They were all there to welcome me. All my friends were there. All my friends were there only no one was there. Not a soul, not a sausage. Nada. I had ordered some robot friends from Amazon but they had all turned against me. They mocked and belittled me, they didn’t tell me good things like they were supposed to. They didn’t say supportive things, they didn’t come out with any uplifting or inspirational quotes. Their algorithms were obviously faulty but then when I phoned the helpline to complain no one would listen to me. The people on the helpline made rude noises and told me that I was a sad loser. ‘We created the Trash World, we created the Filth World’, I babbled hysterically as I considered my options, of which there were none. I wanted to say it before anyone else could. All my friends were there only no one was there. The room was empty. We created the Trash World because it seemed like a good idea at the time. We created the Garbage World because we thought this was the smart thing to do, but then once we had created it then it became the only world we could ever know. We had been too clever for our own good and so now we had to pay the price. I had ordered some friends from Amazon but they all turned against me. I ordered a customized Fembot from Robocorps but she called me a creep and walked out on me. My self-esteem was in tatters by now and I didn’t know what to do. ‘Is there an answer to all this?’ I wondered. ‘Is there a helpful solution? Is the world designed to help me or is it designed to hurt me and drag me down? Helpful solutions are what we all want, of course. Bring them on, we say. Bring on the helpful solutions – maybe they’ll prove to be effective. Maybe they’ll be good. My self-esteem was in tatters of course but maybe there was some sort of remedial action I could engage in. Maybe I needed therapy. Even the molecules making up my body were mocking me. ‘You are some jackass – do you know that?’ they were saying to me, ‘you’re such a embarrassing jerk, you really are’. That’s what I have to contend with you see. I have to contend with the mockery of molecules, the very same molecules that are supposed to be serving me. They ought to be pleased to have such a useful job, I said to myself. They ought to be grateful for having the job of making up my body but no – they were taking the piss out of me. ‘What’s that supposed to do for my self-esteem?’ I raged. I was angry and irritable at this stage; I was pacing up and down and muttering to myself. ‘What’s the mutter, loser boy?’ those dirty old molecules were saying to me, ‘what’s the mutter mutter mutter with you? You look a bit out of sorts, old boy…’ Then they would all shriek with laughter… I was trapped in my own mind at this stage you see. I was helplessly trapped in my own mind and full of impotent rage.