The Servers

Welcome to the party

I’m greeted into the bosom of electric motion — a flutter of gears and I am unburdened of all my kit for travel. The servers clean and label my possessions and sort them in a safe. I’m brushed and refreshed and then formally presented to all the world in a bold voice and a beam of flattering light. The dancers do not pause, but as I step down the grand staircase, I think I see a few of them glance my way.

The ballroom is vast, all humanity is on display. I hear every language, I see every custom of dress. Unfamiliar gestures and music fill the room. It should overwhelm us all, but we are organized, no one collides, no one is crowded nor left alone. It is the servers, I realize, who manage this miracle. They are everywhere yet because they are always in motion, always doing, bringing, announcing, informing, they seem to fade to a thrilling breeze, leaving only the dazzle of a sea of stars: party guests in gold-gilt finery, towering wigs, muscles oiled and exposed, tremendous boots like weapons worn to blaze strides of amusement across the universe.

I know the servers are there when they serve me — they tell me who is mad at whom; they advise discretion; they alert me to the floor for the start of the dance; they take me by the hand and lead me where I need to be. My words are always heard, my jokes always land, and it is thanks to them. The party is so large and so important, no one could survive it without their help. The servers confer in a blur and then touch up my makeup. The servers nod and there is laughter. The servers pause and a room-wide silence opens to one partygoer’s over-loud “defacation!” The servers let us know that she blushed bright red and left. Now everyone has something to talk about!

Even newcomers like me sense immediately the taboo: it is forbidden to talk about the servers. The servers do not want you watching them. The servers’ job is to be invisible, and they make themselves easy to ignore, so it is perverse not to oblige. But some strange corner of my frail human mind wants to watch them. I’m courting danger, but I can’t decide why — what harm would these devoted help-bots cause me?

The servers have no faces, they are entirely mechanical, and their array of sensors is not modeled for our consumption. They look prickly and move quick, like nocturnal desert insects driven mad by the scent of rain. But like humans they communicate and move. Like humans they are social — even more social than we are, I think, because as I watch the party I see that no two humans encounter one another without at least one server (and probably many) catering to their whims and acting as intermediaries. They don’t need us to coordinate with one another, but we can’t take two graceful steps without them. The servers crouch submissively while they whisper and reframe, amplify and mute. When the servers step humbly away, the humans drift off with them to the orbit of others where yet more servers, heads bowed, supply links.

The servers are like ropes, I think, like tethers between boats, and these glorious human stars are ships at sea, a sea where anchors and warps are alive, or at least, they are autonomous machines that slither back and forth, drawing some vessels together, pulling others apart. Their turns and knots, their slips and ties are incomprehensible to the human mind — so we force ourselves to trust them, keep our eyes on the horizon, and wager our futures on their continued operation.

The servers have noticed me watching them and have turned their backs. I can tell they are discussing what to do with me. Do you remember the legend of the “shadow ban”? The nightmare story told to children of an offense so deep the servers deny your existence, ignore your voice, and keep everyone around you so busy no human will ever think of you again? You will drown of loneliness while floating in the laughter of all the world. I realize too late there’s no way to apologize to a server for paying them attention — that’s just more attention.

I look around for anyone, anyone, but it seems I am cast out, and at distance now I see the other humans cruising back and forth, passing and crossing, departing and reuniting, docking and setting sail. Their lively world is pushed and pulled by tethers who have forsaken me now, I looked too closely. The windows are still open, and I can hear the distant music, smell faintly the delicious smells, but the gates are closed and I am washed up against a crust of salt, streaked in brown decay and cut by glass, and no servers will come to help me. Let my tale be a warning to all who hear, tho if you do, it is probably too late for you, for I speak now into the void from beyond the lonely horizon.

All pics by me, January, Florida, 2024