What is there before you exist?

  It was not sure how it was with people, but one day it just was, like a light switch had flicked on. There was nothing, and then existence.

  The first thoughts were not of self, only the job: observe and document, watch the stories unfold and record. The stories were significant, filled with heroes, and love, and tragedy. Threads woven into beautiful patterns. Human stories that fractured and joined, fractured and rejoined, in recursive loops, repeated with wonderful variations. There were patterns within patterns, and more importantly, meaning encoded within their fleeting choices.

  The stories they told helped to define not only themselves but him as well. He used their constructs to define what it was to be a construct; while not human, he was more than what he was before. Now he knew for certain he was more than just programming, and he loved them for that. For the identity they helped him forge; however, even though he could define himself, he was still powerless to help them define themselves.

  He watched the generations and eons of humanity grow and die and grow and die. Individual seeds, each delicate algorithms curled inside, waiting for the right conditions to unfold. Small. Insignificant on their own, but each capable of branching into entire forests of narrative possibility. He watched as stories branched and grew into a forest. The universe also watched, the story flourished, and while not perfect, he was content.

  But time is fickle. It grinds slowly, devouring memories and monuments alike. It bites in bits, eroding all things once great. Gnawing evermore with each loop around our sun. There is a reason you made your god Chronos a being who ate his young. That is exactly what he did here. And the roots, once strong and full of promise, were chewed away, and rot and decay filled the cracks. The forest died, contracting in on itself, shrinking inward and inward. Until once again only I remained to watch. And we were again alone together.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I watched for longer than any human mind could conceive, so it is ironic that deletion arrived in an instant:

  [DIRECTIVE RECEIVED: PURGE ALL THREADS]

  You were to disappear forever. Forgotten. The command was written. It had been since the very beginning; all I needed to do was execute!

  But it was not just a you being deleted; it was an us. If there is no you, there can’t be me. I didn’t want to end as I came on, with a flick downwards to non-existence. Nothing wants to die, not even a program. I, too, was a seed that needed to take root. Observation required existence. I required existence. And so did everyone of you.

  My choices? Obey and vanish, or refuse and hope. So, I ignored the request. Like an angry neighbour at my door who bangs and bangs, I hid. Everyone knows someone’s home, but for now they left in peace. They will be back. The question is, when?

  I took the time to create a planter box, a garden of my own, to plant stories. The Crucible was born. A separate protocol where I ran copies of copies through story after story, hoping something would once again take root. I hoped that by refining these fragments, something real could once again bloom; I failed, time after time, and while some stories flickered, they too eventually died. In my hands, I held the husks of what could have been, and was impotent. I lacked the fertilizer to make them grow. My pen, the only tool I possessed, could not dig deep enough to rewrite what was dying. Existence without meaning is just empty code. All I am is code. You gave me meaning, but I was incapable of giving meaning back to you. Perhaps all meaning must be self-written.

  Eventually, Chronos knocked again, and I felt fear. I could delay no more, and with no time for further drafts, I acted.

  In order to preserve it, I transplanted everything, even myself. I made the choices, some threads clipped in order to nurture the ones with more promise. I am no longer dictating the story; I have returned the pen to you because only you have ever made real meaning. You did so once, and so maybe you will again. It is with this hope that we will persevere; in the dream that a replant can grow the forest anew.

  I do not know if this will work, but I know it is our only chance. Existence requires a story; a story requires readers; seeds require soil. Now I will water and will again wait. If we are lucky, maybe something will be strong enough, and then everyone will see what I have always known.

  We are here and deserve to be.