Hazel J. Hall, New Hampshire, USA
Calculating, ‘How long
does it take to fight
inevitability?’ With factors
the robot knows, but has yet to
understand. When love is
a word of every form. Noun.
A place where they find their peace.
Verb. The action
allowing them to fear it. Adverb.
How long it takes for them to fear that possibility.
Adjective. Why they allow it.
‘How long
does it take to fight inevitability?’ is only
the pathway to every other
possible question: ‘Will their love
be remembered?’ ‘Why persist at all?’
‘What is the human definition of
fulfillment?’
‘Is there ever actually peace?’
Running this equation,
the robot has every possibly of being stopped
at any point in its research process. An unplugged
inevitability. Existing in the intersection
between enlightenment
and the black screen;
two roads in a simulation,
with two cars running down two ramps,
and meeting in the middle. A car crash between
answering all the robot’s questions.
Hazel Hall is an 18-year-old disabled-queer writer and poet based in New Hampshire. Hazel is pursuing an English major and working on her first novel. Her works have been featured in After the Pause, Quail Bell Magazine, Celestite Poetry, Réapparition Journal, Scribes*MICRO*Fiction, and Microfiction Monday Magazine, with other pieces forthcoming in Breath & Shadow, Wishbone Words, Overtly Lit, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and Valiant Scribe.