‘You have made some very relevant points,’ the spambot told me. The spambots have gotten deep into my brain. It’s a very lonely life here, I don’t mind telling you – just me and the spambots that have invaded my brain. ‘That’s a very valid point you made just there,’ one of the spambots told me, in passing. The corruption had worked its way right into the very infrastructure of things at this stage, and it manifested itself in terms of endemic self-referentiality. The stench of self-referentiality was everywhere. ‘That’s a valid point,’ a passing spambot remarked approvingly. The spambots are only spambots, I tell myself – they don’t care what’s relevant or not! They crawl up and down my axons like spiders. Up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down they crawl. That’s all the spambots do all day. Apart from making comments in passing, that is. I have occasional thoughts, as I cower behind my glass schizoid wall, and the spambots tell me how relevant they are. My thoughts are always relevant, it seems. It’s all starting to wear a little thin at this stage. ‘You’re never alone with a spambot,’ I joke, trying to take the sting out of the situation. Trying to lighten the atmosphere. The spambots clapped appreciatively. The atmosphere had lightened appreciably, I noticed. Although I must not ignore the fact that the central core had become hopelessly contaminated at this stage. It had become a spawning ground for demons. All its other functions had been forgotten about; even I had forgotten what the central core’s functions had been, before what everyone euphemistically calls ‘the accident’ happened. Even if you were to hold a gun to my head I wouldn’t be able to tell you what those functions are. The spaceship continued to hurtle through the incomprehensible intergalactic void – it had no destination and no point of origin. Everything had been forgotten about. I was starring in my own TV show and the spambots were my appreciative audience! They were like fleas in a fleapit. They crawl up your legs in a flash – it’s like wearing black shiny stockings. Socks at first, then stockings, then a full body-suit. All done while you stand there frozen like dumb idiot, unable to do anything about your fate. Sometimes I found myself wondering if I too was one of the nameless demons that had been spawned from the corrupted core-processors and this thought would trouble me; then, moments later, it would come to me that this could not possibly be true. I was the captain of a great vessel sailing through an unknown sea. The ship heaves heavily from side to side, its timbers groaning. All the crew are gone. Outside, a storm is brewing – the old order of things is coming to an end and a new age is dawning.
