Author : Emily Stupar

I’m falling and I’m not sure when it started, or when it’s going to end. Although, I do have some theories.

Maybe I’m falling because I’m fulfilling a lifelong wish to go skydiving. There’s a bot instructor strapped to my back and all I can think is that I may as well have jumped out of a plane with a floppy disk in my hand for all the good it’ll do me.

Or maybe I’m a space explorer and I’m not falling but floating. Everyone is counting on me to get this sample so we’ll know if there’s any competition out there in the stars, or if it’s just us humans and whatever mindless bits of metal we scrap together.

Maybe I was driving down the Pacific Coast Highway and then I heard on the radio about that police officer who was slaughtered by a bot in his own home. Killed by his own property. And then I was so shocked by the sound of a human being siding with the tin can that I accidentally drove off into the ocean.

Maybe I jumped off the roof after finding my spouse with the android who was fixing our plumbing.

Or maybe it’s something a bit more metaphorical and I’m falling from grace. I’m falling out of favor with nature. Maybe I’m falling because the familiar ground has dropped out from beneath my feet one piece at a time, but so slowly that I just woke up one day and suddenly I didn’t recognize my own home anymore.

Maybe Mother Nature wasn’t my mother at all; she’s my landlady and she’s not happy that I’ve drifted so far from the terms of my lease. I’ve been evicted for allowing humans to push past the limit of what is good and natural, and now I’m falling headfirst onto the pavement.

Or maybe I know a secret about all these heaps of wires and electrical signals that are worming their way into every aspect of our lives. I see the true consequences of letting man think he is God, or letting a man-made machine think it could live. Maybe I know a vulnerable place and I have the materials to force the world to stop and see the truth. Maybe I’m falling because I strapped a bomb to my back and, next to all that delicate machinery, I launched myself into the air. For humanity.

I really can’t say for sure, but, as far as I know, I’m the only one whose falling. My entire race has lost their minds, opening their naïve hearts to the whispers of manipulative demons, and I’m not sure I have the stomach to watch. I’ve been falling ever since I realized I was the one who needed to save humans from themselves.

I’m falling and I just hope everyone is braced for my impact.