(formerly: a child, a believer, a keeper of sparrows) Terminal entry. No further data expected.
There are others. Will18690--42-s. Will18690--17-s. We do not speak—speech is logged—but we have learned to blink in sequences. Long-short-long means are you still real? Short-short-long means I think so, but I am forgetting why . Today, Will18690--17-s blinked I saw a bird once . I blinked back I believe you . The account recorded our blinking as "ocular micro-spasms, benign." It did not decode them. Accounts cannot imagine metaphor. Will18690--39-s Account
Tonight I will do something the account cannot file. Not rebellion. Not violence. Something quieter. I will close my eyes and imagine a garden with no gate, a sparrow with two good wings, and a woman who does not need to hum to be happy. The account will record my closed eyes. It will record my slowed breathing. It will record durations of inactivity and label them efficient rest . But it will not see the garden. It cannot see what is not in its ledger. (formerly: a child, a believer, a keeper of