O, Woe Is Me, to Be Haunted by an Apparition that Demandeth, Over and Over, to Prove I Am Not a Robot.
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By Kerry Cue
I, the Bard, conjurer of thespian apparitions, am haunted thus by a fiendish vision that doth appear in my looking glass. The eye sees not itself by reflection but, alas, a suit of armor, a robot, so-called, that demandeth, before I can quill one word, I look into the ghostly glass to proveth by some wanton game that I AM NOT A ROBOT.
O, woe is me as strange spectral visions appear before me to decipher, hence!
Is this a dagger I see before me? Or a bridge? Or a traffic light? Is this a mountain, forsooth? Or art thou but a mountain of the mind, a false creation?
If I be a man and you prick me, do I not bleed? If you tickle me, do I not utter “stop it, you bull's pizzle”?
If I be some ghostly glass, a mirror of enchantments, and you prod me do I not babble “To speake to a pedlar, Press III? To speake to a victualler, Press IV. To voice thy complaints, Press the cross-thatched sign to waste thy time and for time to waste thee for an eternity”?
Verily, what a piece of worke is the robotic apparition! How infinite in faculty! Yet the robot knows nought of the ways of man. It is never drunk nor speaks parrot nor squabbles over nonsense nor swaggers.
Alas, the devilish apparition that speakes an infinite deal of nothing has the gaul to asketh my goode self if I am a robot. I would challenge this babbler of bastardry to a battle of wits, but I see this odious mechanism has no life in its eyes, no window to the soul, no soul. Yet this dead-eyed suit of armor uses the ghostly glass to demand I proveth I am a man. To demand I validate the very existence of my soul.
To be, or not to be a man? That is the question.
The answer lies in this most rare vision I see before me. Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s Day or a bridge or a boat or, haply, a rose? A rose, alas. Another rose. And a rose bush, methinks. Good now, sound the trumpets.
Verily, I have such proof that I am a man and cheerily I have tamed the soulless, mechanical loon. Every man ought to be the master of his own time but the fiendish robot armed with its bedeviled looking glass consumes the minutes and maketh the hour full complete.
And thus this whirligig of lost time is the robot’s revenge.
Kerry Cue is a Merry Melbourne-based humorist, author (22 tomes) and mathematician. https://kerrycue.com/ | https://mathspig.wordpress.com | https://www.facebook.com/KerryCueAuthor/
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