We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

The Forgotten Meme, A Cyberpunk Fairytale (Fp1)

by Paul Shapera

supported by
maggie may not
maggie may not  thumbnail
maggie may not Sometimes all I need is to listen to Kerttu sing sweet little love songs (for which I assuredly am not too hip or jaded). Favorite track: If You Are Too Hip And Jaded For Sweet Little Love Songs We Pity You.
jesslindsayfowler
jesslindsayfowler thumbnail
jesslindsayfowler The Meme is adorable! And I love the music. And Han Mi is such a great storyteller. I love seeing how much New Albion has grown and changed with every visit.
And I love how Raven just pops in for a moment and then goes on his way. Favorite track: No Point In Being Extra About It: New Albion 11.
Mladen
Mladen thumbnail
Mladen This is my go to album for lifting my mood. Whenever I felt remotely down, this one was there.

Keets is just wonderful throughout and the music transcends the rules and constraints. Everything is just magnificent and wonderful and makes my heart tremble. Favorite track: When Your Mom Warns You To Cut Down On Video Games It's Because She Loves You.
more... more...
/
1.
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.
2.
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
3.
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.
4.
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
5.
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.
6.
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.
7.
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
8.
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 … 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.
9.
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.

credits

released June 30, 2018

Featuring Kerttu Aarnipuu
www.youtube.com/user/CelinStar

Narrated by Han Mi
courtesy of Psyche Corp
www.psychecorporation.com

Cover by Shibara
mapaolo.carbonmade.com

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Paul Shapera Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Cama’s attempt to commune with higher beings failed; she only found Decadent Dottie. Together they roamed, indulging in dangerous forms of psycho-neural self-exploration which Cama hoped would present the key to her people’s further evolution. It only led to her destroying her people so that one of their pets could evolve. She sat in her former civilization's rubble and listened to Paul Shapera. ... more

contact / help

Contact Paul Shapera

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

Paul Shapera recommends:

If you like Paul Shapera, you may also like: