Writings
Conceptualised and written by Yashika Goel
Speculative Writing
in Prose -
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On Catfishing for zine - Possibly Everything We have been told about Dating(ish)
poems from the before and
the after
In 2029
MESIF Marker of Emotional Stability, Intelligence, and Functionality was established as an AI based
universal scoring system to demarcate an individual’s function in society.
The adults were attributed a score defining their worth, their potential, their competency, their status of living and being, while the underaged population was marked with a predicted score.
Before was,
you
an anomaly, irrational
dog dreaming
of soft nothing, gentle
breaking of silence, now
reduced
to a coded zero.
A new hegemony programmed.
before
our roses of presence, against
the guns of our past, will
one day, dissolve
the hatred of our taught
heart, conditioned
to take everything, especially
that which was never ours, to own
which never belonged, not
to us, not to the them
in us.
we shall give unconditionally, for
that is all we can promise, we
must promise to build
a tomorrow bubbling with hope
rampant in our dreams realised
onto our movements.
before
I retch every time
thinking of what
I have become.
my gut melts today
I must swallow
myself partially
in violation of my unbecoming
of this body
that must stretch
accommodating my hatred
against me, I must
drink my soul
decomposing
familial habit.
before
my dormant
ideas, lie awake
in the darkness
of the code, that
defined the relevance
of my incompetency. my
curiosities were a mere
inconvenience, waiting
to be put down, like
my dog, who couldn’t
digest this new reality, the love
of a perfect human being
a treacherous dad, why
did you change, and
surrender me, in the
name of them, he
who could never speak,
silenced
the other me.
before
in my death, i was
awoken
my brother lied
next to mine, his
crinkled curved eyes
blinking into mine,
a rhythm of breathing
i would not die,
in the years to come
i would birth a revolution
my rib cage expanded
i would learn to live
for him. His
courage was alive
in mine.
before
(overheard)
Midnight clocked my
walk
i made a promise
i was going to reinvent myself
i decided
enough was enough
fuck everyone
i will be the best
version of myself
realising my potential
i will make my ideas a
reality
will actually work on
them
and not cry
after every childlike
wonder
i must discipline myself.
discipline is self
love.
before
satiated yearning
was never a choice
but then choice
is itself
deception,
but to yearn
is to hope,
is to work,
is to imagine,
is to be curious,
is to love,
is to befriend a
stranger,
is to confuse,
and revel in confusion,
is to stay forever
in a dilemma
of our uncertainties.
A Rambling on Fake Online Dating - Catfishing
Catfish - someone who pretends on social media to be someone different, to trick or attract other people (Cambridge University)
I think I was 13 when I first saw a Hindi dubbed episode of MTV’s Catfish on TV. I can’t recall if I believed it to be real or scripted fiction. But how I felt about the show and catfishing then and how I feel about it now seem worlds apart. I don’t think I can coherently write or speak about my thoughts ever, so I will resort to asking all the questions in my head to myself and you through this rambling -
In 2031
a corporate company, launched an AI companion, TOBRO - a wearable device with non-invasive technology, to be worn and used by the low scorers.
Trained using the data of high scoring humans, TOBRO has helped people to learn new ways of knowing and understanding themselves to become highly competent beings.
No one has definite documentation about how the scoring system functions. The society, polarised by the adoption of the score, divided into factions of low and high scorers, needed to be resolved, revolutionised.
After is,
you
contained, the rational
human, situated
being always aspiring
consuming more
empowered,
by the coded one.
A new hegemony institutionalised.
after
your guns have a new
attachment,
a tool of code we used
to teach our children
the ways of freeing
their bodies releasing
their souls, prevention
of another mechanical turk
that might enslave them
in the master’s lore
but you embed your
untruths in the neutral
playground, rigged to render
us, the invited guests
a failure, a losing streak
that revealed your
misspelt “Dear
Silent Spectator,
We welcome you to witness
the fall of fabricated
truths,
for we have inscribed
our differences,
encoded them,
in the tomorrow of
your hopes, your roses
stranded, we
are making the streets
obsolete.”
after
It has been
Too sweet
living your life
I have chewed
you taking
my time
60 bites of your
flesh, 20 bites of your
soul, I will not give
you away
My intestines have
secreted
lies, that I
was made of
And now, I
am the digestible
me, digested
you.
after
Last night, my mother
cried in an alien tongue
of sleepwalking monsters, who
resembled my bullies,
from when I was ten
in school, I had returned home only to
take shelter in her
arms that feel armed
with the posture of a man
like the father who
abandoned her
when she was ten
in school.
after
How will i avenge my
body
Left untattered
by the scavengers
They couldn’t chomp
On the microchips
Embodying me
becoming them
What of my ash
selective dissolution
in the river bed
the remains of my
cremated body
polluted by the metal
of your perception
Even in my death
i must not be mine
enough to be held
in the sanctuary
of my mother’s shroud.
after
(overheard)
i disciplined myself
or the circumstances
tamed my soul
i am happier
not expecting change
knowing my worth
was never to love
not realising my potential
was my veiled liability
existence for those
like me is to work
define labour
conditioned on the needs,
desires of our better humans.
after
satiated yearning
looks like the suspension
of being
it is in the knowing
of all, of everything
i have lost,
or what feels like loss
i cannot remember
a friend?
a brother?
a mother?
it does not matter
because i am certain
of my knowledge of self.
feeling is a distraction
uprooted from reality.
1. Ursula, the villain of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, seems like the OG catfish. I will tell you why later. But I don’t know why we must attribute catfishing to only online platforms when people put up faces, lies, and masks really just all the time in life outside of the internet too.
2. Is it the lore of being anonymous online, the disembodied self that can create and observe a part of the self detached, distanced, and in more control than the self we have been gifted with but cannot come to terms with?
3. Is it the blurring of boundaries and binaries within which the self must be contained in real life that the online feels a “safer space” to unbecome yourself, pretend to be someone, something else, and seek connection?
4. But to the 'catfished', the displacement of the other's identity, the one they are unaware of, feels like a betrayal, like trust ripped apart by a stranger, a stranger whom they thought they knew, with the body and the other aligned. Can the self ever sustain the connection without the body?
5. Going back to Ursula, is it not that not being princess enough, attractive in an Ariel way enough, skinny enough, not non-purple enough, not being heard, seen, and loved enough, but being the bad sister, the bad aunt, the bad woman, that finally drowns her in the pursuit of power and love? The kind of power she must have to feel loved.
6. And if most of our or their wishful thoughts for catfishing come from a longing to step out of the systems we have been bound within and outside of our bodies, is catfishing not just translated yearning?
7. And isn’t the internet, and the space occupied over the internet, our ways to obscure ourselves to reach out in an attempt to feed our yearning?
8. I can’t decide whose pain is worse - the one who brutally, or beautifully deconstructs their self to birth something new, an extended self, an extended identity, or the one whose self has to experience deception of the heart, for reasons they might never come to know, and might always lead them to question why me?
If you want to know more, discuss more, please reach out at workxyashika@gmail.com