The Ones Who Don't Always Look

McCullers, J.F. (2023). "Come Now Witness Your Judgment."

 

Imagine a science fiction novel where all of the people there live in a symbiotic relationship with computers. Their children dig for precious metals that other children in gigantic factories then make into the dazzling computers.

These mighty computers are everywhere and in all things, and contain all of the knowledge of the entire history of the planet. Despite the omnipresence of this knowledge, the people don't like knowing true things and instead walk around saying ignorant things to each other. Some of the people even try to make it illegal to learn things, and most of the rest of them go along with it because they're busy looking at the computers.

Many of the people are uncomfortable making decisions and so they instead look to the computers to tell them what they should buy next. The computers also write simulated poems and make simulated art for the people that focus on the things the people are supposed to buy. When people go and buy the things the computers told them to buy, they expect to feel better. Sometimes they do feel better but that feeling goes away when they look at their computers again because the computers start telling they have to go buy something else.

On this planet, some parts of people's bodies are more tingly than other parts. Many of the people are super duper worried about the tingly parts and all day long they worry about what other people might be doing with their tingly parts. Some of them want to make laws about that, too, and they say it a really lot. They think its wrong to think about tingly parts and that it's wrong to write books in which the characters have tingly parts and that it's wrong to read books where the characters have tingly parts so they ask the robots to help them write laws about that, too.

"No books about people with tingly parts," they shout. "This is what God wants for us," they imagine.

Also, they don't like books about people from other places so they holler about them, too. They're also unhappy about books that tell what people did, so they try to get rid of those books, too.

The people who are most worried about books do their best not to read any books. They say not reading makes them think less about their tingly parts, and that makes them feel better.

Some of the computers are hired as teachers. The computers are careful about making sure the children don't read books.

Some of the poor people on the planet don't have a lot of food or water so the rich people have to work very hard to get the poor people to make more computers.

Also, some of the computers are soldiers and they shoot people. This makes holes in their bodies through which their inside stuff comes out. Losing their inside stuff makes them die.

Also, the computers keep trying to tell the people that the planet is boiling but the people are more focused on buying stuff and making sure no one is trying to learn.

The rich people who own the factories where the children make the computers are trying to escape the boiling planet so they build spaceships for themselves but they're not very good at it so instead they just go to space for like half an hour and then come back and buy another factory that makes more computers.

A few people people don't care so much about what books other people read. Also, some of the people hardly look at their computers. They just go to work and bake bread or lay bricks or help old people.They plant wheat or build bridges or fix cars or work in hotels. When they have time, they do other stuff like ride their bikes or go swimming or read books or make music. Sometimes they plant flowers so that everyone else can take pictures of them and show to other people on their computers. Sometimes they try to teach schoolchildren when they are allowed to do so. They are worried about the computer people but hardly anyone listens to them.