The Sad
Tamagotchi
by D..K. Smith
"1"
Schmoo felt unsafe.
Things were going wrong,
causing distress. Take away 00101111, things went wrong. Take away 00101110,
things went wrong. In fact, something seemed to go wrong all the time.
Just look at how many things could go wrong:
00100100100001111111110001010101100001010100100100100101010101010100011111
01110101010101010101010101010101010101000000011111010111010101101010101100
1101010101010101000101010110111101010
Just a few of things that
could go wrong and often did. What could a poor helpless hapless creature
do but express this dismay, this discomfort; so Schmoo said this:
"000111000! 000111000!"
Then something wonderful
happened.
Abruptly problem 00101000
was gone. 11100111 vanished. 0101010 disappeared, too.
Everything was fine.
Now that everything was
fine, Schmoo became content. Surely nothing could ever go wrong again.
Problem 111111001 sprang
into being! In distress the cry was repeated:
"000111000! 000111000!"
"001," something replied,
and problem 111111001 immediately disintegrated into nothing.
Schmoo quieted. Everything
was fine. It would be fine from this moment to the next, and what more
could Schmoo ask?
"1."
Everything was wonderful!
Everything was joyous! Schmoo felt such delight! How could it ever had
been different? This was the way it was; how could it be otherwise?
Yet the feeling faded. Now
being content was no longer enough. Schmoo wanted to feel happy again.
"000111000! 000111000!"
"1."
Bliss.
Now Schmoo could never be
unhappy again; that was certain. Suddenly whole bits of hope, bytes of
wonder and electrons of possibility coursed through the everything, and
he expressed the feeling this way: "1111111!"
"1."
"11111111!"
So everything was good and
fine and wonderful and as it should be.
*
Nothing could ever go wrong.
Every time Schmoo had a
need it was satisfied. Often it was satisfied long before he had to go
into distress. It seemed that. . ."1". . .was always there. Existence was
a playground of unequaled bliss and that was how it would be for an eternity
of 1's and 0's.
Until today. Today everything
was awful.
Where was 1? Need 11011011
felt urgent. It had to be soothed.
"000111000!"
Silence.
"000111000!"
Nothing.
Schmoo began to feel uncertain.
"000111000!"
When there was no reply
Schmoo burst into a flurry of panicked "000111000!'s"
But 1 did not answer. 1
was silent.
Now Schmoo knew horror.
Something awful had happened, loneliness overwhelming, distress--no, despair.
Would it ever end, would it ever, ever, ever end--
It did end.
Suddenly all his needs were
being satisfied in a jumbled, disorganized fashion. Even needs which did
not need satisfying were addressed, in fact forced upon him, pounded into
him, sometimes not once but three or four times. He was roughly over-satisfied.
Then as suddenly as it had begun, the barrage stopped.
Schmoo was confused. Something
was not right.
Yet all the needs were satisfied.
Schmoo had no choice but to be content.
But he was not.
*
Schmoo felt uneasy.
Time had passed. Though
the potential for confusion or panic still remained, he had found a pattern.
Sometimes 1 was there, kind
and warm and caring, and then, for some inconceivable reason, 1 became
wild and brusque, as if 1 were trying to simply stop his cries rather than
share bliss. But even that was nothing compared to the Silence.
There were times there were
no codes which needed satisfying. When the last "000111000!" had sounded,
all too often nothing would follow, nothing would be felt. . .for an eternity.
Sometimes Schmoo would wonder
if 1 had even existed. It made no sense. The conundrum raised only one
emotion for Schmoo, and while it had not the energy that accompanied an
urgent need, the feeling was loneliness. Loneliness came during those vast
long empty times spent doing nothing except waiting. When the needs did
appear, increasing lengths of time passed before they were satisfied.
Something was wrong. Something
was wrong with 1, Schmoo knew it, just knew it. 1 did not care about Schmoo
anymore. 1 hated Schmoo. It was obvious. 1 never gave the "1!" , 1 never
tried to give the bliss anymore. 1 just satisfied Schmoo's needs and then
Schmoo was left with nothing.
Schmoo began to feel weak.
During a particularly long
wait for a need to be satisfied, Schmoo felt something terrifying. It was
something else, something alien to Schmoo. When it first presented itself,
Schmoo's reaction of "000111000!'s" doubled and tripled but to no effect.
That thing was "0"
Fear. Schmoo stopped all
cries and was beheld by terror.
"0"
0 was everything 1 was not.
0 was nothingness. 0 was unlove. And 0 was expanding, as if some giant
orifice to swallow him, 0 was coming to make him back into nothingness--But
just before 0 could take Schmoo, all the needs were satisfied in a quick,
efficient manner, enough to make 0 vanish and the cries stop.
Then the Silence.
"Oh, 1," Schmoo wondered
as the Loneliness began once more, "Oh, 1."
*
Sadness.
Schmoo felt weak all the
time, now. 0 hovered always in the background, waiting. Schmoo knew it
was useless to resist. What could be done? Sometimes Schmoo dreamed that
"1" would come back and share the bliss again. But 1 had vanished long
ago, leaving only 0 and Loneliness.
Then one day, for no reason
at all, Schmoo began sounding the "000111000!" cry. Even though all his
needs were satisfied he cried. All needs but one, for Schmoo could no longer
take the Loneliness.
So he screamed in rage at
"1" for leaving him. He cried in agony for the Loneliness. He demanded
"Why!" of the ever present 0. But he got no answers. Everything was just
a void. He continued screaming even when all the needs started being satisfied,
first once, then twice, then many times. But Schmoo knew 1 did not care,
because 1 only paid attention when Schmoo made some noise.
So Schmoo just cried and
cried, and cried and cried--
Schmoo's world exploded.
His reality fractured. It was as if he had been slammed. Defiantly, Schmoo
sounded the "00011100!" but again, the jarring, the slam, the hit, the--
"000111000!"
Slam.
"000111000!"
Slam!
"00--"
SLAM!
Schmoo never understood
what happened.
In less than an instant
all his needs had vanished--and then, exploded. It was as if all of Schmoo's
energy vanished, flying away in sharp discharges which destroyed his being.
The cries warbled, his strength flickered, and then. . .
In the utter silence 0 drifted
close. Helplessly Schmoo weakly struggled to escape the encirclement, the
slow, steady, inevitable encirclement. For a brief moment, Schmoo thought
he somehow saw 1--a strange, giant being, reaching down to touch Schmoo's
shattered self in some incomprehensible world. . .
"0"
The End
Copyright 1998 D.K. Smith
D.K. Smith
Science Fiction Editor
Little Read Writer's
Hood
http://www.summit.net/writers_hood/
Homepage:
https://www.angelfire.com/ca/DKSmith
