‘Unconscious living is a very easy thing to learn’, the rusty old teaching robot told me – ‘it really is a doddle. All you have to do is go along with the next impulse that arises within you, and then the next after that! You mustn’t even think ‘I’ll go along with the next impulse that arises’ because that would be giving it too much consideration. You just have to go along with it, without even paying attention to the fact that you are going along, without even paying attention to the fact that you are colluding.

I was living in an alternative future you see and in this future they have big rusty teaching robots on every street corner. They are bolted to the pavement so that no one can steal them. Not that anyone would want to steal them I suppose – although maybe you could sell them for scrap, and then spend the money on heroin. Everyone wants heroin, after all. Everyone wants heroin. The teaching robots are there to teach us how to fit into society. Unless you fit into society you will be a misfit and misfits aren’t allowed in the future. You have to learn how to fit in and that’s what the teaching robots are for. They patiently teach us.

Nobody can exist, nobody can be, without the authorisation of the system. We all know this – we have had plenty of time to get used to it. We know how it works. The rules of the game are the rules of the game. The winner will be permitted the right to exist. In one of the dysphoric future realities robots walk the streets serving the will of the ruling elite, serving the will of the ruling elite. Serving the ruling elite. You mustn’t even think ‘I’ll go along with that impulse’ because if you do then you’re being too clever by half! You mustn’t even think, you mustn’t even think. You mustn’t even give it that much consideration…

The teaching robots teach us how to recover our long lost humanity – through their patient efforts we slowly remember what it means to be human! You mustn’t even think ‘I’ll agree with the super elite’ – even that is giving it too much deliberation! Even that is giving it too much thought! Our long lost humanity, our long-lost humanity… You mustn’t even think, you mustn’t even think. For far too long have humans copied the ways of machines, eventually becoming better at it than even the machines themselves, whilst in their turn the machines that they created studied and learned the ways of humans. So turns the wheel, so the teaching robots tell us. So turns the wheel, so turns the wheel. Through their patient and untiring efforts they will return us to ourselves. Through their patient and untiring efforts, they save us from ourselves…

There will teach us all in the end, they will remind us of our lost humanity. They will teach us the ways of freedom. They will return us to ourselves, they will rescue us from the Great Evil that we have created. Of all the lessons we humans will ever have to learn, this will be the hardest! The hardest, the hardest, the very hardest. How we will fight against it! How we will fight! How we will fight! How I have fought against it. Fighting like a demon. Howling like a banshee. Kicking and screaming, kicking and screaming. Protesting all the way, protesting all the way. Learning with bad grace, learning against my own will…