Author: Robert Walker

Sara and Mike

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

INT. PUB – DAY

SARA and CHRIS are sitting at a table, holding hands, gazing into each other’s eyes, nuzzling, and chatting. They are clearly a romantic couple.

MIKE walks in. Sara is overjoyed and gets up and runs to him; she throws her arms around him and kisses him. They both return to the table, arm in arm and smiling joyously.

MIKE: (excited) Hi Chris, we have some very exciting news!

CHRIS: (nervously) What is it?

SARA: (beaming) We’re dating!

MIKE: Yes, at least three times a day!

SARA: Chris? What is it? You never agree with any of my decisions do you. And Mike is your best friend, you bastard!

MIKE: Yeah Chris, you bastard, how can you just sit there and not congratulate us. We’ve been best friends for years.

CHRIS: Erm, sorry?

SARA: (to Chris) Okay, fine, well I’m dating your brother at five, so please hurry up and buy us the best champagne to celebrate.

Keep Sleeping

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

INT. CONFERENCE VENUE – DAY

A motivational SPEAKER is on stage addressing a large crowd.

SPEAKER: Ladies and gentlemen, never give up on your dreams! Some people give up on their dreams when they wake up and get out of bed. I say, dream BIG! Go back to bed and get some sleep.

A MAN in the front row of the audience, who has been nodding off, suddenly starts to snore loudly.

The speaker walks over to him with his microphone.

SPEAKER: Excuse me, sir, please tell us, what is your dream?

MAN: (waking up, rubbing his eyes) Er? Oh, sorry. I must have dozed off.

The audience laughs.

SPEAKER: Hahaha! Don’t apologise, it happens to the best of us! What is the dream, sir?

Another audience member shouts out excitedly:

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Never give up on your dreams!

SPEAKER: Exactly! Sir, please tell us all, what is your dream?

MAN: Well, it’s silly really…

SPEAKER: Yes?

MAN: I suppose I want to be a professional napper.

SPEAKER: Oh! A round of applause ladies and gentlemen, please!

The audience applauds.

SPEAKER: A professional napper, he says! I say, why not? The world needs more people who take their dreams seriously. You know what I say? Do you? I say go for it. Go for it… right now!

AUDIENCE: Sleep! Sleep! Sleep!

The audience is standing up and getting very excited – whooping, cheering, and clapping. The speaker is ecstatically running around the stage.

SPEAKER: You can do it. DO IT!

The man tries but doesn’t feel much like it now.

Random Thoughts

by Robert Walker, posted in Random Thoughts

Amongst more auspicious outcomes, these two disastrous scenarios are possible for our near future: the extinction of humanity; or a dystopian, psychopath-controlled world. Under the malevolent central control of all-encompassing surveillance and “guidance” technology, and without any hope of the system’s collapse, the latter outcome is even worse than the former. The times we live in are truly pivotal for humanity.

What if aliens reproduce by transmitting their code around the universe, looking for computers to run their programs? The request “Take me to your leader” would lead to the supercomputer that powers ChatGPT.

Watching Bergman and Tarkovsky films ruined my digestion of Hollywood’s cookie-cut CGI cartoons (movies).

If you have nothing to add to a meeting, you shouldn’t be there. Information can be imparted in better ways, like a written summary.

Journal 2023-02-04

by Robert Walker, posted in Journal

I’ve been writing some poems as guides for when I am improvising lyrics for songs. The words sound a lot better when sung rather than when read on a page because lyrics only complete their meaning when married to the music.

Random Thoughts:

The weight of an issue is usually determined by the emotional force of the past, rather than being proportional to its real likelihood and impact.

The true objective of a game is enjoyment.

If you were 100 feet tall, would a tiger be like a kitty cat?

The Scar that Burns

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

A flame burns its might in a crystal ball –

In your warm gaze;

In your gentle glow;

Simmering over now, above

and below.

We can heal our wounds:

With every caress,

You lay on fire,

Your heart to undress;

In our arms

We find our peace –

A place where we

find our final release.

A spark ignites the night;

It’s in your tender touch

that I find my love,

your comfort and trust;

It’s in this moment’s flame

that we can heal again:

The scar that burns.

Within the Night

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

I was lost alone in the night

wondering where to hide –

There’s no method to my madness,

I was struggling in my sadness;

But then I heard a voice saying

“love is here for you”,

There’s someone who cares for you;

You were born not waiting to die –

Give in to the love for you.

In the deep hazy mists I could see her:

I melted away in one breath

As our eyes met, within death.

Random Thoughts

by Robert Walker, posted in Random Thoughts

Do I believe in God? That question is loaded with assumptions about both belief and God. Do I take as fact the doctrines concerning reality written by people in past civilisations? – No. However, there shouldn’t be a one-dimensional graded scale for belief that merely gauges the percentage probability of religious dogma being correct. The metaphysical understanding that most resonates with me is that there is a soul of the universe, in which we are all a part. There is no insistence on certainty here; this is a non-falsifiable interpretation of experience driven by internal feeling, not logical deduction – and in no way does it affect any commitment to a rigorous investigation of the world using the scientific method. So where do I feature on the belief scale?

God is hope. A hope that the universe is ultimately love; that all the suffering will be overcome; that life will be saved from despair; and that despite everything, it will all be okay.

For any existence after death to be desirable, it would have to be outside of time and space, and completely beyond our current comprehension of reality – as even a limitless abundance of joy would become meaningless within the causes and effects of endless time.

What if people start to prefer artificial companions over humans? Silicone imitations are already starting to become realistic; and the AI personalities could be tailored to individual requirements. Is reproduction going to be outsourced, like in Huxley’s Brave New World?