Perhaps I Am a Program Watching a Film Starring Androids, Humans & Beautiful Facsimiles

—on watching Blade Runner 2049 for the 4th or 5th time

I will not reveal which scene

sent me to the kitchen, why I found myself

staring from the window above

the sink,

& turning slightly to my right,

with the quirks of a well-trained

actor, or an actual glitching android,

selected the ripe tomato on the

cutting board,

held it up—calculating

weight—felt its texture—guessing what the

skin holds inside.

I inhaled its grassy scent.

Suppose for a moment

media is already more real than the physical data

our senses collect—I mean why else baptize each night

with such religiosity? Repetition. Blue light. Ones

& zeroes.

What would it be to slice the tomato

three hundred sixty times in less than twenty

seconds without cutting yourself? Carve the luscious

fruit into a hyper-

realistic miniature St. Bernard in less

than the twitch of a nervous tick—

an eye bearing the serial number

of your make & model,

your maker.

I wonder if acting techniques are relevant any

longer—Classical, Stanislavski, Method—& where

Ryan Gosling fits into these molds.

Is it acting?

In the kitchen,

I imagined a deleted scene from

Blade Runner 2049. Created separation.

A buffer between the irony & disappointment

intertwined like DNA in the scene which

I will not name.

Imagined a scene

where I become Ryan Gosling slicing a

tomato—

sync with Ryan Gosling

like a pair of headphones

or a wireless speaker.

These android films,

if they’re any good,

are always about the irony.

I painstakingly slice the tomato.

Add it to a boring salad. I realize

this kitchen could be

a simulation.

The idea is as tantalizing as all the cyber punk films,

an off world planet pushing language & boundaries, a futuristic

willingness to look hard or away at what it might mean

to be as decent—more human than human—as

some of these androids.

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