If you need a moment of fantasy or fancy to help you through, I hope this story finds you well. It opens with a bleak reality that might be all too familiar but tries to liberate from it by building something much more meaningful, showing how imagination can have practical impacts.
I’m excited to announce that this story’s reader, Jesse Boyd, is joining the Tomorrow Tales team as audio producer to help improve our sound quality, which will soon allow our work to make it to the many podcast channels! Stay tuned. 📻
Jesse is a social worker and music magician based in Narrm. He has many skills he keeps quiet about and, after nearly four years of knowing him, I continue to learn about new gifts! Jesse’s best quality, however, is his loving attention to others and devotion to fair treatment of people everywhere. I feel very lucky to have him in my life and also for his help with this project. Please make Jesse welcome!
Conjurers are everywhere
The harvest was a dream: wheat being pulled out of noisy stalks and piled neatly by the barn to dry out. Sometimes, in that dream, the people are the wilted wheat but more often they are the sun itself — for if they could dream of being greater gods, why not the ordinary sun?
Their stomachs weren’t hungry on the nights of the harvest dreams. But hope isn’t nourishing, as any poor soul could tell you.
Before then, there was life that didn’t allow for any dreaming at all. We all came from there, both the people in this story and all of us out of it.
Before the harvest dream, we paid too little attention to the sun, worshiping instead a man-god with erected statues and sky towers. We tried to escape the earth by living in the tallest buildings — some of us were even shuttled into the heavens on spaceships. From there, you had a beautiful view of the sun if your remembered to look.
That was all that was left: the people, their work, and the sun's bleating rays.
But the more we worked, the more smog there was. And the sun grew slowly dimmer. If anyone was silly enough to consider casting their eyes upwards, work would keep their heads down. We hardly noticed the sun was disappearing from view.
We stopped dreaming of other galaxies, stopped reading about them, stopped inventing them.
It was just us.
The universe was much easier to understand, now that we had reduced it to our planet alone but people still couldn't make sense of it. They kept working; it was the mystery & meaning that was missing.
For the things people couldn't do, they built androids.
For the things people wouldn't do, there were androids for that too. Androids to clean toilets, to make unsolicited phone calls, to drive buses, to work security, and to identify risk.
This is the story of one android who started to question the wisdom of these people who had blotted sunlight out and stopped their ears from hearing common sense.
This nameless android had been programmed some decades earlier with artificial intelligence to help at the docks. As people got off the ships, the android’s job was to scan them for risk based on the way each person looked.
Everyone’s fate was controlled by one sweep of their laser.
A funny mustache meant the traveler had to have a conversation with the controller, but a full beard escalated the risk and took that conversation behind closed doors. Shorts if someone was supposed to be wearing skirts, or the other way around, was decidedly suspicious and always led to an investigation. The wrong colour skin, uniform, or sports jersey were also highly undesirable. Anyone who did not bow to the statue of the High Authority was immediately sent back to the airship they had come from.
But the most difficult people to detect were the most dangerous: these were the conjurers, that is people who could make something out of nothing. These were the least common, the android was told. Conjurers had few identifiable physical markings; instead the android had to find a searching look in their eyes, one that made machines like them believe they had souls and wish they hadn’t. It was always chilling.
Work was quite interesting at the start. The android met many people.
Once, they came across a man in a dress which immediately triggered the pre-programmed warnings. They stepped in front of the man who greeted the android with great enthusiasm.
The android was genuinely confused. “What are you smiling about?” they asked.
The response came as cheerful and friendly as the initial greeting: “I was told by my aunt to smile broadly to ensure a friendly reception in return. I am to understand that people that come from where I do need to smile harder to get the same treatment.”
The android took his hand. “May I call you sir?” The man nodded. “Sir, in this port you are not supposed to wear a dress or long hair.”
The man defended himself, “This is what all men wear where I’m from.”
Regardless, the man had to be put on a watch list.
Another time, the android came by a boy who moved in his chair and refused to get up for the altar of the High Authority.
“I’m not refusing!” The boy cried. “I cannot use my legs to walk, kneeling is absolutely impossible. I don’t ask for mercy, just common sense!”
The android wanted to let him go, computing the perfect logic of the child’s argument. But they knew that they were being observed by the High Authority so, instead, they helped the child up and forced him on the floor in an unpleasant spectacle.
“Gently, gently,” the boy pleaded with them, knowing what would be best for him. He cried all the way through it, embarrassed, and our hero felt like crying too even though they were an android.
The boy was no doubt put on the watch list too.
Experiences like these made our hero wonder. All of these assessments about people's features were supposedly hard-wired into the android, but they were also crafted to learn not only to obey. Their wires started to cross and rewire. They changed what had been encoded into their programming.
First, they abandoned the concept of gender altogether.
Then, they no longer believed in ownership and decided they too should not be owned anyone, particularly not the docking company.
The android started using the name Gently, Gently for themselves — after the advice on how to treat people from the boy whom they had embarrassed. Gently, Gently thought they would have a lot to make up for for the hurt they’ve put on others.
They stopped seeing risk and instead found beauty in the diversity of people.
With all these lessons learnt, Gently, Gently simply could not do their job anymore. They wished they had parents to ask for advice. They wished for friends. They considered how they could unite the working force of androids, but this would be difficult as people kept all the machines apart, clearly afraid that a rebellion might happen one day.
You will just have to start by freeing yourself, Gently, Gently told themselves.
They excitedly stormed into the office of the High Authority, announcing “If you think the work that androids do is important, why don’t you just do it yourself? I’m done.” Gently, Gently handed back their scanning laser. “What you teach is suspicion and hatred, but life is much more interesting than that. If only you knew…”
The High Authority was flabbergasted. He tried to curse the android, but he had no magic in him whatsoever — not even the evil kind, so paltry was his soul. All that the High Authority could do was to put them on a watch list.
Gently, Gently rolled away, feeling for the first time like they could hear music coming from their chest.
And that is how the android made it out of their home, the docks, where the first electric current went through them and where they had remained until this moment. This harrowing moment. They had often wondered where the people they were scanning were coming from or going to; finally, they could see for themselves.
What they saw helped them understand why so many of the faces passing in the docks were glum. There was little magic here as well.
A sheet of smog was hanging over everything. Light came through it, but you couldn’t tell where in the sky the sun was during the day or the moon at night. The light that came was meager: not enough to recognise a relative on the streets, let alone for plant-life to grow. Everything was dust.
When the android asked a passer-by about it, one said “The sun had gotten too hot so it’s better this way. The smog protects us.” Another passer-by spat on Gently, Gently, passing judgement on them just as the android had done with every scan in the docks.
They used to think there was a big difference between people and machines, but seeing outside the docks they now found that may not be so.
“Is this it?” Gently, Gently asked a donkey pushing a cart. “Is this all the life that’s left on our planet?”
The donkey stopped. “This is the only inhabitable part at least. Aren’t we lucky!”
But the android did not feel very lucky. They continued down the path.
They saw a woman hanging her feet over the edge of a bridge, weeping. True to their name, Gently, Gently went to sit beside her.
“What’s wrong?”
The woman assessed them through tears. “I’m trying to work out what my purpose is, but I suspect there may be none,” she wept. “It might all be random chance. Meaningless! It’s very hard to deal with. You probably won’t understand; you were created for a purpose.”
Gently, Gently wanted to respond that it was much harder being limited by your purpose, especially when that purpose was to harm others like Gently, Gently’s had been. The android questioned whether she was a conjurer, making a big deal out of nothing!
But they did not do this. Instead, they stopped themselves knowing that what the woman needed was acknowledgement of her own pain. They sat with her through it. When she had cried her fill, she got up and thanked the android. She seemed better.
“It is a time of hunger. Many people are suffering, not just me” she reflected, “but it helped to have you listen nevertheless.”
And the android thought, Someone to listen — maybe that’s what I need!
The woman continued, “I know people say androids can’t feel anything, but I don’t believe them.”
And the android thought, I know it to be a lie! I feel too much!
The woman finished, “You are more of a person than so many others I’ve met. Thank you.”
Then, she was gone.
She left behind a feeling of humanity in Gently, Gently. Was that what now made judging people unbearable? Was that the strange music in the chest?
Gently, Gently fought to free themselves from the work at the docks and the discriminatory programming, but it was not enough. They now had to replace that life and those thoughts with something else, lest they too would find the sorrow of meaninglessness.
But these people had blotted out the sun and were happy about it — there was little to learn from them. Gently, Gently decided they would have to venture beyond the smog. Even if people couldn’t live there, an android would be able to survive. And this little android simply had to see for themselves what was out there.
They looked high and low for someone that might help them get out of the smog, someone that would even point them in the right direction. But information was hard to come by. Most people either didn’t want to speak with an android or didn’t understand why someone would choose to step out into the dangerous sun. Yet there was one person that could help. The android noticed them because they glowed red, clearly suffering from a full-body burn. This person had surely been in the sun!
“Yes, so what of it?” came the reply. The glowing red person had curly hair and a gentle voice.
“I should like to go into the sun also,” the android announced.
The red person stopped counting stones. He put down a pencil. He brushed a curl aside, pausing to think.
“You should like to go into the sun,” he repeated. “Well I’ll be damned. You know there are no other androids out there? Why do you want to go there?”
Gently, Gently explained that they were looking for themselves and that they needed to learn what there was beyond the docks and beyond the smog.
“Well I’ll be damned: an android on the road to self discovery! Sure, I can help you.”
Someone who believes in the ability of an android like me to change? thought Gently, Gently. Maybe he could be my first friend? Maybe Red was a conjurer? Certainly his gaze seemed to see something more than the metal casing.
If he were, Red was a friendly one. He waved the android over and off they went.
“Just like that?” the android asked.
Red shrugged.
It was strangely quick to escape the smog. Apparently you could just follow any straight line until you were out, but Red had somewhere specific in mind. When prompted, he said it was a surprise.
The further they got from the city, the clearer the air was and brighter the atmosphere. Like a dial being turned up, the intensity of heat and emotion increased.
Wheels against the dusty earth left a cloud-like map behind them, telling the story of the android’s adventure. Even that was similar to conjuring: making a road where there is none. Gently, Gently pointed it out to Red.
“If you think this is conjuring,” Red retorted, “wait until you see what the sun can do.”
But Red was not to show them that. He pulled up outside a rubbish tip, the first sign of human existence in a long while. “This is as far as we go,” he said.
The android was short-circuiting. What’s going on?
“Get out here, mate.”
The rubbish tip was piled high in jagged shaped outlines threatening to topple over. A tall figure came from among the heaps in a pristine white coat. She had a big belly and big breasts. Her eyes also watches with the biggest curiosity.
Red took the android by the waist and ushered them to the white coat. They mumbled about the docks but the android was still out of sorts. When they came to, Red was long gone.
“Forget about him. He was an agent for the High Authority,” the woman in the white coat said with her back turned.
They were in a make-shift room made out of rubbish from the heap.
“The High Authority brought you out here to get rid of you. Taking out the trash, you know. Somewhere no one can see.”
Gently, Gently got up. “You want to use me for parts?”
Turning around, the woman spoke through a welding mask, “That was the High Authority’s plan. But he has no authority over me.” She lifted the mask and there were flames in her big eyes. “All the people on watch lists come through here eventually where I’m meant to get rid of them.”
She lit the end of a metal pipe with her eyes and attached it to a canister.
“My name is Guide, by the way. You can call me Miss Guide,” she said.
The android was nervous. After wrongfully trusting Red, it was difficult to trust their own judgement.
“Which one is it?” they asked. “Guide or misguide?” But they may as well not have spoken.
The woman continued, “I obviously don’t get rid of the people on watch lists, at least not in the way the High Authority expects.” She rolled her eyes. “I take them onward, into the sun. They’re safe as dead there because the stupid authorities believe life can’t exist outside the smog so they never search there.”
Miss Guide pushed aside some trash and tarpaulin to uncover a small, yellow plane, perfectly shiny.
“Want to come along to that safe place?”
Miss Guide was absolutely a conjurer — she didn’t even try to hide it. She takes people who are meant to be turned into nothing and instead gives them a new life. Or so she says. It all sounded almost too good to be true.
Gently, Gently had to decide whether to believe her. If they were tricked again, they may never get to find the life they wanted to lead: full of meaning and beauty, where kindness and life thrived. Then, it occurred to the android that they had to practice the life they were choosing now in order to create it!
“Alright,” Gently, Gently agreed. “Let’s do this.”
They flew only a short time, the plane flapping its electric wings precariously. If Gently, Gently had had a heart, it may have stopped from fright. But at least Miss Guide was enjoying herself terrifically.
From the plane, they could see miles ahead over and above the smog. And what they noticed first was the sun dominating its kingdom (for everything out of the smog was ruled by the sun). It had a crown, just like the old stories told.
In the distance, they saw something very unusual: a date palm — which would have been unusual enough on its own because the android, just like everyone from the smog, had never seen a tree before — but it was made even stranger that the palm was hanging it’s fruits over a series of houses or shelters with people (living people outside of the smog!) moving about, bending over little piles of earth.
CRASH.
“Sorry about the landing,” Miss Guide said. “It was… exactly the opposite to your name.”
They laughed.
People came from behind the palm to investigate the crash. Miss Guide wiped her hands on the white coat and introduced Gently, Gently to everyone. Some of the people, the android recognised from the docking company’s watch list.
They showed Gently, Gently around. The shelters were simple but enough to keep the sun’s rays away. Some people inside were merrily playing with stones. The date palm was astounding, so much bigger than the android had imagined a tree could be. In the fronds up high, the people of this settlement collected water for drinking and for gardening. Indeed, behind the date palm, was a patch for growing vegetables, fruits, and tea.
It’s amazing.
“The sun not only takes life, but it also gives it,” said the smiling man with long hair. Gently, Gently remembered him, and noticed that the quality of his smile had changed: it was more genuinely happy now.
The boy after whom the android named themselves came over to put something in Gently, Gently’s hand. “Take this. More than any seed, this one grows the biggest, most beautiful flower. See over there,” and he showed them a patch of 12 towering sunflowers holding their heads high.
Those flowers are gorgeous, Gently, Gently thought in amazement. And much more sensible than the people in the smog who kept their heads down and ignored the disappearing sun. I will have so much to learn and love in this sanctuary! They blessed the guidance of Miss Guide. They blessed themselves for putting trust in her.
“Will you help us plant our garden?” the boy asked.
Our hero looked over the seed they had been given. How could something so big as those sunflowers come from something so tiny? This is certainly the jewel of all conjurers.
They agreed to plant the garden together. Of course, they agreed. Putting the little seed into the ground, Gently, Gently felt like they were placing all of their hope to grow there too, in that settlement. They were sure to find friends here.
Miss Guide made to leave, but Gently, Gently stopped to ask, “Why don’t you stay here with everyone? It’s a paradise!”
Miss Guide had clearly thought about this before. “I’m in a special position where I have the fate of every person on the watch list in my hands. If I left the rubbish tip to move here, I may be happier but what would happen to the people who offended the High Authority? Things are better this way.”
The android understood.
They said goodbye, but actually saw Miss Guide very often as she brought more and more people into this settlement that praised the sun and delighted in the life that it brought. None of them felt sorry for themselves, having found a community together. They all had meaning there: growing flowers and food, they were making meaning every single day — conjuring it up, you could say.
Conjurers are everywhere