might be gone next we speak
But for a brief time there was magic
And her smiling here beside me
And if we are lost in illusion
And all is enchantment we see
A wonderful world of delusion
So sweet is the lie to believe
Despite the little meme’s bliss, she couldn’t help but become aware of the game’s sinister undercurrent. The game world functioned as a subtle psychic vacuum, drawing some in further and further until there was no return. Rebecca was almost at this point. The little meme begged the girl to stop the journey before it was too late, but Rebecca just laughed. She passed a gate too far and as the meme watched, her love slid away from her. She called out, but her voice was fragile and small. So she too leapt past the gateway, to follow her love to their doom.
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Deep under the city, in the great, dark room the little meme had crawled out of, the odd, ever evolving biosphere had produced a species of cyber schistocerca. It possesed a hive mind that was born connected to the net, and found that its growth and evolution could best be fed by feeding on human consciousness. Thus it had co-opted certain corners of the net, creating traps whereby unsuspecting human psyches could be caught and caged like cattle, whilst the species fed upon them and grew.
Rebecca and the meme fell into just such a cage, where Rebecca was to be devoured by the hungry creatures. The meme wrapped herself around the girl, to protect her.
As the creatures came to feed, they paused.
Creatures:
you are one of us we see
why are you in the cage
step aside and leave us to our dinner for this day
Meme:
a distant music
there’s a beauty that’s elusive
in a world the vulgar reign and reek of
your hunger sated soon by others lost and wayard
leave this one she’s all that i love
Creatures:
you are foolish little meme
and we desire to feed
step aside and leave us to
our meal which we all need
we must feed and we must grow
you should understand
stay with your own kind down in
the sacred twilight land
Meme:
a distant music
there’s a beauty that’s elusive
in a world the vulgar reign and reek of
your hunger sated soon by others lost and wayard
leave this one she’s all that i love
Creatures:
you are foolish little meme
and so all alone
step aside or face our wrath
we'll chew on this one's bones
They laughed and came at her.
Memes are passive things, mostly unpossessing of consciousness, except in rare cases. But they are many in number. So very, very many. And the psychic residue they absorb from their amused hosts is incalculable.
The meme cried out into the net, calling to every other meme that could hear her cry. From across the great expanse of cyberspace they responded, a massive swirl of psychic residue pouring forth. And with this voice, the meme spoke again.
Meme:
a distant music
there’s a beauty that’s elusive
in a world the vulgar reign and reek of
your hunger sated soon by others lost and wayard
leave this one she’s all that i love
you cannot have her
you'll cannot take this one
you cannot have her
she is all i love
The psychic typhoon formed a great tunnel, and as Rebecca clung to the little meme, she found herself pulled back through the vortex, past the game and finally into the waking world where upon her lap sat a strange little metallic creature; a little frankenstein like rodent, that gazed up at her with love.
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