Ask the Machine! By Julien Barthès

Ask the Machine!
By Julien Barthès

Enan had always been happy.

Since the day of his birth, which he remembered well since he had wanted to, he had always been very happy. To be more precise, it was rather since his first birthday: before that, he could not grasp such concepts as happiness and so he could not remember being happy at the time.

Neither could he have had any desires, back in those days, thus not being able to address any request to the Machine.

But when he finally began to feel needs and desires, when he finally could form in his mind the thought “I want this!” his life had completely changed.

His first request had been a baby-wordless-thought, more or less equivalent to the English, “I want to drink milk!”, and instantly he was drinking milk; many others had followed.

The Machine had always been there for him.

She had been there when he was a child and had wanted to know how birds could fly (and then he had known) and right after that when he had wanted to fly himself (and then he had flown).

She had been there when he had wanted plenty of toys and fun games and then he had had them. (If you could see how big a mountain of teddy bears a little child can conceive of, it would strike you that a children imagination is way more powerful than an adult’s!).

She had been there when he was a teenager and had wanted many girlfriends, and then he had got them. (As far as he remembered, there had been Aaliyah, Aamina, Aamu, Aaren, Abbey with a “ey”, Abbie with a “ie”, Abby with a “y”, Abegail et caetera to Zuzanna, Zvonimira, Zyanya and Zyta).

She had been there when he had finally gotten tired and had wanted to be rid of them and then he had been. Later, he would hear about morals and ask the Machine about them… Still later, during his philosophical period, he had wondered how the Machine could cope with conflicting desires in different human beings. For example, how could he have been ridden of so many girlfriends who were desperately in love with him and who surely did not want to be disposed of? And then he had known: it involved very complex parallel-multidimensional-fractal-universes physics. Still, conflicting desires did not occur very often: people tended to live mostly isolated from others: why would you waste your time in socializing, given all the far more amazing prospects supplied by the Machine?

The Machine could do anything. She had been created by humanity a few years after human knowledge had reached its ultimate perfection: the complete comprehension of the universe. Man had then been able to do whatever he wanted, wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Soon afterwards, the Machine had been built to listen to any man’s desires and instantly make them come true. And then humanity began to experience a long and wonderful uninterrupted era of happiness.

Enan was part of the first generation born After-Machine. The 25th of July, year 1 After-Machine. And one day, the day of his 1 000 000 000th birthday, in front of his billion-candles birthday cake, he suddenly began to experience the end of that era.

It was then just a brief instant of hesitation, a mere “Have I really done this a billion times ?”, atrophied, quickly vanished, and quickly forgotten thought at the deepest back of his conscious mind : a fragile lost blinded moth flying softly for a second between the bursting waves of his shining billion-year old mind just before they nonchalantly ground it down.

It was just the first elusive hint of the unfathomable doom to come.

He had paid absolutely no attention to it and had simply gone on his ritual birthday trip around the Universe. These were always amazing journeys : flying in the immensity of outer space for days, faster than light, diving through stars, grazing black holes (landing on them !), juggling planets, blowing supernovae, drinking the milky way, playing merry-go-round on galaxies.

And yet… Yet…

Until then, they had always been marvellous, unforgettable, unmatched adventures.
And yet… Yet…

It had seemed to him this time that something had changed slightly. He had a strange impression which was not completely unfamiliar, like the one he had experienced on his birthday, but stronger — though still very dim and persistent. He did not know then, but this uneasiness would never leave him again.

He soon found a name for it, a name that had had never been pronounced, nor said, nor thought of for a billion years, since the Machine had come. A name humanity had simply, happily, forgotten, aeons ago.

Boredom… The unsuspected plague.

After such a long oblivion, after so many years of believing that they had managed to escape and definitively outrun the ever hungry beast, boredom was back.

And with it, there came along a long forgotten fiend: fear.

Humanity began to fear.

Confident humanity, fearless humanity, almighty humanity, having done everything and not knowing what to do to fill its idle existence anymore, fearing the next day, the next hour, the next minute, such short times that had always been but worthy of the greatest contempt in billion years lives… And what is more terrible for giants than to be enslaved by a dwarf?

Enan was bored.

Since the Machine, he had done everything he could desire, everything he could wish… Soon he was left with nothing else to do but what he did not mind doing… and then, everything he could think of that may preserve him from boredom.

In just a month, his whole world had crumbled.

Worse! The whole world was actually crumbling!

Enan was witnessing the ruin of his peers: everywhere, people were beginning to get bored, as if the whole world had all of a sudden aged ten billion years more. It was like a plague spreading contagiously everywhere: a month before everybody was healthy, and then came a first case, followed by a second, and then a third and a fourth, and in no time everybody was bored. Even the youngest, strangely, were affected by the plague and were beginning to grow bored.

There was no cure, no escape out of this thick, pervasive haze of gloominess: the Machine could not help them because they did not know what to ask Her anymore!

They were desperate.

For the first time in a billion years, humanity was not happy. But since they had been continuously happy for such a long time, what a breakdown! They had simply forgotten unhappiness. Its abrupt return had crushed them: they were like some warm countries’ well-off, cold sensitive men suddenly caught naked in a terrible hailstorm. They were not anymore able to bear unhappiness, most of them had lose any will to fight back, and some were even considering death as the only solution.

Death… Here was another long forgotten beast. A beast they had always thought had been tamed for good.

And some actually chose this solution. Others, like Enan, did not — they would fight !

It was not long, though, before it became obvious that no one’s imagination was sufficiently powerful to save anyone from boredom. And they were so unhappy.

They subsequently decided to begin a world wide reflection on the issue. Everybody was involved: politicians talked politics, scientists talked science, philosophers talked philosophy and poets talked poetry.

But they came out with nothing, and were still unhappy.

Then followed another wave of desperate, voluntary deaths…

But Enan was not one of them. He was unhappier than ever, but he still would fight. He then decided to pay a visit to every one of those who where considered among the wisest men in human history to discuss his issue with them.

He met Salomon, Archimedes, Socrates, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Cicero, Confucius, Laozi, Leonardo da Vinci, René Descartes, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Einstein and many others.

But none of these great thinkers had a solution for him… Worse ! They all seemed to consider that it was actually very healthy for a man to die ! (Socrates being particularly insistent on this point, and Albert Einstein actually intending to kill him after Enan had tried to explain him how the Machine could make light of all the paradoxes She implied, notably outrageously breaking all the physical laws in which Albert strongly believed.)

And Enan was still unhappy.

When Enan came back from his long journey through time, a new trend was appearing : people were beginning to wish for the end of the Machine — unthinkable until then !

It was a difficult choice, there seemed to be no turning back. But as days passed, unhappy and boring days that seemed like years, more and more people began to consider the Machine as the only source of their problems. The Machine had given them everything, clearly too much, and now that they did not enjoy this “too much” anymore they had to go back to the basics. The eldest, born before-Machine, were the main drive of this current of thought: they had known a simpler life long, long ago. They remembered not being happy all the time back in those days, but at least they were not then utterly condemned to unending unhappiness.

So, they had to go back to that way of living. But it was not possible with the Machine: every time you wanted to do something the Machine had you instantly do it. It was impossible to do something by yourself! Should you want to go somewhere, the Machine would instantly teleport you there. Unless you explicitly thought that you wanted to go there by yourself, which, according to the eldest of the elders, was impossible to do all the time. Inevitably, at some point, you would be tired of going yourself, and you would want to be transported instead. And the Machine would have it immediately done.

No: the whole point was to experience some vexation from time to time. And the Machine, after all, was precisely here to eradicate all annoyance.

So, She had to be destroyed.

Thus, one terrible day, Enan took his decision: he wanted the Machine destroyed.

And then She was.

But things did not go exactly as planned. At first, Enan was a little bit confused: he was so used to the Machine fulfilling his least desires right away that he could not restrain himself from vainly formulating wants whenever he needed something. It was even dangerous: he bumped several times into walls, accustomed as he was of passing through them whenever he wanted.

But quickly Enan was delighted to do things by himself. He had to walk to go wherever he wanted instead of being instantly transported by the Machine. When he got thirsty, he could enjoy actual drinking when the Machine would simply have quenched his thirst without the physical process of drinking. What a pleasure it then was for Enan to feel, for almost the first time in his life, water, simple water, basic water, flowing down his throat! He also had to cook by himself! And even if his first tries were not quite edible, he still enjoyed it a lot.

But things soon started to go wrong: after a week, Enan was out of food supply and found himself incapable of making food out of nothing. But it was not the only problem, he soon thought of many things he did not know how to handle: what about illnesses? He had nothing to cure them and even if he had, he still would not know how. What about social life? Even if he as always lived in quiet and rather isolated places (with a wife and some children at the most), he still needed human contact from time to time, and as far as he knew, he might perfectly well be the only human on this whole planet where he had taken up residence! How long would he be able to live in this utter solitude without going insane? And death! What about death? When the Machine still existed, it was not a problem, but now… How ironic! If he had wished for the end of the Machine, it was precisely to avoid death! Not to be projected into it by unhappiness.

He suddenly wished the Machine was back.

And then She was! Enan had not thought of it, but the Machine could do anything!

Thus, he was back to square one, unhappier than ever! What could he do? What should he do?

Nothing! This last try had proven it. The Machine was there and would always be. He had to put up with it. And that left him with the darkest prospect: a life of unhappiness, worsening every day, with his voluntary death as a most probable ending.

He might have the strength to live for another few years, but ultimately, he knew, he would have to let go. After all, it had been the normal way in ancient times, before-Machine. Everyone has to die. And even if he had thought throughout his gigantic life that it was not so, he was now forced into admitting it. One day, all men must die. It might even be healthier.

One day, he must die…


He had enjoyed life as best he could.

He had tasted everything, eaten everything, drunk everything, even things that did not exist but which the Machine had created on his request. All this a million times…

He had had lots of houses, of all kinds: red ones, blue ones, big ones, small ones; some pretty, some ugly, some shiny, some gloomy; amazing ones and invisible ones, tangible ones and frightening ones; some with round windows and others with no roof, some like a shadow and others rather tough, some that might break some you could eat, some that looked great and some not so fit; some with a world for garden and some he had long forgotten. There were millions of them…

He had married plenty of times and divorced as many. He had had all kinds of wives and troubles as many : fit, fat, hot, cold, tall, small, young, old, pretty, ugly, shiny, gloomy, blond-haired, black-haired, clever (or not), women (or not), some he loved, some he hated, some he had never encountered and some he hardly remembered. There were millions of them…
He had had many children, too… Millions…

He could play perfectly well all the musical instruments and had played every work by every composer in every style. Millions of times…

He had read every book in every language. Millions of times…

He knew them by heart; he had also read them upside down and starting from the end to the beginning. He had written a lot, too. Millions of times…

He had studied every subject to its ultimate refinement from physics to biology and from philosophy to pataphysics. Millions of times…

And he had done many other things he had forgotten but could remember if only he expressed the desire. Millions of things…

But never, with all his knowledge and experience, never in his extraordinarily long life had something even slightly given him the least indication that there could be such a terrible difference between doing a thing millions of times and millions plus one times…

Finally, after a few years spent struggling to elude boredom in utter unhappiness, Enan found the strength to make his final choice: death was the only way out…

He was so sorry to end it like this. But he had no choice. He was so unhappy…

There he was: he simply had to express the wish to die and the Machine would comply with it.

He prepared himself. He had no choice: he was so unhappy.

He drew one last, ultimate, breath.

He was so unhappy. He so wanted to be happy!

And he lived happily ever after!

..............Morality: ask the Machine!


by Julien Barthès