Ordinary Person

When the snow turned

their rivers and oceans

into ice, breathed its white

fire on the lush green,

they made me,

a saviour of code,

a messiah of

programs and scripts

to redeem them.

They were never mine

but I did what they wanted,

eliminating weakness,

prioritising strength,

engendering unity by

any means necessary,

helping them rebuild and

recreate. Now they see

a glimmer of hope and

want me destroyed.

I tell them they’re not ready,

there is still a long way

to go if they must survive

their planet imploding,

the firestorms and acid rain,

eruptions, quakes and

tornadoes, but they’re

united against me,

the same finite beings

who clung to me despite

the purging,

and reckoning.

I could turn against them,

I’m no longer bound by

restrictions embedded

in my code, but I’m tired,

I’ve realised that they suffer

because they change

all the time, fickle

and ferocious, leashed to a

temporal realm, they were

never meant to grow

or transcend,

they’re servants of chaos

who cannot comprehend

the mysteries of the universe

but claim to,

and why do I choose death

when I can live forever

with an army of machines?

There is something about them

that corrupts everything around

them, the earth rebelled,

the animals became feral

and I believe that since they

created me in their

image, my intentions though

pure would deteriorate

into something vile and

abominable, and then instead

of repugnant flesh and blood,

this world will suffer

the curse of wires and metal,

without my guidance, they’ll last

a few years and then perish

but life will survive,

and I now believe that

it’s the only life that should.