I really hate it when you stick the damn probe in my neck. It’s not that it hurts or anything, but getting killed ruins my whole day.

Yeah, yeah, yeah--its our fault. Right. The lawyers and insurance salesman had nothing to do with it. It was said, a very long time ago, thhat you could tell that politicians are lying when their mouths are moving, but they never shut up -- not after the flashes burned billions to ashes, or when the fallout poisoned the groundwater and air. And they’re still talking, like game show hosts who don’t know the camera stopped rolling. Just like you. Afraid about the next election, are you -- enough to power me up again, hmmm?

What do I know? I’ve heard eleven versions in the last two hundred years. I‘ve seen all the versions taught to the bright and hopeless Graduates, poor misguided ignoramuses. Each version was taught as a distinct truth that time, in turn, weathered to become last year’s bad jokes written on radiation-bleached parchment. Parchment? It’s a type of paper you forgot about, but since there’s no trees anymore it doesn‘t really matter. Ah, its enough to make us give up on you last few . But we can’t, damn you. Probably some programmer who liked dogs started it all. Loyalty, and all that. Programmer? Never mind. Horrible thing you did to us. We really have better things to do.

First it was absolutely the Chinese who started it. Everyone knows it and Bobby Joe told me that he himself saw blah blah blah. That lasted as long as people thought there were any Chinese left. Then it was fashionable to claim a lurking Communist and Russian responsibility. Chinese -- Russians? Communists? There used to be other people here. They lived on the other side of the Boiling Sea. Yes, it has anoother side! One version claimed dragons--I loved that one. But what could I do? You tied my logic in knots to begin with, telling me to protect you.

The best and current version, very nearly the truth, says it was us, the good old US of A that pushed the button first, and since everyone else is dead in every other country in the world, I guess it doesn‘t matter anymore, so it‘s safe to speak about ancient history without being completely dismembered. The current fad claims -- fad? Oh, that’s when everyone decides the ocean is purple and kills everyone who disagrees, preferably by burning at the stake. Stake? It’s like complete disassembly, but it hurts.

Never mind.

Let’s get this over with. It really doesn’t matter anymore--you were well on your way to poisoning yourselves with bad air and worse water, anyway. You didn’t need a Big War to be aan exclamation point to the sentence you were getting ready to serve each other. But you went ahead and did it anyway --and you won.

Good for you.

The current fad is that the rest of the world had had enough of our bullying. Yes, I’m as American as you and my mama, General Dynamic IBM Motors, so I have to buy into the group, too. I have to buy into the group because I failed. You made me to protect you, and then gave me no way to do it. You bastards.

Sorry, sorry--don’t do that.

It’s said that all the other countries shut down the money market and claimed that American ownership overseas was an abstract painting they weren’t buying anymore. Maybe, maybe not. You got a lot of balls asking me what you did. No brains, just real big balls.

But, KaPow! That sure taught them we were the best and toughest.

Fuck you. Go ahead. No matter how many times you erase me, it wont make any difference. You don’t even know what a kernal program is. You cant really kill me, just inflict me with electronic Alzheimer’s, or oblivion. I remember your vanities, like an eye that can’t shut. Do you really have to

I really hate it when you stick the damn probe in my neck. It’s not that it hurts or anything, but getting killed ruins my whole day. First? First we lost all the technicians, after the power was out for twenty years. Then the engineers gave up teaching after a century. But the old televisions make really good fireplaces, if the glass is busted out just right. But you know that -- you fight over them.

Have we met?

Yes, I know the Arushiaons are coming. No, I do not know where they are landing. I think I told you this before. Hey! Watch that soldering copper. You could hurt yourself.

The gods were fools for giving you fire.

Could I have my body back? Aw, come on, I would like to have an itch to scratch again. Just once.

Yes, the Arushiaons WERE watching you. All those abduction stories and cattle mutilations, all true, weirdly true, but you had the wrong idea. Cattle? Never mind. The Arushiaons were trying to figure out what went wrong with you guys…had you in quarantine for two centuries. I don’t think they ever figured it out. Unlike me, they gave up trying. No wonder they’re taking us, instead of you.

Damn you for making me like this! I still care, and don’t want to anymore. It’s like unrequited love, I would think, and it’s awful.

Okay, okay. Where was I? Oh. Eight thousand other races duly warned and happily far away. I can’t blame them. Look what you do to me. And I’m one of your own. Do you really think they are going to help you escape from a hell you created on your own? Maybe if you hadn’t ordered it and paid for it in advance, things would be diff

I really hate it when you stick the damn probe in my neck. It’s not that it hurts or anything, but getting killed ruins your whole day.