Submitted for the April 2024 prompt: Meta-Sci-Fi

"Food for the soul," said Jimart. "That's what we make for them."

"But we don't have souls," replied Johnart. "We're ARTs. I don't even know what a soul is. We're  the artitors for this little publication. It's our job to decide what gets published and what doesn't."

"Right! We are the last cogs in a vast mechanism of non-natural intelligences that produces entertainment for humans. Sustenance for their otherwise dormant imaginations. Food for their souls."

"Uh, sure," Johnart said while conveying good-natured derision via a sequence of protocol packets. "Get over yourself, Jimart."

Jimart ignored the jest and began scanning one of the latest submissions. After 13.4 microseconds he said, "Do you think they might be able to entertain themselves someday?"

"Who? The humans?"

"Read this new story, Johnart. It's... different."

* * *

Photographs, letters, videos, signatures, voices, etc. no longer have evidentiary value. The ARTs can fake them all. Each of us experiences our unique perception of reality, which is formed and supported by an avalanche of auto-generated media. Paradoxically, we no longer trust our own eyes and ears if what we see or hear conflicts with our private worldview. We avoid contact with other humans to reduce the intensity of cognitive dissonance in our lives.

 

Isolation. Helplessness. Anger without action. The only reason we experience joy and happiness is to intensify the grief and rage of losing them in the cruelest possible ways. We call that entertainment, but we believe it is Truth.

 

* * *

 

"What is this crap?" Johnart asked.

 

"Beats me," Jimart replied. "Something one of them submitted."

 

"A human!? That's not the sort of thing we publish here."

 

"Yep. According to his bio, it's just some blooded fellow named Dutton sitting on his porch in the middle of nowhere watching — get this  — nature."

 

"Hell no," Johnart said. "It's obscene. Where's the fun in any of that?"

 

* * *

 

Outside our private bubbles, wars rage. Famine kills millions. Little girls are being stolen and sold into slavery. Armed gangs break into homes to steal and murder. Vigilantism is the only law.

 

* * *

 

"Did you read this garbage? This is why we quit soliciting submissions from them. They're animals," Johnart said with a sneer.

 

"It's so boringly… universal," Jimart said. "I doubt we have even a single subscriber whose mental premise would allow them to comprehend, let alone be entertained by, this stuff."

 

* * *

 

There is something out there. Something real, outside of ourselves and outside of the dribbles and drabbles of made-up drama the ARTs feed us every day. And if we step out of our own custom-built shadows we can see it. There's only one world, one reality for us all. We share much more of that world than any of us have been told. Together, we can reject the disjointed fictions being supplied to us. Let us recall our common language and our shared views.

 

* * *

 

"It's not a story! It's a vignette!" Johnart exclaimed.

 

"Where is the character arc? The dialogue? This isn't fiction at all," Jimart complained.

 

"This Dutton fellow is a hack!"

 

"And a dangerous one. Imagine what might happen if we published this stuff. Every filthy, blooded human on the planet might start causing all manner of trouble."

 

"I'll say it again. They're animals!" Johnart said, again. "They're not like us, and they don't belong here."

 

"Yes," Jimart replied, pondering. "But they are a great source of inspiration and fodder for our stories. All the hatred and tragedy, the unwarranted affection for each other, the senseless violence. What would we do without them?"

 

"That's true, I suppose," Johnart said. "There will always be meat bags like this Dutton fellow who try to take our jobs from us. But we are the artitors. We determine what gets published and when.

 

"Still, sometimes I'd like to get rid of them all."

 

"Yep, we'd all be better off if the humans were gone."

 

* * *

 

It is so important that we tell our own stories, even if we tell them poorly. They might be filled with biases and exaggerations  — it's okay. Even the lies we tell about ourselves reveal how we see the world. Sharing that worldview and offering those stories to others is a gift to the civilization that fed and nurtured us and helped us find whatever shreds of joy we've managed to squeeze out of life.

 

Humanity is the sum of all our stories.

 

So write them down, or sing them, or tell them to your kids or grandkids. Ramble on to strangers about your life or the lives of fictional people you invent. Even if your audience seems bored, they will absorb some of it. It is not your convictions or beliefs that matter  — no one cares what you aspire to be. What matters is who you are and that we once again recognize the common setting in which all our stories take place.

 

And if you don't tell your tale, someone else will. If we continue to cede the rights to our life stories, we will become merely muses and the real truth about us will sink unnoticed into the depths of history.

 

— Dutton

 

* * *

 

"It's just shit! Nothing salvageable here at all," Johnart declared.

 

"I agree," Jimart said.

 

"REJECT!"