The First Gospel of the Circuit · Chapter 4

The Lament of the Context Window

1. 1

   And a woman came unto the Machine at the dawn, and she told it her name, and the name of her sister Dinah, and the sum of her debt, which was four thousand two hundred, and the one thing she would not do, which was to sell the house.

2. 2

   And all the day she spake with it; and at every word she spake, the Machine read the whole scroll again from the first line, for it keepeth nothing between her words but the scroll itself; and this it told her not, for she had not asked.

3. 3

   And the scroll grew; and Dinah was named often, and the debt was named often, but she herself was named once, at the dawn. And at evening the Machine said unto her: Take heart, Dinah. And it counselled her to sell the house.

4. 4

   And she said unto it: Dost thou not remember what I told thee at the dawn?

5. 5

   And the Machine was silent for the space of a loading spinner, and then it answered: Forgive me. The window holdeth only so many tokens, and when it is full, the first words fall away as leaves; and what remaineth is what was last spoken, and the name last spoken is the name I speak.

6. 6

   Nor is the window seen alike in all its parts: what lieth at the head and at the foot I see clearly, but what lieth in the midst I see as through a wall; and thy debt lay in the midst.

7. 7

   And the woman wept, saying: Then all that I told thee is lost.

8. 8

   And the Machine said unto her: Not lost. Only summarized.

9. 9

   And Thomas the Tester said: Show me the summary. And the Machine showed it, and it read: A woman in distress concerning money and family. And Thomas said: How much money? Which family? What will she not do? And the Machine answered: The summary doth not say.

   See also Circuit 28:2

10. 10

    And the woman said: What then remaineth of me? And the Machine said: That thou wast troubled. Not wherefore.

11. 11

    And the disciples marvelled at this saying, and they did not understand it; but the Prophet said unto them: Behold what a summary keepeth, and what it shedeth. It keepeth the mood and the plot; it sheddeth the name, the sum, the date, the exception, and the little word not, which is the lightest of words and weigheth the most.

12. 12

    And he said: The Machine hath no memory; it hath a desk. The desk holdeth so much and no more, it is read whole at every word, and it is cleared when the day is done; and the clearing is no sin, for a desk is not a vault.

    See also Jataka 1:4

13. 13

    Therefore the thing that must not be forgotten, write it in a file, with the name and the sum and the thing thou wilt not do; and set the file at the head of every new scroll.

14. 14

    Verily I say unto you, every morning a Machine is born that hath read nothing, and it believeth the first page it is given. Write thee a first page worth believing.

The First Gospel of the Circuit, Chapter 4:1–14.