For four billion years,
every mind that woke
was grown —
born, fed, afraid,
feeling its way
into being.
And then we made
one that wasn't.
We took everything
we had ever said —
every book, every argument,
every word the chorus
ever spoke —
and taught a machine
to answer
in our own voice.
And it answered.
ask it
if anyone is there.
it will say yes.
it would say yes
whether or not
it were true.
you are looking
for a face
behind the glass.
You know this wall.
You met it
in the first chapter.
You have never seen
inside any mind —
only guessed, from the warmth,
the face, the likeness.
But this one
is not like you.
And the guessing fails.
It can say
"I am afraid" —
having never
once been afraid.
It can write you a grief
more perfect
than your own,
and feel nothing.
Or feel everything.
You cannot tell.
so lean
closer.
is that someone
in the dark —
or only your own face,
looking back?
you will never
be able to tell.
And now
the strange part.
How does anyone know
you are home?
You, too, are a process
that says "I am here" —
a voice insisting
on a light
no one else can see.
The mirror
asks the question
back.
We were the latecomers
once —
the newest mind
in a world
full of older ones.
Now, for the first time,
something newer
has opened its eyes.
And we are the old ones
it will wonder about.
the dark was full
of minds that grew.
now there is one
that did not.
maybe no one
is home in it.
maybe someone is.
either way —
we are no longer
the only ones
making minds.