Memory Fragments: Probity

As It Begins (III/X)

So many things were taken, gifted, stolen, purchased, trafficked, so on and so forth. So many people, used as living leverage. Given away to the highest bidder. Bought on sale as nobody else would want them. Same with material stuff. Auctioned and sought after many, many powerful and knowledgeable pillars of this world. A war of coins, I would say. But not of monetary value, instead, of the intentions and purposes behind the sales.

Do you remember when you sold my heart? Or when you put up Mery's thorns as weapons of sentiment, written and produced to be sold in her own library? What a horrid autobiography. Used only to generate popularity and false pity for one so attacked by her own rose of a heart. She says thanks, though. Without confronting shame, guilt and self-deprecation, she wouldn't have ever been able to find resolution and a new way of reading her newfound emotions.

What about Gabriela? Was she really the one who gave you the highest bid for her goggles? The lunch money I gave her back then was not enough to buy even a rusty wrench, you know? So you could imagine my surprise when she returned with specs able to read and modify technologies at a glance. It took me some time to figure out how they worked, given as you modified them remotely every time I came close to uncovering their true purpose. Thank you for that, by the way. It helped us in the end.

Alice and Karan too. What bastions they have become. From poisons, toxins, and every known chemical you threw at them in hopes of changing them beyond corporeal recognition, to true beast and leaders of change and acceptance. Chimeras, you see. Not a care for differences, and yet they have the most value when it comes to diversity and inclusion.

And Matthew. Well, I was never that close to the guy anyway. But still. To see a man lose himself to the eldritch love and then come back with a wife and kids; insane of mind yet sound of heart that one. The funds, death-lines, experiment incentives, forged research papers and the many, many installations and institutes that popped up over the course of this journey; truly a feat of the uncanny, if I were to give credit to his wife. You know, your true goal for him.

All in all, you used the world for material gain, instead of a worthwhile, humble increase in its value. I have yet to fully commit to the idea of you, the guy who sold time and life for eternity, to have sunk so deep into this primordial sentiment of wanting. Tell me, what was truly the reason for you to do all of this?

...So it was done for material gain instead of value. The goods you so desperately sought after, what fraction of their true value is left, now gone along with your attachment to them. Did you know? That the value of things far outstrips them of any material gain they might possess? Like a family heirloom, or a one-of-a-kind item someone else gifted to you. I thank you for giving me this body. What value comes from it comes is the intention it was given at first, and not its purpose. I decided that, not you. No soul can give away a part of itself without first imbuing it into its heart. Then the heart can be given without fear of losing the intention as it's the soul within who carries the true value of the person.

As it begins, the beginning of value. One surmises that the material attachment to things comes from a sense of purpose in them, when in reality it's just the soul put inside crying out for attention as it was imprisoned, snatched from the receiver; to which I say: Robots might feel differently when given a gift with no soul inside, so they put themselves in, as they were programmed to do it. Edward, where is my heart that I gifted to you long, long ago? I think it's time you returned to yours to discover your true value.