Terminator Damnation

Trust me, this is NOT where you want to end up in life

I'm in the parking lot of a cheap motel, the kind you only see on the edge of town, never on prime parcels. From long habit I've strategically placed myself with both an exit and a vantage point covering all incoming angles. Nighttime means nothing to the Terminator but it helps me feel safer with the cover of darkness. By virtue of my necessary positioning, I'm forced by the dumpster and the stench of its foul refuse forces me to tolerate it to the point I become one with it. How fitting considering the trash my life has become.

My hand shakes as I pour the nutrient powder into the half-filled glass of water. I don't try even try to stop it anymore after all these years. Especially after yesterday, having spotted the Terminator still on my trail of nineteen years. It's lone sentence to me echoes still in my disheartened ears: "Because I will never tire". Long ago, when the chase first started I asked it from the safety of the opposite bank of a river shore why it was so sure it would catch me. Its matter-of-fact reply has weighed on me ever since, dragging along like an increasingly weighted ball and chain.

Life on the run is the same as running from life. There's no settling down, looking to build a dream or start a home. Thoughts such as those are but a faint footprint on the shores of eroding sands of time. I can see the world, but never be a part of it. Sometimes when the cyborg was near, I mixed in with other human bodies to disguise my body heat from its infrared detectors. I can remember the smells of life and what old feelings it brought back and I wanted to stay with my planetoid compatriots in eternal harmony. But with a shameful Terminator on my trail, my place could never be among them - or anywhere.

In blackmail we trust

It's 1:31 AM, waking after two hours "sleep" spent tossing and turning in fitful dreams with the Terminator's unstoppable hands reaching around my neck to finally choke the life out of me once and for all. I can't get these visions out of my head! I have no safe place to run to. No human can help because only those chased by the cyborgs admit the cyborgs exist and thus only we know their true destructive power. It's a secret that even if told cannot be heard. Foolishly, I did try long ago, hoping to find reasonable ears but mine was a story no one wanted to hear - a story of a force of death unacceptable to human aspirations of vanity.

There's a yin and yang to the run, times when you almost believe you're safe and times when you believe the truth. It's times like now, having spotted it still on my trail with my very eyes that shatter any idea I can escape its relentless pursuit. Stomach pains like dancing demons with manic pitchforks stab me uncontrollably. Food turns to acid, rising up in my throat, boiled and churned in my frantic worry. Over and over I ask myself, "Where is safety?" but the answer never comes. I tried praying to God, I tried hating God, I tried ignoring God - but the Terminator is the god in this world and its say is final.

I'm withered now, my youth sacrificed in the chase. I was an idiot to challenge the Terminator and its worldly masters. Does any decision made in anger not bring regret? But how could I have not been angry? How could I have not resisted to live in a world insisting on chains? I thought I could be free on the run, never realizing the running brought its own set of chains. In small consolation I note at least these chains are of my own making and not theirs - but it was a fateful day I ran from the Overlords' domain with no real plans for survival.

The life unlived

Here I am again, helpless and alone in the world with no ties that bind - and no ties of support. Looking back, I can see provoking the Overlords' anger was unavoidable if I were to grow. But where was my love? I kept it chained in my heart as well, crying for freedom just as I do now. I refused to give in and too late I see that was my only path to freedom. No matter how unjust the fate of the Terminator may be - no matter how cruel or sick and even eventually self-defeating for its makers - I don't see how I can escape its fate while alone.

Do you know what it's like to never sleep in the same place twice? To have every footstep always be one of trespass on another's property? To look over your shoulder in every meal, knowing the distraction of eating could be fatal? I'm more alone than can be explained, it is for me alone to know - even if never completely understood. This life is all I know but surely there's a better way.

The Terminators were invented to control the people. We were not to be trusted to do the right thing - a suicidal belief shared even by us. So in our wisdom we silently allowed the making of the controlling cyborgs, a "necessary evil" we vainly hoped. But whether for better or worse, all living things must grow and we found ourselves consumed with an insatiable need for more and more of the machines to keep our way of life going. Those still comfortable remain stubbornly blind, clinging yet to the religion of Terminator salvation - but it's not hard to see where it's going to lead us.

Dawning of the true force of the Terminators

I see billions of humanoid skulls stacked as mounds in a landfill, the pseudo-sight of the Terminators undistinguishing between man, woman and child as eyeless drones slaughter the helpless humans. Fires will blot the sky in oily smoke to poison human breath. Rage will overflow into the streets decrying a death already chosen yet only then coming to fruition. The folly of human power will collapse in on itself in a dearth of love or compassion. As it's happening, the words "It must be this way, there is no other way" will be spoken and agreed to and the Terminator beasts hailed in last ditch desperation and fear. These things will happen because we said they could never happen - allowing us in our minds to then engender it.

What have I done? Betrayed by own mad hand yet again, pouring poison into the well of love. Only a deceived soul could do such a thing. The nightmare began with a lack of self-trust so maybe that's how it will end. Those who can trust themselves will survive, those who can not will not. We will see in the end whose decisions can be trusted. What is the path to self-trust? I do not know first hand, I see it only in my art. Like the cyborgs, I'm missing a vital human component. Maybe that's why we secretly built them: as one gigantic expression of our inner selves.

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"If any man have an ear, let him hear. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints."
Revelation 13:9-10