Where did this picture come from? Here's where. (True story...) ------------------ "This is the day the world ends," the sign read, in huge letters. (Pardon???) "The world as you know it has ceaseed to exist!" Ooookay. Some joker. Bad taste. A week after Halloween and some joker's planting signs. Ha. I walked on. City pranks...let 'm have their fun, I thought: I got things to do... Then another sign---this one in Italian: "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate..." Now I don't know Italian, but I remembered this from school: It's The Divine Comedy, by Dante. It means: "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here..." Ooooookay. A joker who happens to be well-read. Very funny. kept walking. No time, no time, gotta go... But as I walked closer to the sign, horrible sounds: Roaring winds. Heart-rending moans. A harsh scratching sound---as if someone were rubbing 2 gigantic barbed wire fences together. I reared back. I looked around: What was going on? Then suddenly I realized I'd been so dumbly amused by these signs---they continued for miles along the lake---that I forgot to look at the sight itself: Namely, that big leaning-tree---which I'd photographed many times (you've seen it in my gallery)---but whose color had been washed out as if someone put it in a gigantic Photoshop filter and desaturated it. A sepia from hell---ugh: a brown, burnt, rusted brown that looked like the whole earth had been rusted to a crisp, readied for some horribly abandoned auto yard. But, worse, the sun was devouring it! The rays spilled all over the shore, thickly, like molasses (look at them): They knocked over people, stopped cars in their tracks, boiled the water. The lake---directly beneath the sunrays---was boiling as if in a cauldron. And the whole lake emitted this deep, hollow roar, as if some horrid beast were trapped inside it, roaring to escape. And---get this---the few cars that were present had no one in them (!!!), yet they drove fiercely, trying to get the hell outa there. I was terrified: What in the world had happened here? And why was I the only one allowed to see this? Was I going to be devoured? Would that sun devour the whole city---the whole world? Was this the end of everything? "Cut! That was great, people! It's in the can! Great job, great job!" (What???) I looked around: nothing. Who was talking. Where did it come from? Quickly the sun was grabbed out of the sky, the tree was lifted up and replaced with the original. (Jesus.) The water was cooled off with a mountain-full of ice. Voices were heard, "was I good?" "was I too fraught?" "did I do my line right?" "I was too much---say it, go ahead: I can take it! I over did it! I know it! I don't wanna live..." And so on. Then, sounds of scenery being removed: Get this: The whole sky was rolled up, the whole city, everything---revealing ugly metal frames, lights, sound stages, wires, you name it...then the lake was drained---I have no idea where!---then the land, the road, the high rises, all of it: rolled up and carted away. And I was left standing in an abandoned lot now, with nothing left but old doughnuts and crushed coffee cups strewn along the ground. "Hello????" I shouted. "Hello????" No answer. Then someone ran to me: She had 3 hands and a very strange face. "You're in an AI," she said. "Get the hell out. We're about to trash this scene..." "I just wrote a piece about AI," I shouted. "Who asked for this?" "Well, goooooood for you!" she said sarcastically. "Now get out! This whole thing's being trashed. NOW!" And---boom! The whole universe was suddenly "clicked" by some gigantic mouse (are you shitting me???), I was catapulted through digital space, I was whooshed away---nearly passing out from the wind and the high speed---until I landed -in the digital trash. CUH-RASH!!! "HEY!!!!!" I shouted. No one heard. "DON'T HIT DELETE!!!!" I shouted. (I was inside the computer's trash.) Then someone---and if you're listening, you saved my life, dammit!"---grabbed me, pulled me out, and tossed me out of the computer and onto my living room rug. Boom! I stood up, my heart beating wildly, looked around, and realized: I was the size of a pencil! I was still sized for a jpg! "HEY!" I shouted. "MAKE ME THE RIGHT SIZE!" "JESUS," cried the voice in the screen. "Get it together!" (type type---prompt, prompt, prompt) She prompted me back to the right size. (This gives you cramps. Trust me---I couldn't move.) Then I saw that the tree was still in my computer. So I decided to upload it, so you knew I didn't make this story up. Then I brushed myself off, dug out that "NO AI" sign, put it on my wall, and got in bed and went back to sleep. Outside my window, someone was AI-ing the sunrise: I gotta say, it was beautiful---I don't get the hairy creatures flying in the air---but it was beautiful. And I went to sleep......Watch yourself, is all I'm saying. It's coming to get you. The damned stuff is everywhere.........whoosh....... The End