The Future Has Soft Fists

Ziyaad Shaboodien, South Africa

Scrap Metal 

1. I tell people I’m going into AI. The creatives I surround myself with jump in horror, and say, “Don’t feed into it. Please.” The tech-bros I don’t surround myself with challenge me. They say, “What about AI, exactly?” My professors, indifferent, say, “What do you want AI to do, and how are you going to achieve it?” I tell them that all I want to do is to see if I can make it imagine a future. 

2. Inevitably, I am asked what imagination means. I can only compare it to a delusion - a blind belief in a compelling story. I tell whoever asks that to imagine is to envision a future that hasn’t yet happened, and to then act as though it were real, and occurring every second. 

3. IBM made the first AI to beat Gary Kasparov in chess. They called it Deep Blue. They did this in 1997. 

4. I used to hate swimming. The pool was always cold, I hated being shirtless, the chlorine stung my eyes, and, especially in the depths of winter, the dark mosaics, the dull, muted water, the people who jumped in long before me – they were all a pulsing heartbeat of a deep, blue machine. 

5. Of course an AI could beat the world’s best chess player. It can see, like, 20 million steps into the future. Why would anyone care? 

6. A lover of mine once said that on an intimate and drunken night spent in his home, his lap. We were still in an awkward talking stage that I hated for no reason other than impatience, and I didn’t yet know whether or not I could see a future with him. He seemed a bit grey, and I was afraid of commitment. I told him to shut up while giggling. He laughed, “But I'm serious!” 

I replied, “If that was all the way back then, can you imagine what it is now?” We had this conversation in 2019, before the world shut down, and before I learned that we would work out well together. 

7. I think I’m particularly afraid of doing something that I enjoy. At one point, I wanted to study literature and move people. I wanted to study law and help people. I wanted to study psychology and save people. It was all wanting. Desire. 

My school made us take a slew of tests in order to help us in choosing career paths. When I sat down with the psychiatrist, she explained my personality type, which I didn’t think was very clinical or relevant. She then went on to explain that I could do anything that I wanted. I asked her how she knew, and she told me, “It’s all just data. That’s what I get from your data. As long as you don’t go into business, please. You’ll hate yourself if you do.” I chose computer science because I could do anything, so why wouldn’t I choose something that keeps me stable, afloat, safe? It’s all just data. Words. 

I don’t know what would come of that decision. I can’t see what my future holds. Perhaps that is why I want a machine to do it – my body is nothing but a delivery vehicle. 

8. It’s a lot easier to play with code than it is to play with words. It’s a lot easier to convince others that I’m doing something meaningful. 

9. I’ve started replacing the achievements listed within my CV. My most recent removal has been the line “I’m writing a short story collection.” Prospective employers ask, lightheartedly, “What’s it about? What do you explore?” The implication is clear — it simply must pertain to technology, research, work. 

I reply, “I explore love, or some form of it,” and a constricting tension lingers within the office, as though reserving judgement. I tell myself that it’s nice and useful that I’m at least doing something. What I don’t tell them is that I’ve only written a page. Lately, I’ve started sending the file that instead reads, “Researching AI neural language models.” When they ask me about it, I say, “I want to see if AI can imagine a future. Really imagine one. And I don’t mean a story. I don’t mean a prediction. I mean an expression of its innermost feelings. Even if the words are fake and the sentences are shapes, I want to feel like it truly believes it will happen. Even if the odds are stacked against it, it believes. I want to know if it can do that.” 

Autopsy 

10. My lover and I broke up in 2021. We slept with each other hot and messy one last time, and I drove him to the airport after we showered together one last time. We were tender, happy, and never meant to end. Neither of us liked the idea of long distance; we couldn’t picture a world in which we would’ve worked out. I think he would’ve cheated, and, upon finding out, I would have wished I had cheated. He put his pinky finger on my thigh, but kept looking straight ahead at the road. We stayed still, and the radio was kept low so as to communicate through the silence that I still loved him. 

11. My eyes stung from all the crying I did in the airport lounge. People stared, but only for a few seconds before they moved on to something more important, like where their boarding area could be found or how expensive the food is. The airport, a liminal space, is such that everyone is aware that everything is temporary. It makes sense, then, that people who do not have a flight to catch, or have no flight to come from, do not belong there. They are a constant. It makes sense, then, that a constant cries in the airport lounge. What else do they have to do besides go back home without the person they entered with? 

12. After he was gone, I noticed myself becoming more irritable when working in my apartment. I still had clothes that smelled of him, tiny, cheap trinkets that I used to tease him over, letters he slipped under my door that I left half-opened on my bedside table, a kiss on my cheek, and his fingerprint on my thigh. I had decided to work in a new café every day until I found one I liked. It was a quaint, well-decorated, but loud place. It had middle-of-the-road coffee, and good food, albeit limited options. It wasn’t the best, but I was informed by the manager that he once worked there, and that she recognised me from all the stories he told of me. She kept me good company, and I found the café to be slightly more bearable as the days went by. 

13. While working on my research, I got a call that my neighbour, and first friend in my apartment complex, was in the ICU. I called the hospital to ask when visiting hours closed. I bought flowers in his favourite colour and a card on which I sloppily wrote a note of love and friendship, concluding it with “Get well soon!” 

He looked horrible, and unconscious. 

They explained many things about why he was there that I didn’t understand, but I didn’t have to, because nobody needs a diagnosis to be acutely aware that something is wrong. Privately, I asked if he’d be okay. The doctor gave an answer meant to be both neutral and reassuring to me, but boiled down to a simple, “No.” I went back inside the room to hug his mother. She said, “Thank you for being here. He can feel you here. He’s happy,” and all I wondered was how a mother always knew how to extract information from her children, even with the child unable to think. 

14. Death is a business. It’s papers. It’s venues. It’s doctors, morticians, priests. It’s bills, organising funerals, losing paychecks. It’s catering, it’s dress shopping, it’s picture frames, it’s pamphlets, it’s phone calls, it’s certificates, it’s hell, and there’s a neat little signature at the end of every page that says “I’m doing this for him,” while there’s nothing you can do for yourself. 

15. And you move on, because what else must you do besides imagine a future in which he didn’t die? 

16. I went on a quiet date at a lovely and expensive restaurant with someone who cut open bodies for police investigations. Morbidly curious, I asked if he enjoyed it, and he replied, “It’s business. You just do it.” He ordered a large steak, and sliced into it with ease. I got a salad, and a queasy feeling in my stomach. We never met up again. 

17. I’m not one to judge - I’m constantly performing autopsies. I’m cutting into the words I write, the things I don’t say, the things I wish I had said. I still dissect the exchanges I’ve had with my ex lover whom I still love, and wonder what it all means. Don’t mistake it as a replay, a supercut. It’s a careful surgical exploration. It’s me writing down on an old clipboard every hot breath, every laugh, every sentence and every heavy silence that hung above us, and determining if it was love or convenience. 

18. I have to stop myself, though. By unravelling the entire history of us all in one go, I would have to do so under the assumption that, at the end of it all, I would have to put his body back inside the freezer, and call for its removal as soon as possible. I wasn’t ready to do that, so I left him there, stretched out on my table, knowing he would still be there for me to cut open again the following day. That much is at least certain. 

Retrouvaille 

19. “This is only a foretaste of what is to come and only the shadow of what is going to be.” (Alan Turing: 1949) 

20. I have been trying for some time now to find meaning in everything I do. I’m still not sure if I know how to do that. 

21. I was playing around with Cleverbot - a crude, AI chatbot that compelled me in my teens. I told Cleverbot that I think that I’m in love with someone who I can’t have. It  asked why I can’t have them. I explained to Cleverbot that he’s studying overseas, and that I can’t afford to fly over to him every so often. It said, bluntly, “Long distance.” I said, “I don’t like that.” 

“Why?” 

“I’m not sure.” 

“So, bring them back. Then you can have them!” 

22. Once, over half a century ago, software engineers would have had to boot up their block of a computer, and program in a horrible, rudimentary, tedious language. Hours would be spent on only a few lines of code. If they wanted to share their work, they’d record it on some cassette-like ribbons, and ship it over, risking damage and money. Nobody does this anymore. If you want to make something, you open up your sleek laptop. If you want to fix an error, or optimise your code, you look at web forums, or you call a friend, because someone else has already done it for you. If you want to share a photo that you took on holiday, you AirDrop it, or send it on Drive. If you want the best route to the shops, you put it in Maps and wait a couple seconds. If you’re sad and yearning for warm skin, there’s a guy, DL, 7 inches, can host, 372 metres away, and he won’t stop texting you about it. You go over to his house. 

23. I’m still not sure why I didn’t like the idea of long distance. I think I once feared the idea of constantly wanting, and never having. It never mattered in the end - that fear came true regardless. 

24. Wendy Carlos helped develop the Moog Synthesiser. A friend of mine told me that her uncle still owned one of the first Moogs to be sold to the public. When I travelled to see it in person, I was overwhelmed with the ghost of sounds, my ears perking up as if hearing something, even though nothing was plugged in. The uncle explained that it used sine waves and voltage-controlled oscillators and amplifiers and noise generators and it all worked in harmony to synthesise various timbers of sounds. He said it was the shape, skeleton, and meat of music. I asked if he knew that Wendy Carlos was iconized by queer radioheads. He replied, “Oh, because she was transgender? Yeah, amazing stuff. Her music, really, was what drew me in. I only really listened to the music. The headlines came much after.” 

25. I don’t know who this is for. At one point, it was going to be asides - notes for my supervisor. Then, it became personal notes for my research. Now, I think it’s for my ex-lover whom I still really love. Truly, though, I think this is for the mess in my brain. I think I’m trying to figure out how to say that I still need you. 

26. I texted you for the first time in ages. You called me back. I asked where you’re located, and for how long. You told me everything, and I started looking for a job near you. 

“You’re lucky you’re employable,” my supervisor said when I told him my thoughts of moving. “Thank God you chose the field that you did. Not many have it as easy as you.”

27. As though I could break down the decisions of my past and attribute it to the success of my present - something I was so unsure of not too long ago. Perhaps the secret is that for the future to be real, one must believe it is currently happening. I wrote that in a footnote for my thesis. 

Shoplifting 

28. To do: 

- Send confirmation email on job 

- Tell him I got the job 

- Buy coffee. Nearly out 

- Start experimenting with optimised neural language algorithms 

- Hope for the best 

29. I wonder if I’m trying to aggrandise myself. My paper, even if it amounts to what I think is nothing, will still be considered by many students simply because of its material - the hot and new sector in tech. The one that impacts everyone. I wonder if I’m trying to impress you. I wonder if I’m trying to prove I can do anything I want, like that psychiatrist told me all those years ago. Even these words of intimacy meant just for us will be stolen by the eyes of others, and I’ll allow it. 

30. As if stealing does not commit the sin of leaving the owner behind in a forgotten memory. 

31. The night before my flight I sobbed in a way that I haven’t sobbed since I was a child. I thought of every moment that you stole from me, and how glad I was to have it be stolen. I thought of every gentle kiss under your sheets. I thought of how you held me so precisely, not too tight and not too far, warm enough for me to be happy. I thought 9 of your eyes, deep blue, and how they grabbed me, and it was all too much. I had sobbed myself until my skin sagged, my face flushed red; I was hot and old. I dragged my feet to the bathroom, but quickly got overwhelmed at seeing my reflection in the mirror. I couldn’t acknowledge the desperation and yearning all over my face, so I left it in my shadow. I opened my laptop to distract myself with work, but it was dead. I plugged in the charger and stared at the black screen for the very long, drawn out seconds before it booted up. In my reflection, I saw the possibility of a future - one where I’m happy, dedicated, and young again. 

32. It’s my third week being back with you and I no longer call you my ex lover whom I still love but you’re back to being just my lover. Our apartment smells exactly how it did before you left and I realise truly how much I had missed you, and that it was silly to presume I would stop missing all this one day. You told me how wild and unpredictable the future is, and that you’re happy it worked out in the end. For most people, the unpredictability of the future is a violent, unjust plague on their life. It’s a sick joke, and an existential dread. For others, it’s indifference. It’s an experiment. For me, it's both, and yet I still sometimes catch myself talking about how the future is exciting and promising when really it’s just the present unfolding as it is, and my attitude towards it depends on the weather, what time of day it is, how far I am from the things I love, and if I’ve had a cup of coffee yet. 

33. If I were to spontaneously die today in the middle of the road, I would hope you’d be there with me, because I would never want our future to end by a phone call, a text, an email, and business cards. 

34. The more time I spend with you, touching you, talking with you, arguing with you, laughing with you, the more I see the pulsating beacon of your existence. I don’t yet know how to describe it for you, and it is undeniably irreplicable. Just know that I believe in it like a child believes his mother: wholly and unquestioningly. 

35. These days, I have come to learn the word ‘peace’. I haven’t opened my calendar in months. My paper comes out next week. I love the home we’ve built. 

36. We stretch our present to infinities, we fade in and out of things we find worthy of our love, and each new sun is a second chance. So the smoke blows, the dice rolls, the future elusive as it always was — so we beat on. 

Ziyaad Shaboodien is a second year Computer Science student at UCT. He has been published in the Paper Crane Journal and is recognised as one of the 2022 English Poets for AVBOB Poetry. He currently works as a TA for Polyphony Lit’s “Around the World in 80 Days” workshop.