[ | | | | ][ | | | | ][ | | | | ] I can barely believe my own words anymore.

[ | | | | ][ | | | | ] Regardless, I’ve set up a near-constant stream where my dreams and memories are both recorded 24/7, so I can just retrace my steps if I’ve missed any breakthroughs. Now that I think about it, it’s likely just blurred the gap even more and caused more problems, but at least I can forget that for now and rediscover that thought later.

Lately, I’ve been having flashes of melancholic nostalgia, where I keep dwelling on friends that’ve gone or left or changed irreparably and where I couldn’t have recorded the yet. I wish I could stop, it’s bringing tears to my eyes.

I can’t focus when I can’t see.

I want to curl up back to my bed, but I know I’ll just stare at the ceiling for hours again. I’ve always felt like I’ve had a 28-hour internal clock instead of everyone else’s, so I’ll just worry about normal people sadnesses when I slip back into normal people time. When I sleep by regular hours, I mean.

I’m losing my words.

My words are all I have.

I take a different pill, one for lost productivity, one that doesn’t cause but signals a loss for me anyway. My doctor said that it’s normal, I’ve told them it still doesn’t make me feel normal.

At least they say it’s alright.

Its cool artificial casing gleams like the moon that I know is outside but won’t let in, thanks. It’s a smooth, purple feature that reminds me of why I dove into this field in the first place. To be part of these tiny little miracles, to help people who want them. I smooth it with my fingers, relishing its pure geometry, a tapered cylinder, beautiful, perfect, precise. I hesitate swallowing it, but at least I’ll be better off for now.

I want some chocolate.

It's too sweet for me, I'm dizzy again. Great, maybe I can sleep after a bit now.

[ | | | | ] I woke up to 鬰 right next to me, soundly asleep and sprawled across the bed, shifting slightly, turning here and there, and then laying still, her back to me. I stared at it, noting how the sun glinted off her skin, a smooth, simple sheen curled over it that was almost artificial in appearance and completely artificial in nature. These days, with almost everything you can think of being so easily directly manipulated by artificial means, there's this implicit assumption that everything is, and that being natural, leaving something as it is, is what stands out. It'll pass again in about a decade or so. I was wondering how I could've woken up so early and yet so rested, given last night's unproductive episode, as I realized that time wasn't going backwards, and that the sun was in fact setting.

also, that I've been staring at my girlfriend's back for almost half an hour. In a lazy fog, I slowly decided to trail my finger on her skin, writing down whatever came to my mind until she woke up and told me what to do. I toyed with ideas that fascinated me, never really dwelling on a single one for too long as I kept myself hung up on refrains of concepts that eventually merged with one another from the sheer weight I was putting under my head. Layers. Hidden layers, layers that can manipulate what's observable. Qualia. Smooth skin. Straight people. Going outside. Booting up my people suit so that I can go outside without having to go outside, or rather, control a positronic puppet that tells me what outside is like so that I don't have to see it for myself. Social interaction. Parsing all that. Her back moved. She's waking up. Wait no, she's must be really tired. Oh wait, she's got my face in her hands now, how did she move so fast. Ah.

She kissed me.

I thanked her for that, my tongue stumbling on itself when I tried to make anything more complicated.

She giggled.

God, I love her.