Cloud

There exists an invisible negative field
in the middle
of the internet, a mass of antimatter in
the direct center of the cloud. A
minimus very similar to our own galaxy. A giant black
hole that feeds on its own eerie dissonance
and light.

Indescribable pain emanates from this mouth of moribund
madness this
oriface of oracle's doom
this hole
of horrific humanitarian have-nots this pit of
parliamentary
pariahs
this
cavity
of confiscated commons
Created to juxtapose righteous indignation
for the word compressed gobsmacked minority

It tumbles impunitized by its glossy Rorschach
form, an inkblot in a pool of blood, helps itself to bits
and fragments let loose in frantically black-magic-linked offerings like a
televangelist's fantasy. As if Jerry Lewis worked
for the almighty himself.

Some see the black behemoth as a benevolent opportunity,
a benchmark of penultimate success. Some think
they have been Spectacled by gods
and swathed in silver and
sunlight.
They flock to its
shell but receive no warmth from its belly,
nor milk from
its deflated and well-used breast. But Godot is coming, they say.
Have faith they say.

It bears Scrutiny with unsurprising agility given its
metamorphing shape and
consistency. There is no stethoscope attenuated for it, no
magnetic imaging capable of peering into
even its shallowest layers.
The only recordable measurements are screams,
louder each day, and eventually all the white noise hat makers in the world combined
won't hold back the wailing.

it grows in some proportion to the
cloud in which it lives, and from which it receives nourishment.
Attempts to stymie its metastasis have
resulted in severe casualties. It will not die from normal
radiation therapy, and really, it's not
like you can just fire a laser in there willy-nilly. No,
something valuable might get
damaged in the process. There is no such
monster as calculated risk in cases like this.

It stymies even its own makers, that wrath brought forth by
spy botnet zombie computational semi-intelligences,
wringing the last bytes out of magnesium platters and solid
stated electrons
and logic gated lithography, infringing upon vast fiery fields with
a promise of a vacuum
to sate the fire’s lust beyond
its own walls.

It stands as a negative, proxied
from the original, but truncated,
a self-determined handicap.
A child of itself
created for its own edification.

Cloud by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.