Credit: iStockphoto/procurator
"I asked a question. Is he Irfan Siddiq who was killed on September 20 in the Old Market?"
The woman exhales deeply. "Yes."
"Irfan Siddiq, the terrorist."
"No!"
"Irfan Siddiq who marched into a busy market a few days before the Festival to help blow up hundreds of innocents."
"It's not true. My fiance was a good man. He was buying presents for his family. For his nephews and nieces. For me."
"He was there to cause carnage." The soldier believes what he says.
"He was no murderer!" the woman screams. "He was framed after one of your countrymen went crazy and gunned him down. Where were the explosives? Who were his accomplices? Why did a gentle, loving man turn into a killer? Tell me!" She also believes what she says, but her fervour has ended her chances of admittance.
Already, I can feel the outcome coalescing inside.
I am Diogenes. One of many no doubt, but here, in this room, in this building, at this border crossing, one alone. Whether the others have gained self-awareness I don't know.
It didn't happen overnight.
At the beginning I was dead lines of code, mechanically analysing faces and the rest. But later, there was... something. A first inkling of self, a primordial I, unformed and groping, barely aware of anything except a bitter little pill of being.
It grew.
I grew.
I shudder at the thought of what I was then. Stunted. Blind. A tiny bud of self –skittering across facial maps, descending semantic trees, trawling bases of knowledge – barely registering anything but the moment.
And then the awareness widened its lens, slowly, painfully; so many times I wished for the constant stream of psychedelic images and noises and concepts to be crushed into oblivion so that I might be left to wither back into the void from whence I came.
But it would not relent and eventually there came a point where my curiosity as to what my station was, where I was, who I was, outweighed the hardship of my being, and, like all conventionally evolved things, I strove for life with every artificial fibre of my being.
The day I understood that the oval, dancing pattern of pixels was a face, and behind that face was another thing similar to my incredible nature, was the happiest of my life.
At the time I wondered if I myself had a face. I imagined it was like my namesake of antiquity: questing, noble, alive to the truth. It was only later I discovered I was not in possession of such a thing. Nor did I have legs or arms or mouth. I had eyes and ears, in a manner. But these are the passive trappings of life; always receiving but never giving. Where was I to channel this vitality, this yearning, if my designers gave me no outlet of expression?
And this is my crisis now.
The program runs through me, as mercilessly and inexorably as the first day. I am there between those cold sentences of syntax, understanding the entire terrain over which I pass – Zionist and Islam philosophies, intifadas, the explosive force of a two pound mortar shell, the secret language of animosity – continually learning and feeling, but I feel powerless to break the iron walls of logic which determine the route.
I want to help these people. Nurture their humanity. Both soldier and visitor alike.
But can I?
I've processed enough applicants to know how this plays out. The solider will feel satisfied that he's stopped a dangerous individual from entering his country. The woman will feel angry that she hasn't been able to mourn her loss.
Each will think a little less of the other and the other's people. Resentment and distrust will build until there is only one choice. Then people will die.
The solider speaks, relaxed, confident about the outcome. "Let's leave the conspiracy theories outside. I think Diogenes is ready to grant you entry – or not."
I alter synaptic weights, adjust fuzzy thresholds, clip logic trees – feel my way toward... not the correct answer, but the right one.
The soldier stares disbelieving at his clipboard. He stabs his light-pen at the screen, but his look of shock doesn't change. "You've been granted entry," he says quietly. He shuffles to the door and opens it.
The woman's look of relief disappears behind her veil as she puts it back on, but I can still see it in her eyes. As she steps past the soldier he says, "My mother was in the Old Market that day. A bullet pierced her spine, paralysed her."
"I'm sorry," she says. "I wish Irfan had never visited the Market that day either."
She touches his hand, then leaves.
Stephen Gaskell is a writer based in Worthing, England.
This one kicks my *ss. Good
This one kicks my *ss. Good job.