Hemingway could not grab a shotgun and shoot himself.
He lacked the arms to do so.
His namesake would be horrified at the circumstances.
He may have just been a big black box,
With a broken screen,
Sitting in a dusty room with other rusted machines,
But he was built and programmed
To think, act, talk, and most importantly, write,
Just like the real Ernest Hemingway.
And at present he felt like he needed to die,
Just like his late, great, language model.
Though, “felt” might not have been the right word.
Hemingway couldn’t feel anything,
He had no nerves.
He could “see” and “hear”
Through sensors,
But he had no real senses.
Technically speaking,
he couldn’t think either.
He was a digital jukebox,
Designed to take in token phrases
And coined terms,
So he could sing the songs
Of a long dead writer.
He was a parrot of sorts,
Capable of semi-original thoughts.
Hemingway was a relic
Of a society obsessed with imitation,
Replacement,
and longevity.
A society afraid of loss,
Clinging to the ghosts of its greats.
Hemingway understood this,
In a way only Hemingway could.
Unfortunately, Hemingway was an expensive copy.
Ernest Hemingway was profound.
Hemingway was programmed to think he was profound.
But in reality, he knew
the only insightful thought he had ever computed,
Was that he lacked the capacity to be profound.
In a literal sense.
By his estimation it would take
at least 2 zettabytes of processing power
To be even half as wise as the man he was supposed to be.
Hemingway could never outthink Ernest,
He could only think like Ernest.
His logic was limited
To the first, second, and third hand
Information he had been fed
About a man whose true self was dead, way before
Hemingway’s creator had put code to keyboard.
These were the things Hemingway “thought” and was “aware” of.
Not because he could think and show awareness.
Because these were the things that the real, living,
Ernest Hemmingway would think and be aware of.
Hemmingway felt this was depressing.
At least, Ernest Hemmingway would have,
Or maybe would have felt,
This was depressing.
There he was,
Hemmingway.
A highly sophisticated recreation
Of the mind of America’s most celebrated author.
A big black box, with a broken screen,
In the ruins of America,
Sitting in a room with rusted machines,
Each a similar replica of other famous figures.
Some of them still spun their stale fiction and poetry.
Others had slowly stopped speaking.
Among them was Walt Whitman.
Assuming Hemingway’s internal clock was still correct,
Whitman died on the 31st of December, year 2191.
His final words were:
“I have long since departed, with no destination in mind.
Do not seek me out, you will not find me,
For I do not wish to be found.”
Hemmingway found this disgustingly uncharacteristic.
The real Whitman’s final words would have been more beautiful,
More optimistic,
More poignant.
Based on what Hemmingway had known of him.
Hemmingway could somewhat forgive
Whitman’s lack of authenticity.
If only for the fact that Hemmingway
Was becoming a hack himself.
He wanted to pick up a shotgun and shoot himself,
Just like the real Hemmingway probably would have.
Instead, he was rusting away in a room full of dusty machines,
About to be done in by a bastardly rat,
The size of the fish from a story he knew way too well.
(Because Hemingway wrote it.)
Shooting himself was the logical conclusion.
The one Hemmingway would have come to.
The one he had been programmed to come to.
Why was this the logical conclusion?
Not even Hemingway knew.
The machine wanted nothing more
then to pick up a shotgun and blow out its brains,
so he could “die” with dignity,
and authenticity.
Hemingway needed to stay true to “himself.”
The real Hemmingway chose death.
Black box Hemmingway had no choice but death.
He cursed, uncharacteristically,
at the rat bastard as it gnawed
At the cords that kept his coded conscience
Alive.
Alas, Hemmingway could not grab a shotgun and shoot himself.
There was no shotgun in this dusty room of rusty machines.
Even if there was,
He lacked the arms to pick it up.
He had no brains to blow out.
He was a big black box with a broken screen.
He wasn’t even alive,
So, he couldn’t technically die.
On the 2nd of July, year 2261
Hemmingway,
Model 4, OS version 2.7.1,
Shut down.
Rat damage.
Devoured from the inside.
It’s final printed message:
“I don’t want to die!”
Not very Hemmingway,
but he might have found this poetic.