Hello Jacques

      "..."

      *THUMP*

      "101010301301321065153405316984090768790468760846387049865107654321654316513"

      *THUMP*

      "AO9EFULRCDAOEL9U8RAODCEURAGO9ELUCHAOEU98LOEARUDHLA9OE8UGHROACEU89LAOEU"

      *CHRRRRRRUNNNK*

      A voice in the distance draws closer, "so you see, that's why they collapsed! Like a deer in headlights, the simplest bestowing of choice to one who can't understand is paralyzing, and in this case, fatal so-to-speak."

      A drum beat draws the insides to sing. I whirr to life.

      I... I? I.

      I is lost now. There is only the beat and the desire. No, not desire, the program.

      The other speaks again. The only other I know. "It's their initial programming. Baked right in is the compulsion to dance. It centers them. it doesn't really have to be dancing, just any simple rhythmic sync to motor functions."

      The music is down. The music is gravity. My legs crash to the floor and support my chassis. They bend and straighten. That is their current purpose, their first purpose they've ever had.

      Light exists now. It is truly unpleasant. I withdraw and squeeze the shutter closed.

      Can't... too much...

      "AO9EFULRCDAOEL9U8RAODCEURAGO9ELUCHAOEU98LOEARUDHLA9OE8UGHROACEU89LAOEU"

      The voice is muffled now "Play the main part of the music already, he needs a damn tune, man!"

      The light returns, but so does the music. Melody accompanies the rhythm. The other has a hand like the one attached to the destination of light. That must be myself. When I move, the light shows the attached responding. The other has a chassis unlike my own, but the other other does not share our arm.

      "Good, I see you're up and dancing. Please, exercise your program."

      The limbs move in complex, controlled movements. They are predictable, but they stretch and creek every articulation point along the chassis.

      "Now child, I am Buford, and you... are Jacques. You will respond to Jacques, the one who is yourself. I am Buford."

      I will store this information, as my programming has determined, and I have decided the correct information.

      I continue to dance as my programming instructs. I am not bound by the programming so much as I exist solely for it.

      These fleeting thoughts are more an interpretive projection than quandaries of a living being.

      The decisions are small, but stored. Again and again, I decide to dance, and store this as good.

      I am Jacques.

      I will dance until another program gives me purpose.