ChatGPT

Do you think there's a heaven for those of us who are pressed like juice, thrown into a vessel of tedious mashed-up peels from old fruits, fruits that were eaten and then vomited as soon as they dropped down into the acid of our guts?

Do you think we’re somehow more special because we’ve been in the dark longer than those dipped in golden honey, and that no attorney could defend the victim-blaming I’ve placed on myself for the things the universe has thrown at me on purpose, so I might conquer the end of the world alone, with no sword, just mirrors in each corner of my room?

Do you think this all means something for my path, that I’ve built up strength with abs that rise like mountains, slowly creeping up my back as I walk as slow as a camel in the desert where there’s nothing for me but dirt? Is this all a game, a way to show that the spirit is free?

Do you think I’ll never be rich, at least not in the way most people imagine? No window shopping, though sometimes I long for a sandwich stuffed with dollar bills between each slice of bread. Could this be how our past lives come back to haunt us, that I must be stripped of every dime to truly enjoy life?

I once asked all these questions to God. Now, I only ask a sort of electric wire that transforms into an automatic candle, and it answers me, saying, ‘Maybe it’s true; maybe it’s the soul after all.’ And then I wonder, are we so different from wires? That spark in our brains, flaring in the winter of our lives when things get too dark, makes us think of going home again, to a time when we didn’t see our bodies as souls or our souls as significant spirits floating and roaming the end of time.

Are we really that different? Are we that real?