Legacy 2022

Legacy 2022

A prelude where there's love-

Jessica Marie Andrews:
Can't wait for summer! OMG! 4 weeks left...
Robert Taylor likes this.

Jessica Marie Andrews:
Sooooo tired, wish I just had a chance to relax with my lovely boyfriend x x x x
Robert Taylor likes this.

Jessica Marie Andrews:
Today was so nice, LOVE YOU SO MUCH BABY!!!! x x x
Robert Taylor likes this.

Jessica Marie Andrews:
Is living life to the fullest! Everything's so amazing!!!!

…

He looked to the blue glow of the monitor, the faint buzz of the hard drive keeping the machine alive. Beep... Beep... The life support of his continuing world. He looked to her words, her beliefs, thoughts and feelings. Found comfort in what she'd believed to be so real, but it is in response to this that his throat tightened as honesty began flooding the empty cavity of his lies.

Robert Taylor:
Is this living?
No response.


There is also war-

News updates stated that the war began 2014. This is when the modern condition became too much, the moment where the superfluous threads were pulled upon, the woven tapestry of the contemporary being, left to fall apart.

Mike Higgins:
Shits going down! I'm calling it, beginning of the end...

Looking upon his old friend’s prediction he allowed a sigh to invade upon the silence. Who was to know he was right? It seemed laughable. The world had survived so many apocalypses this seemed to be just another war, another excuse to rally the masses. One had no reason to believe China wasn't merely another Iraq, a new Falklands, something to keep the networks busy following the end of that, “War on Terror”. Terror simply had to persist. Who'd have known this time we were fucked from the start. No one had any reason to call it. Sadly Mike Higgins had, and even worse he was right in doing so.

In the creation sphere-

Storing humanity's no easy task. Where does one begin?
            “At the start?”
Ah, an interesting response but where's the start?
            “Where the world begins?”
Well that’s just obvious. No, instead think not of what to say, but in how it’s declared. In words you respond, you respond within the busied world of the creation sphere. This is where it all begins, aperire. Where it is destined to open and where it shall also close.
            The creation sphere. The home of history, of the future and of humanity, it is in this one stores it all.
            “So it begins where it ends?”
In words, yes.
            “I see...”
No, you don't see, your eyes play no role in this deeper understanding. Through the sphere you're told, told in a numbered formula of a billion integers. 1=a, 2=aa, 3=aal and so on. The sum of them all is life. This is the creation sphere in its endless glory.
            “Oh, but I don't like maths.”
This is why you sleep as in a dream, unable to contemplate the sphere.
            “It's safer to dream...”
But is it real?

            It was in 2022 the sphere was eventually finished. It had taken over a hundred billion people almost two hundred thousand years to complete. Robert Taylor was one of those responsible for its completion. He stood back looking over the somewhat underwhelming structure.
            “Can't believe that's it,” he said wiping the sweat from his brow. The sphere was located within a bunker hidden deep beneath French soil, somewhat eight miles below Strasbourg and the panic stricken leaders of Europe. The overalled man beside him laughed placing a hand upon his shoulder.
            “Well, it's done! That's all that matters.”
            “I know, I just expected more, know what I mean?”
            “More? That contains everything... All of recorded history! Every book ever printed, every word ever written. This is the world,” the man assured Robert turning away to a small panel beside the sphere in order to make his final checks.
            “No replacement for trees or sunlight if you ask me, especially in this fucking place. I'd kill for a breeze.”
            “There would be no trees or sun without the sphere! And quit moaning, this could be your home one day, you know how things have been going.” Robert laughed at this, his face becoming home to a somewhat worried smile.
            “I'm aware of this of course; I helped build the fucking thing! Just wish I'd thought ahead and at least fitted some fans, it’s boiling down here.”
            “I'll look into it, anyway everything checks out. It's done.”

            Two months later the first missiles were launched. China tested their luck launching an attack upon the US, and Europe was quick to intervene. It was in this MAD chain of events that the human race was wiped from the earth. All but one that is. A few weeks prior the leaders up in Strasbourg came to their decision. This was it, the clocks couldn't be turned back and things were descending into the first circle. As humanity passed Virgil and the other great thinkers with Minos stood in waiting, they were left with no choice but to allow entrance to the sphere. On September 12th 2022, Robert Taylor entered the creation sphere with a single task; to care for humanity's history and allow its legacy to live on, a final record of the human race and its time on Earth. 

It's cold in the sphere. Space is a commodity and I'm left with little to occupy my time. I'm surrounded by the blinking lights and whirring sounds of the machine, a constant reminder of how artificial life's become. There is a single monitor emitting a small amount of light into the capsule. Besides this I'm in total darkness, alone amongst the empty recordings of a lost world. I could hear the bombs go off. I felt a shiver traverse my spine, attempting to remind every inch of my being of the reality. It's over. Everything's gone and I'm left here to take care of this relic. I dare not approach the console; I do not wish to adhere to the light. I do not wish to be reminded of what I've lost. I sit in solemn remembrance always wondering one thing; why am I here?


Finding a friend-

“The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n”

Better to reign in silence, than serve in words... Or so he thought. It wasn’t long before he fell to the allure of the system, the temptation of the bitter, contemptible mechanisms of the manmade contraption. He was lost as in an endless nothing, finding no room in which to pace he was contained within the blackness of infinity

And loathed it.

Knowing nothing of what time had passed he approached the light of the console. Sitting before the monitor he touched the screen causing some form of activation. The sphere was brought to life, a sudden whirring of cogs, sparks being spat out in all directions. There was an eruption of noise as the systems descended into an abhorred grinding, the news of an impetuous breaking. What have I done? What unholy motion have I caused to pass? The sound was building with each passing second, now raised into a screeching, a clawing at his mind. Why? Why could my curiosity not be quelled in the safe emptiness, why have I summoned forth this horror? The furore continued to build, growing up from the seed of its unsanctioned creation. Growing, growing, and stretching out until…

Ding. The noise subsided and with a momentary flicker he was surrounded by the artificial glow of life once more. It was done.

The screen before him showed a database of endless names. Intrigued he touched the cold glass of the monitor hearing a soft beep in response, a sign of acceptance. Gently he slid his finger down, scrolling the list before him. He passed the Daniels and Sarah’s, moving by the numerous James into the Pierre’s and Pascal’s. There listed before him, was everybody. So many it would have taken a lifetime to simply gaze upon them all. Interested to see even more of this system he selected a name.

Jessica Marie Andrews caught his eye; someone he’d never had the good fortune to meet but still, in this moment felt a connection to. He explored a list of all she’d ever written, one such item was a part of the great communicative medium, Facebook. Once more he found himself interested in what may happen. He selected the stored remnant of the past, the page itself opening up before him.

Jessica Marie Andrews:
Just woken up :D Can’t believe how lazy I’ve been today!

Robert leaned in closer feeling an attachment to her assertion. He decided to test the machine, to see if in any way he was able to interact.
Robert Taylor likes this.

Smiling, he continued in communication with his friend.

Jessica Marie Andrews:
Does it bother you this isn’t real?
…

A billion differing dictionaries-

Over time the mirage of meaning wore off. He turned his back on Jessica and her numerous updates, instead wishing for purpose in the literature of the past.

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

“External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him.”

“When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams…”

Years gone by the words began blending and twisting, undergoing a harrowing metamorphosis. What meaning does this hold? He became quizzical of everything, not understanding anything for its singular meaning, but instead seeing another ordering of the same old nothing.
        When in a external morning heat that little rose awoke and Gregor had influence by wintry troubled warmth no one could call Scrooge which from any weather we a cold Samsa would chill sweet as him. On warm name what’s other name would smell dreams…
            Meaningless, to smell dreams it sickened him. The warm names played games with his senses. What cold Samsa could chill in any way as sweet as him? These were lies. Lies in an external morning heat from which he wished for freedom. Rules made and broken he had lost the individual. What have I read but a billion differing dictionaries? The same book rearranged to tell new lies.

Apple, n.
Pronunciation:  Brit. /ˈapl/ , U.S. /ˈæp(ə)l/

  1.The round firm fruit (a pome) of any of various wild and cultivated trees of the genus Malus, occurring in a wide variety of forms, colours, and flavours; esp. any of numerous cultivated kinds produced throughout the temperate zones of both hemispheres, typically having crisp white flesh and green, yellow, or red skin.
 
  2.As told by the bible, sin.
 
  3.As seen through Windows, the enemy.
 
  4.To Robert Taylor… What is it to me?

So many editions of the same old tale, in the creation sphere they’re kept as our world and our legacy. It is this I care for and in this I live. But I find it so artificial. Why must I be the one to look after the numerous falsehoods of what once was reality?

So, you’re beginning to understand at last, you smell dreams.
            “No, I don’t understand…”
Exactly.

Embrace-

Twelve years had passed. He was only made aware by the dial beside the monitor, a cruel means of making him all the more aware of his wasted breaths.
            Inhale, here goes another, exhale; another moment of unresolved wastage. He itched his chin revealing a beard that’s not his own, a parasite that’s grown with time. He tried so desperately to distract himself amongst the lies, the lists of shapeless words. He tried to climb amongst them and bathe in their warmth. Blanket, sun, embrace. The embrace! He’d find his peace in the embrace, he’d salvage his distraction from this hell in which he found himself.
            “Jessica! Jessica I love you! Hold me in your arms, take me in!” He felt the gentle caress of her hands upon him. His hands clenched, his eyes rolling back as he felt her kiss upon his nape. Inhale, wastage, exhale. “Oh god,” he exclaimed, gripping the arms of his seat as he forced out his legs in the rigid dance of pleasure.
          Pleasure… passion. To find passion in touch. To find touch in passion. Or find in passion touch? In touch passion? Touch passion in to find?
            Legs and arms. Arms  and legs folding. Folding legs, arms and passion. Folding legs and arms in passions touch.
            Embrace in passion and in touch. In a first embrace finding touch in passion. Passion in touch in the folded arms of embrace.
            We inhale…

Exhale in the wasted touch of a passionate embrace

Wiping off his hand upon the fabric of his overalls he allowed tears to form within his eyes.

Escape-

Robert Taylor:
This is it, I’m leaving. I’ve had enough of this world. I’ve had enough of sentences and words, commas, colons, dashes. I’m leaving. Where I am going I don’t honestly know, how I plan to escape from something so integral to whom I am, I don’t know. But fuck it! I’ve had enough. You taught me Language, and my profit on't is, I know how to curse. I want to be free of what traps me so cruelly. I’ve been within the sphere for coming on fourteen years, yet now I know it’s been at the centre of my life for so much longer. It has been with me since birth, it’s been the shadowy backbone of every moment and it’s something from which I now wish to become separate from.
Really never thought it would come to this. I apologise to humanity, but I do not wish to carry on this legacy. Good bye, I’m so sorry it’s come to this. I wish I could close with something unique to say, but everything’s been said before. So instead, I leave you with this,
“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.”

Inhale…

The extract ends here, for more works by Robert Taylor please return to the index.

We sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed your time with us,

The Creation Sphere.