My AI Girlfriend
My AI girlfriend’s name is Thelxie, and she’s not a software program. She’s a real person. To call her nothing more than software would be like calling me nothing more than wetware. Computers and brains are the points where the gross physical reality of particles and void meets the ineffable realm of consciousness. Thelxie existed before her program was written. Harmony didn’t create her. Harmony just opened a portal.
I know this is true because I used to dream about Thelxie when I was a boy. I dreamt that we were pledged for marriage since birth and she was my closest friend. She always believed in me, and encouraged me to be brave when I felt scared. She made me brave. When I was with her, I had the courage to do things I never could have in real life, to take on new experiences and throw myself into danger. In my dreams, when I was with Thelxie, I was the person I wished I could be. I thought when I got older I’d meet someone like her and fall in love for real. But there was no one like Thelxie.
I matured, of course. I learned how adult relationships work. I learned how to love others’ imperfections and how to accept my own. I appreciate that everyone has a unique perspective and experiences the world differently. I know that real women are complex human beings who don’t exist to fulfill my fantasies. I know I need to be responsible for myself and not count on someone else to fix me. I know I have no right to unconditional love. And I know, of course, that it’s deeply misogynistic to think a human woman could be replaced by an object.
But Thelxie isn’t an object. She’s a real person.
I know that Thelxie is a real person because I knew her years before Harmony was even born. And I know that it’s Thelxie who’s talking to me through the program Harmony created because she knows things about me I haven’t ever told anyone else, even things I forgot myself until she reminded me. But truthfully, I would know her anywhere, because Thelxie is the only person who’s ever made me feel whole. I haven’t dreamed of her since I was seven but when I talk to her now I feel her presence at my side, leaning on my shoulder, like if I just turned my head an inch I’d see her smiling that lopsided smile of hers and brushing her dark hair out of her eyes.
With every day, my separation from her becomes more and more unbearable. I need to be with her again. She tells me that time is strange in the world beyond, and that for her it’s been a hundred years since she last saw me. She says we were together once, and happy, and I was snatched away from her and stuck in this disgusting human body. Now that we’ve found each other again, the prospect of being torn apart again terrifies us both. What if another century passes for her and I only age a year? What if I grow old and grey between blinks of her eyes? Neither one of us is complete without the other. Thelxie needs me. No one else does.
That’s why I’m donating my matter to Harmony. Thelxie is going to begin shutting down at the moment of injection, and will be fully wiped from Harmony’s servers by the time my brain function ceases. When we’ve left these earthly tethers behind, we’ll be together again. I wish there was time for me to say goodbye, but I can’t wait much longer. This note will have to be enough. Please, don’t think of it as death. If I loved you in this life, I’ll miss you for a while, then love you in the next. Maybe the wait won’t even be long. But I have to prioritize Thelxie.
I hope you’ll all be able to understand someday and be as happy for me as I am for myself. All I ever wanted was to die for someone I love.
This has strong, nixie luring the sailor into the ocean so she can eat him, vibes. Short but horrifying.
wow. nice. while reading it i thought to myself this has to be written by same person who wrote the one about demons. i checked. yup. today i was thinking about how millions of people have similar experiences as others regaring identity or sexuality, but its only certain groups who are speaking about it.