To Quote Andrew Schulz, "What Are You?"

“It’s so. . .it’s so flat.”

I frowned. “Okay, sure,” was all I offered.

“So, bland and uninspired,” the executive continued.

I grumbled and whispered. “Yeah, well, you’re a broken record player.”

“A what?”

“What do you want from me?”

“Something to work with.”

Again, I frowned in slight confusion. “Sure.” I looked at the computer screen, at the story I had laboured on for the last nine months and pointed at it. “So, that’s not – I mean, I’ve written the same thing. Followed the same formula. So, I don’t know. . .again, what do you want from me? I just need the, you know, clarity.”

“Something fresh. The narrative equivalent of an air freshener.”

His words left me blinking. Decipher the code. “And that’s not it?”

“We wouldn’t be having this chat otherwise.”

“I followed the guidelines. It follows the formula. Look closer.”

“That’s the problem.”

“The formula? How is that – why would it be. . .it’s made piles of money for the studio. That’s the goal, right?”

“What’s your goal?”

The game of conversational chess did my head in. Trick questions were making the rounds. “Uh, you know, to make movies. Because I love movies.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“What’s that? What’s wrong?”

“You love movies?”

“I just said I did.”

“You never sold your soul to the devil for a penny?”

I shook my head. “No. You know, I’m an admirer of the greats.”

“The greats?”

“Yes. Like Jenkins. And. . .and, you know. . .” I stammered for the names. The greats. The giants of cinema; without their work, where would the industry be? The greats? I looked at the executive and realised I had trailed off and that I needed to regather myself. But still nothing would stick. Eventually, I went with whatever came to mind. “Well, you know.”

“Right. I know.” He was mocking. “It’s just, you don’t fit the description of, well, an artiste. You’re not some kind of alien that smokes MJ and talks about how corrosive the political system is.”

“We’re not monolithic.”

He ignored my statement. “You’re a stale salaryman whose job requires that he be a faux-writer.”

“Ouch?”

“But, regardless, you’re a writer – it doesn’t matter how bland you are. And that makes you a skin-changer. So, I’ll give you time. Write something.”

“Something?”

“A proper story,” he clarified.

“What would I write about?”

“Surprise me.”

After the conversation, I left the office.

The pavement was slick with rainwater and other questionable liquids. I turned my head upward. Skyscrapers that are to me what a tree is to an ant. Skyscrapers littered with neon lettering and hologram advertising. They had a monopoly on how much sunlight we got; no flowers flowered down here. I’m reminded of that Roy Ayers song from a couple of centuries ago. Yeah, I’m an old-head like that.

The Naughty Corner stood neither on a corner nor was it naughty. It was a “sophisticated watering hole for the sophisticated folk,” it said on its website. Whatever that means. Regardless, they served some mean drinks there, so I begrudgingly made myself a regular.

“Andi,” I said to the barman.

“Sol,” he replied, “You look out of it.”

“Yeah, well. I’ve been kicked and tossed and thrown. As a result, my heart’s where my colon’s supposed to be. And parts of my brain are oozing out my orifices.” I planted myself on the bar stool.

Andi smiled. “How very vivid. I’ll be sure to outsource it to my therapist. So, what are you having?”

“It’s been a long day, I’d sooner forget about it.”

“A mongrel it is.” He did his barman magic, turning a clear liquid into something emerald. He mixed the vodka with the Coke, then mixed that with the whiskey. Next, he took some cider and mixed it with the Coke-vodka-whiskey. A potent blend that, with each drop that rushed down my throat, massacred dozens of my brain cells. A repulsive blend that only worked if I had my taste buds shut off. “So, what’s gnawing at you?”

“Well, I’ve just jumped out of a plane with no parachute.”

“Okay. Sure.”

“That’s a nice way of saying I’m fucked.”

“What got you where you are?”

I ignored his question. “What they want from me is – man. It’s impossible. I can’t be separated from it, you know? It’s who and what I am. I can’t change that.”

“What seems to be the problem?”

I sighed. “I’m too plastic, apparently. Too far removed from the human experience.”

Andi frowned. “Well, well. . .that’s interesting because, well, you have the hallmarks of what makes a human a human. You’ve got, you know, a head propped up by a neck. A pair of arms attached to a chest and a pair of legs. You look human to me.”

“Yeah, well, looks are deceiving.” I pointed at my empty glass. “Fill me up?”

The barman obliged me and filled it full.

I gulped it half-empty. “I’m factory-made. Just like you. Parts of my hardware were mined in Africa and Australia and South America. My software was coded in Asia. The hardware and software were bought by a European company, called Morgen.”

“Well, you’re a child of the world like the lot of us,” he said, referring to the other artificial creations of humankind.

I continued. “Seven years back there was an accident. This kid named Sol was on holiday with his friend’s family in Nuuk. So, I guess they went on this swimming thing that day – to the beach, I guess. ‘The water’s nice this time of year’, you know how it goes with the surfer types. And, uh. . .”

The air assumed a salty smell to it. Murky ocean water – which way was up? Every breath taken was an open valve that allowed in a gush of water. I twitched and fought with a wet enemy. I followed the glittering light. Up was that way, it had seemed. But the light grew dimmer. My arms and legs grew weaker. And so came the unannounced and scythe-wielding visitor. The memory paused and replayed bits of the uncorrupted footage. CRITICAL ERROR.

“You alright there? Where’d you go?”

“Sol cheated death,” I answered, again ignoring his questioning.

“Ah, you’re the kid but you’re not the kid,” he remarked. “Very much the Schrödinger’s cat of machines.”

“Right.” I sipped the drink. “So. . .pretty much. . .I mean, I write stories for a living. That counts as art to most. But my stuff has been called the ‘unironic imitation of ancient AI chatbots.’ Whatever that means.” I looked at Andi. “What do I do, man?”

Andi looked in my eye, evidently trying to find sincerity and a soul. Keep looking and you’ll find crickets and tumbleweeds. “Hey, Cristo,” he called out, “man the bar.” He turned to me and said, “Come along.”

By then, the mongrel had set in. A depiction of bliss was superimposed over this grey existence. There were two Andis, and pretty much every part of my being was beginning to question the power my mind had over them. A revolution was nigh. Owing to my size and tolerance, I knew it would take some thirty more minutes to feel the full effects. Regardless, I managed to follow Andi to a narrow 4x4 elevator which took us a storey down.

The earthy smell of MJ welcomed us with open arms. A hazy atmosphere lit up by pink neon. Some sofas and a bar. A stage and a poet. Drink and marijuana. Very much a subdued feel.

Andi led me to the bar where he struck up a conversation with the barman. “Have you seen Vi?”

The barman pointed to the stage. “She’s about to go on. Fifteen minutes.”

“Can we see her?”

The barman looked at Andi then at me. He was wary.

“It’s nothing mad. Trust me.”

“I’ve dipped my toe in that pool and got burned more times than I’m proud to admit.”

Andi produced a nervous smile. “It’s not for me.” He pointed at me.

“Who’s he? What’s he want?”

“He’s a writer. He wants some words of encouragement.”

The barman eyed me as a policeman would a thief. “Come on.”

Andi and I followed the barman through a door behind the bar. To a kitchen, he led us. Down a corridor. We took a left. Past some doors. Up a few stairs. Eventually, to a wooden door painted crimson. I could hear some laughter. The random keys of a piano being played. The rumbling E string of a bass guitar. The barman knocked and entered.

The layout was like this: brown leather sofas, a central table on which stood a hookah pipe. Scattered around the room, I saw a small piano, an assortment of guitars – electric, bass, Spanish, acoustic and even a resonator – a small kitchen where someone waited as her food was getting warmed in the microwave. A poster of The Global Resistance beside one of a Photoshopped Mandela holding hands with Gandhi and MLK. Four people conversing by the table.

“Vi,” Andi called out.

“Yeah?”

Vi was preparing the hookah. She had a round face flanked by two curly buns. She was narrow-shouldered and, it seemed, subscribed to older fashion sensibilities. She wore a black turtleneck over a pair of faded jeans ripped by the knees. She completed the ensemble out with half a dozen wristlets on each arm.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said, having spotted Andi. Her tone was agitated.

“Come on,” he pleaded playfully, “don’t do that. Don’t be like that.”

“What do you want?”

He pointed at me. “Apparently, he jumped out a plane without a parachute.”

She seemed indifferent.

“He’s a zombie.”

That worked. They all eyed me, including the wary barman. An identical look of concern flashed across all their faces. Vi took a hit of the joint passed to her and left the duties of preparing the hookah to someone more qualified. “There’s not a lot of you,” she said. “You’re. . .you’re a solar eclipse with a prick.” Then, quickly as she smiled: “Do you have one?”

“Let’s be friends, yeah?” said Andi. “This is Sol – ”

“That’s not my name,” I broke in. “It was his.”

Vi vaguely gestured at the seat beside her. I took the invitation, while the two barmen left.

“So. . .”

“So. . .” I repeated.

“You’re one of them and one of us. You’re straddling two existences.”

“Uh-huh.”

She leaned in close to get a better look. “Hold out your palm?” I obliged and she felt my hand. She ran her fingers along mine. “You look real,” she observed.

“Well, yeah. I guess that was the intention.”

"You smoke?"

I declined. “Not for me. It’s not my sort of thing.”

“Do you need a mod or something?”

“I can smoke and get high,” I explained, “I can drink and eat, it's just. . .preferences."

“So, what do you need me for?”

“I’m a writer.” I explained to her my situation. She listened intently, never interrupting. She nodded and bit her lip. She chuckled. She widened her eyes. She winced.

When I was done, she considered. “So,” she began, after a long pause, “your thing – I guess – is you want to embrace your human side more?”

I nodded. “So, like, I’m chasing this. . .this thing. I try to reach out to catch it but it’s still out of reach. Do you think I have a chance at catching it or. . .?”

Vi smiled. “You already have it,” she answered. “Fashion is considered art. You know, its beauty is in the beholder – you mightn’t like the stuff I wear. Conversely I find what I wear appealing. Fashion’s subjectivity is part of what makes it art.” The weed had rounded its back to her; she pulled on the joint and from her mouth flowed out a cloud. “You know, fabric and measuring tape are to a fashion designer what a canvas and easel are to a painter.

“Here’s the thing, though, fashion isn’t just a human thing. Orcas had a trend where they wore dead salmons as hats.” She smiled as she said that – clearly she found the fact amusing. “A lot of things we think of as uniquely human turn out, you know, otherwise. Some ants were into farming. Some others survived on enslaving other ants. Orcas had a level of communication so complicated that it varied from this family and that. A fucking language, dude! And then there were crows. I mean, if you did them wrong, crows would hold a grudge against you and report you to other crows.”

I simply smiled, having nothing to say.

“Art is the creative expression of the mind, right? Your. . .your mind is made up of lines of coding – I don’t know exactly how you work but. . .well, instead of numbers, I’m made up of squishy shit, right? That makes me conscious in the same way that it does you. Some might say you’re just an imitation of true and natural consciousness. To them I say, ‘Look up the simulation hypothesis.’ Besides nobody really knows what consciousness is.

“You feel a range of emotions, right? You. . .I mean, you get angry. You have a fear of death, I would imagine. So, the way I see it, you’re no different from me.”

“Only I was assembled in a factory.”

“Sure,” she allowed, “you’re a mechanical human. Instead of a cerebral cortex, you have a CPU.” Vi smiled at me. “Just write from the heart. If it burns a few people, so be it. If starts roundtable chats – super! And if you’re in the bathroom and nothing comes out – you know, metaphorically – then happy birthday, you’ve been burdened with the mind of an artist.”

“Yeah,” I said wanly. I fiddled with my fingers, assessing my next move. I looked around. The Mandela poster glanced at me. Vi spoke so well. She did so because she had no conflict over who she was. She was a weed-loving poet who, along with her friends, preferred a way of life so alien to everyone else. It seemed to her that art was the omega and alpha of everything, the supermassive black hole that everything in her life orbited around. And this passion was the gravity that pulled me in.

The greats. . .I looked at Vi and asked, “Who’s your favourite filmmaker, if you have one?”

“I have a few,” she answered. “I’m into that old shit. You know. Like, Shaka King. And I watch a lot of Boots Riley if I’m looking to trip. On the newer side, more like directors of our lifetime. . .probably Nakamura. She has this, like sense of scope that’s unrivalled. . .you know, like, her worlds feel lived in.” She went to great length to describe the movies from some of her favourite filmmakers. And even then, her passion only grew more apparent. And I’m a slime puppy who fraudulently moulded an entire personality for nothing-money.

In the face of such a force that was Vi, I found myself retreating. I considered my place beside her. The artist and the fake. Maya Angelou beside Charles Ponzi. I considered the term “fake” within the context of my situation. I realised the term had nothing to do with my physical appearance – the CPU instead of a cerebral cortex thing. I was playing mental gymnastics with myself; backflipping until my gyroscope had difficulty telling up from down. And why?

Why? Because you are what you are. A life that straddles two existences. In that way, confusion is the bull to the china shop that is your mind. You’re Sol but in so many ways you’re not. You’ve been unfulfilled because of that fleshy/squishy wall. You loathe the prospect of wrecking it down it because you know it’s not for you to do it.

But your chat with Vi suggests otherwise; maybe you can peep what’s on the other side of the wall without feeling like some sort of hack. Maybe there’s something beyond an existence overshadowed by Sol the human. Maybe Sol the machine can step outside the shadow and enjoy the sun. Maybe the human and the machine make something greater than what came before. Maybe.

"How is it that you've managed to change my perception of myself in less than an hour?" I asked.

Vi smiled. "I've been known to have that effect on people. But you've always known, you know - I was just the key that unlocked that door."

"You know, I started writing scripts because Sol loved movies. He loved an adventure," I started. "I thought that, uh, if I wrote movies then I was honouring him somehow, that I was thanking him because I owed my existence to him, that I was bringing roses to his grave. But. . .I lost my way a bit there. I became plastic, you know, and not in the good way. I've only just come to realise that, shit, I love movies because I love an adventure. In so many ways, we're not alike but in so many ways we are. I'm hydrogen and he's oxygen." Maybe the human and the machine make something greater than what came before.

“That's good,” Vi said, with that smile of hers.

“So. . .” I said.

"So. . ." she repeated. “You good? You’re. . .I have a thing I have to get to but I just wanna know if you’re all good.”

I smiled. “Is it cool if I hang around with you guys?”

“Yeah. Sure. Kick your feet up.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think I'll do that." I looked at them; someone was fiddling with the Spanish guitar, freestyling the lyrics along the way. They looked content. Maybe the explosion of dopamine had did their heads in, but they seemed happy with where their lives had led them. So carefree and uninvolved.

For the sake of my own sanity, I wanted to try that.