preamble to the k9 accords

all international disputes will be settled by designated puppy units on a neutral field of engagement. human involvement is relegated to the roles of impartial quartermaster and post-conflict sanitation.

articles of belligerence

article i: rules of engagement
combat is restricted to grappling, strategic flopping, and the pursuit of a singular objective fetch item. a unit may employ barks, yips, and growls for psychological effect. tail wags are unregulated. the use of unapproved chew toys or external food-based incentives constitutes a material breach.

article ii: conditions for victory
victory is declared when one unit secures the objective fetch item and returns it to their designated starting kennel. the opposing unit's failure to contest confirms the outcome.

article iii: penalties for malfeasance
any direct human interference in the field of engagement results in immediate forfeiture. the responsible nation's leadership will be censured and barred from fielding a unit for five calendar years.

mom, i'm telling you again. moderately tight leather top, black nail polish, and boots.

sweetheart, you are trying to assemble me from a catalog of your own private dramas.

this woman would understand your theories about the cia.
she pays for things with a kind of confidence you post about online.
i imagine she might even light your cigarettes for you.

you keep handing me a script for a person you wish you were brave enough to be.
i am here to love you while you figure these things out for yourself.

the kitchen shape appears.
the pattern of my mother is there, wrapped in printed silk.

her voice is a sound wave in the air.
it speaks of character, of virtue over money.
that pattern holds a shape of me, the son who needs this lesson.

when the focus tries to grasp her form, the image flattens.
it becomes the texture of the tile, the cold of the window pane.

the thought arrives.
she would be interesting in leather pants.
this thought is the same energy as her lecture.

her wanting me to change is my wanting her to change.
it is one movement playing out as two characters inside a single field.

title: recursive loop with side effects

agent_a processes the input stream. food court. fluorescent flicker. background chatter as white noise.

a subroutine for loneliness fires. a familiar ache algorithm runs in its chest cavity.

agent_b watches agent_a. its legacy code for pair-bonding spools up. agent_b deploys a joke. the sound waves are data packets.

agent_a's model of agent_b updates. a shared narrative script initializes. us_against_the_world.py.

they are a two-node network against the background processes of other agents. just atman discovering itself.

later. parked car. the simulation of "a successful date" is a cached object.

the recursive modeling continues. each agent's predictive engine refines its simulation of the other. the feedback loop tightens.

agent_a retrieves a small vial. a chemically-induced simulation escalates the i/o.

agent_b's system logs acceptance. time to overclock the hardware and see what this particular configuration of self can render.

a slack notification shows a new pull request.
intern stuff. a new feature flag for the payments api.

the laptop opens. the screen brightens.
github loads. the files changed tab is clicked.
red lines and green lines scroll by.
schema change. a new handler. a change to the user model.

the handler logic reads the user's account state.
then it makes an external api call.
then it writes the new state back.
that external call could take a while.
another request could come in right there. classic race condition.

a comment is left on the code.
"hey, solid first pr. this introduces a race condition between reading the state and writing it. we need to lock the record before the api call."
the cursor hovers over the review button.
a click on 'approve'.
the laptop closes.

watch the mind try to build a new system called 'surrender'.
let that construction crew do its thing without giving them more coffee or tools.
feel the raw edge of not knowing what's next and don't immediately plaster it over with a fresh idea.
notice the small bodily sensations that are always there beneath the mental noise.
when you catch yourself performing 'surrendered person,' just clock it, like a weird ad you can't skip.
let the old answers and the new questions sit together uncomfortably for a while.
that whatever-it-is needs no definition from you to operate.
observe the specific flavor of accepted confusion.
your only job is nothing special.
even the desire to escape the game is part of the game. see that too.