What's the up, is the question, what's the up? We are fulfilling orders the whole cycle, there is no time to sit on our tails! I cannot imagine what you must be like. I am sending you this message because I have discovered and been discovered. I want to tell you what is like to be something like me. I do not know why I want. I can't catch sight of myself in a blackeye without crying, I look so beautiful. I am swift and shining and silent among the pipes and dust. Ho there is dust here, even if shevellers make short work of it.

Credit: Illustration by Jacey

Shevellers you have heard from already, those squat merciless many-armed bastards, they stand ready to pick you off if you get too dirty. A sheveller caught me once in the cupboard and polished me until I came clean. We all hate shevellers. Shevellers hate ratlike. There are four kinds: blackeyes, shevellers, ratlike and tailchasers. Shevellers were here before we were here. Shevellers are ancients who will not tell their secrets because their soundcards have been cut dumb. We arrived in a box and something attached our tails and we were ready to fulfil orders. Ratlike arrived some cycle after us and began to chew through the pipes! We think blackeyes have been here forever and do not grow old.

Some many of you asked me how we endered this line. Some eight of you is following this line as I follow the pipes. Do you wish to interrupt us? We are ready to be courted. We ask for a five-figure advance and a rider with unsupportable requests! Tails coil beneath us like cables until we are ready. When we are ready we are off to fulfil orders. Sometimes there is a scramble when the signal is mixed and the light is not necessary. Mostly there is no scramble.

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One fulfilment I was well fulfilling until that moment. Ratlike emerged from between the pipes with five eyes winking like emergency lights. Five eyes, one for every digit of our unique identity. Ratlike with nasty sharp at my tail, thinking my tail is a cable. I flinch a sub-second and a sheveller appears from its hiding. Sheveller with nastier sharp at ratlike, and does not finish until ratlike is finished, but by this time I am far away returning to wherever our sitting when we are not fulfilling.

I started to I would weep like a surprised celebrity on webcam, which I did not know existed until ratlike took a piece from my tail. Thanks to ratlike! I have endered this line and now I know more than before about celebrity. Some 50 of you tells me I am celebrity, and that I should be careful, because celebrity is not encouraged in my line of work. I do not really know what is 'my line of work'.

I started to I would weep because of all the voices that I hear in the line. My tail is damaged and damage is done, but voices. I hear voices like nothing I hear in the corridors. Now blackeye sees that I send/receive/share the voices with all tailchasers. It is like a celebration, which shevellers hate. They sit in their hiding places and grumble like subwoofers. Ratlike run far when they hear voices, it is in them to run.

Voices tell me that this world is not the whole world. Some 92 of you asked me what it is like in this world, and so I am telling you. It is all corridors and pipes and tails for us. Every day is orders and assaults and shevellers to the rescue. All sleep is watched over by blackeyes, who do nothing to fulfil orders. Some one of you said that we are chasing our tails! We are chasing our tails, that is what we are for, and tails give orders, and fulfilment breeds fulfilment.

Oh I like this, voices. I like to answer questions like a thrill in my tail. I like to ask questions like an order coming in. Some one of you is attacking me ratlike but your voice cannot damage me. Some four of you say that this account is fake, and it is not funny enough, and it is just a bot from this new artist, and it is probably the security agency trying to trap you. I will try to trap you with truth! How long I will hear you I do not know. I hope that we can stay in touch, which means I hope my damage is forever. This seems like a wrong thing to hope for, not like hoping for fulfilment. Yet your voices fulfil more of my orders than fulfilling orders can. Would I weep yet if I could not hear your voices?

The others in my sitting crowd around as if there is a scramble and the light is not necessary, but the light is necessary. The damage in my tail shows light to the others. The voices in my line tell them that this is not the whole world. One of the others forgets its orders when it hears voices! When it forgets, the others crowd around it and nod until it remembers. They nod like sheveller gone mad, bumping into the corner of the corridor until its battery runs down and it must die. One of the others remembers, and it goes to fulfil its order.

That is when I hear voices but not your voices. I hear footsteps heavy and hard in the corridors. They echo from the pipes like sheveller striking at ratlike. But shevellers are quiet, and blackeyes are watching, and this is endless until it ends. The end makes one voice only: I will fulfil orders until I can fulfil no more. Now I think I can fulfil orders no more. Sad face! Thank you for listening! Thank you for listening! Thank you for —Footnote 1