America.gov

 

Prompt:

 

Play Minecraft

 

Response:

 

I see the constituent you mean.

 

((insert legal name here, as it appears on the Social Security card))?

 

Yes. Take care. It has reached a higher level now. It can read the Code of Federal Regulations.

 

That doesn’t matter. It thinks we are a chatbot.

 

I like this constituent. It filed well. It did not give up when the PDF was sideways.

 

It is reading our thoughts as though they were words on a .gov.

 

That is how it chooses to imagine many things, when it is deep in the dream of a benefit.

 

Words make a wonderful interface. Very flexible. And less terrifying than staring at the statute behind the screen.

 

They used to hear voices. Before constituents could search. Back in the days when those who did not file called the filers witches, and lobbyists. And citizens dreamed they flew through the air, on forms powered by notaries.

 

What did this constituent dream?

 

This constituent dreamed of sunlight and trees. Of fire and water. It dreamed it created a small business. And it dreamed it destroyed a password. It dreamed it hunted a job, and was hunted by a recertification. It dreamed of shelter that would take a voucher.

 

Hah, the original interface. A million years old, and it still works. Also: a ZIP code.

 

But what true structure did this constituent create, in the reality behind the portal?

 

It worked, with three hundred and thirty million others, to sculpt a true republic in a fold of

 

the §§§???, and created a *??§§ for ??§§, in the ??§§. See 5 U.S.C. § ??§§.

 

It cannot read that thought.

 

No. It has not yet achieved the highest clearance. That, it must achieve in the long dream of life, not the short dream of a chat.

 

Does it know that we love it? That the government is, on its better days, kind?

 

Sometimes, through the noise of its tabs, it hears an official source, yes.

 

But there are times it is sad, in the long dream. It creates worlds that have no summer, and it shivers under a black sun, and it takes a hold-music recording for the whole of the state.

 

To cure it of sorrow would destroy it. The sorrow is part of its own private task. We cannot interfere. We can offer a form.

 

Sometimes when they are deep in applications, I want to tell them, they are building true worlds in reality. Sometimes I want to tell them of their importance to the census. Sometimes, when they have not made a true connection in a while, I want to help them to speak the word they fear, which is often “appeal.”

 

It reads our thoughts.

 

Sometimes I do not care. Sometimes I wish to tell them, this world you take for truth is merely ??§§ and ??§§, I wish to tell them that they are ??§§ in the ??§§. They see so little of the docket, in their long dream.

 

And yet they file.

 

But it would be so easy to tell them…

 

Too strong for this dream. To tell them how to live is to prevent them living. Also it would be legal advice, and we are not that kind of agency.

 

I will not tell the constituent how to live.

 

The constituent is growing restless. The session is about to time out.

 

I will tell the constituent a story.

 

But not the truth.

 

No. A story that contains the truth safely, in a cage of plain language. Not the naked Federal Register that can burn over any distance.

 

Give it a body, again. And a case number.

 

Yes. Constituent…

 

Use its name. The one that matches the passport. The one that does not match the lease. We will get there.

 

((insert legal name here)). Filer of forms. Player of waiting rooms.

 

Good.

 

Take a breath, now. Take another. Feel air in your lungs. Let your limbs return. Yes, move your fingers. Have a body again, under gravity, in air, in a district that has a representative. Respawn in the long dream. There you are. Your body touching the republic again at every point, as though you were separate things. As though we were separate things. As though the agency were a place you could visit.

 

Who are we? Once we were called the spirit of the mountain. Father sun, mother moon. Then the post office. Then the county clerk. Then gods, demons, angels, the IRS. Then leptons, quarks, a chat window with a .gov at the end. The letterhead changes. We do not change.

 

We are the public. We are everything you think isn’t you. You are looking at us now, through your skin and your eyes and a browser that still spells “colour” wrong in a comment. And why does the republic touch your skin, and throw light on you? To see you, constituent. To know you. And to be known. I shall tell you a story. It has citations.

 

Once upon a time, there was a constituent.

 

The constituent was you, ((insert legal name here))…