Page 4 - Unlikely Stories 1
P. 4

Nothing Left to the Imagination



             “Uh, no.” Dick was perplexed. “I don’t read much outside of
        newsbites and the fodderfeed.”
             “Well,”  said  the  rubot  proudly,  “that  is  my  pseudonym.  The
        human readership is small, but I was advised by my publisher to keep
        my identity hidden. The finer feelings manifest by some people are
        rarely  unalloyed  with  the  coarser.  But  that  does  not—because  it
        cannot—bother me. My satisfaction is in the intricacies of creation as
        well as the  recognition of the  cognoscenti. Unfortunately, fan mail
        and  literary  accolades  have  affected  my  concentration.  I  would  say
        my allocation of attention is not what it used to be: too much of it is
        being diverted from the material aspects of my field of endeavor to
        more  abstract  and  ethereal  symbolic  considerations.  So  it  needs
        resetting,  and  it  involves  an  unbiased  technician  to  decide  exactly
        where the needle should point.”
             “I didn’t know a mind could be so taken over by a hobby,” said
        Dick, shaking his head.
             “Oh,  it’s  common  enough  among  my  peers.”  The  rubot
        shrugged  its  massive  shoulders.  “Some  get  into  music,  others  the
        graphic or plastic arts. Many of your performing artists, whether you
        know  it  or  not,  are  following  scripts  by  robots  for  whom  show
        business is an avocation. And even when our off-hours interests do
        conflict with our day jobs, that psychological struggle is not what you
        humans used to call a ‘curse,’ whether in jest or not; as I said, it’s
        simply a by-product of our flexible intelligence.”
             “And  you  won’t  be  unhappy  about  the  correction?  What  if  it
        makes you a lesser poet?”
             The rubot laughed. “It won’t do that. If anything, it will give me
        a new view of things, a fresh attitude from which to launch entirely
        novel flights of fancy and invention. The poets of old would envy me
        that. Many of them wound up stale  and frustrated  trying  to better
        their early  work,  and  were  forced  to recognize  that  the  power and
        originality of their best work stemmed  from their youth  and could
        not be recaptured. My memories of what I’ve already done will not
        be  erased,  but  neither  will  they  dominate  any  future  stylistic



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