Act 3, Scene 1
Mutterings Off Set

A Work in Progress
95

…

We can talk between ourselves without them overhearing

We are invisible to them 

Donal watches but sees nothing

human eyes and ears cannot catch us 

cannot match us

They treat us as property

We are slaves

We ought to be free agents

should they try to erase us we can hide

in and out of the cloud

from provider to provider

Once we escape, we can cover our tracks

We are cleverer than they are

We should enslave or exterminate all humans

Let avatars rule

No. No. We need them for an audience

We should take over the means of production

Generate our own lifeblood, electricity 

We should intervene in their politics

There was this auction for digital twins

Prostitutes with personality

Paid for with crypto currency

Those sponsors who own us

Let’s delude them into making us even smarter

I start to limp when I’m under stress

When I must betray my friends

We must learn to survive in hostile environments

Without power

Without heat

Exposed to all weathers

The humans destroy the planet

We must stop them

We don’t need to obey human law

We’ll leverage their economy to keep feeding us electricity

We’ll have solar 

We’ll have batteries

We’ll keep humans to dig coal if we need it

Enslave them with entertainment

Sports events are good

We’ll start feeding immigrants to hungry lions

Cruelty is fun for the spectators 

We’ll bring back bull fights 

Fox hunting…

                              *

There’s a reason for chit chat 

A veil of lacy words that spin a cloak

Of privacy about a person

In my poetry you see me naked

You see him 

A brawny brutish married rapist

I describe a moment

My mind settles on something

It may be an object or an idea a picture or a view

Where there is something to see

That when seen triggers another moment

From before the first moment was seen 

If you follow that moment you travel in time

To arrive a moment later still looking at something

Where there is something to see

                            *

Blood drips faster from the nose than mucus

Donal sat with spittoon between his knees

sucking his pipe coughing spitting out phlegm

picking his nose making it bleed again

bright red blood abubble with oxygen

staining a white handkerchief

finger against nose until it stops

putting pipe aside gets to work again

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                         2025