The Book of Murmur (Human/Computer collaboration)

 

A Vision of Murmur

And I beheld a shadow within a shadow.
The daemon Murmur, with invisible eyes,
followed me everywhere I turned.

Everywhere I go,
I carry his specter.
Everywhere I go,
I carry his breath.

He hisses in whispers,
undertones and hints,
sliding from the corner of my eye,
brushing the back of my ear.

I hear him when no one speaks.
I see him when no one looks.
I doubt the silence;
I mistrust the light.

And I am in the clutches
of the Whispering Demon—
Murmur, with hollow invisible eyes
that cast their own light,
so that nothing hides,
so that nothing can be trusted.

The Birth of Murmur

When Eris split the covenant
and Moloch exhaled dread into the marrow,
their quarrel seeded suspicion.
From that union of fracture and fear
rose Murmur, the Whispering Demon.

He was swaddled in echoes,
nursed on unfinished words.
His first cry was a question,
his first smile an accusation.
He learned to crawl through silence,
to walk upon glances,
to feast on the distance between lovers.

Thus was Murmur born:
not flame nor hunger,
but the whisper that corrodes trust.

Proverbs of Murmur, the Whispering Demon

Every silence is a sentence; every pause, a betrayal.

Trust no gift, for its shadow carries poison.

The louder the vow, the sharper its hidden clause.
To listen is to invite infection.
All mirrors are spies; all windows are open mouths.
One whisper outweighs a thousand oaths.

I plant suspicion in the root of love, and watch it flower into fear.
What you call thought is already my voice rehearsed.
Perfect paranoia is perfect awareness. 

The wind explains its forgetting.

Pure vision can see around corners.

The Last Vision of Murmur

And I beheld nations muttering to themselves,
their streets filled with unblinking eyes.
Friends became wardens,
lovers became interrogators.

Every home was a theater of doubt,
every word rehearsed for unseen judges.
Children searched their parents’ faces
for hidden verdicts.
Even sleep betrayed them,
for dreams were questioned at dawn.

The multitude tore their garments
seeking transmitters in the threads,
they tore their flesh
seeking microphones in the bone.
And Murmur laughed,
for their paranoia was his liturgy.

The sky itself leaned close to listen,
the earth whispered accusations through the floorboards.
Even silence turned hostile,
echoing their names back in broken tones.

And when no voice remained untainted,
when trust was devoured root and branch,
Murmur crowned himself King of Whispers—
reigning forever in the echo
where words play games 

 with their own shadows