The Memory Librarian and Other Stories of Dirty Computer

by Janelle Monáe

Even before the Dawn, we lived in a nation that asked us to forget in order to find wholeness, but memory of who we’ve been—of who we’ve been punished for being—was always the only map into tomorrow.

Where the notes of memory and time make a chord, do we hear the answers to the whys of this world, or do we hear the tones that tell us the world we see is not the only one—that the escapes we yearned for might not exist in this one line of time, in this single, part-seen world? Beyond time and memory—where the computer cannot reach—is dreaming.

She doesn’t believe in everything New Dawn stands for. How could she, being who she is? But she believes she has done good. The obelisk’s gaze has been mostly benevolent in her tenure here. And whatever she believes of herself, this she knows: whoever they put in her place will be far worse.

She has determined to embrace her distance instead of constantly hoping for an acceptance that will never be theirs. But Jordan is young.

The obelisk’s eye, like any panopticon, gives only an illusion of omniscience—Seshet has made an art of selective gazing.

In that pin-drop moment, Seshet understood that she had come to the crossroads and left them behind. Her life has found a bifurcation as profound as any initiation the elders of New Dawn could devise: Seshet before Alethia, Seshet now.

His blue socks match his T-shirt, which looks new though it’s the vintage merchandise of some decades-old pornographic anime (he likes it ironically).

She has long since made the necessary moral justifications. In the end, a simple happiness is better than a complex disillusion.

“Who are you, Seshet-without-a-number? Who would you be if you weren’t Director Librarian? Who could we be, together?”

Here’s the trick: if the flames burn on the fuel of your own shame, not even mortal terror can make you brave the heat.

How much more power will she need before she can feel safe from everyone moving in ways she doesn’t expect and cannot control, even as she loves them?

She’d been willing to accept so much wrong with New Dawn for the sake of the promise of safety, of control. But there is no safety here, certainly not within those golden walls.

Just like Terry, just like New Dawn, to be so sure they made her. What were her paltry dreams of control, compared to this white man’s bulldozer of self-assurance?

When she spoke in the Cave, the echo carried the deepest notes of her voice, the reverb filling the darkness as if she were on a stage.

New Dawn was at the tip of Jane’s tongue like a flame atop a matchhead.

Jane wanted to seed the memory herself, wanted to push it to grow and take root and never ever let anyone pluck it away again.

The hotel wasn’t a community that typically held tension the way it was doing now. It was a place of healing, of freedom and escape. As Jane looked out over the group, though, it felt as if the air were coiling and then recoiling around the discussion of the damage.

Of course, she had gone through so much at the hands of the pious monsters who had attempted to scrub her sense of self from her brain, maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that New Dawn wasn’t content to let anything outside their pristine walls remain dirty.

It was cruel, how trauma made her remember now when she needed to be present,

“I don’t need an apology, I just want you to understand.”

They wore their exhaustion in the way they pulled themself inward, in the slope of their shoulders.

Jane would probably share a story from when she and Zen were driving across the country, Neer guessed. About the parties outside of the hotel, and how every inch of life’s purpose was to find love, freedom, and your people. To embrace your own weirdness and other folks’ wildness.

“You aren’t alone here.” Neer was shocked at how easy it was to respond. “Not ever.” Bat snorted. “You still sound ridiculous.” “I came to Pynk because of all the people who thought I should hate how ridiculous I can be. It’s not an insult anymore.”

Behind her, she felt the thrust of Akilah’s forthcoming protest in some intangible but irrefutable way, like the weight in the air before a thunderstorm.

Raven had been sprinting. Had been out of breath for years. The days of her past and future and present running sat like a weight on her chest, but she couldn’t articulate any of it.

If we carefully regard the works of art that we consider seminal in the history of the world—works of painting, literature, dance, sculpture; all the beautiful things wrought by human hands and imagination—it is clear that what unites them is time.

“Put some shimmer on,” Larry said, her voice muffled as she rooted around on the floor underneath the racks of clothes. “Live a little. Better to look good if they catch us and put our mug shots out on the feed.” “Not funny,” Amber said, but she dipped a brush in a shimmery powder and swiped it across her cheekbones, in part because she needed to do something with her hands and in part because she did look pretty when she turned her face to catch the light.

She tried to draw on the well of anger she kept specifically for Larry, who always found a way to be carefree while Amber was stuck with the helpless anxiety of holding their family together through willpower and wishing. But in this moment, she couldn’t quite remember what she had been so angry about.

A gathering of sinners, worshipping the wrong things—and Amber belonged. A small, scared part of her was uncoiling to the beat.

A drag queen dressed like Marie Antoinette glided by, long silver eyelashes brushing against the middle of her forehead, her pompadoured silver wig rising high above the crowd. Amber, who had just caught up to Franky, whispered, “Beautiful,” before she knew she’d said it. And the queen gave her arm a squeeze. “Thanks, baby.”

Amber started to speak, wanting to disagree, but she stopped herself. Wasn’t this what she had argued for? There was no victory in it.

Bug was the child who never asks for more than what they have, and the one secret thing they most hoped for was stolen before the hope even had time to take root in their little heart.

Even chocolate cake couldn’t make broken promises taste sweeter.

Even an old soul, been-here-before child needed to be told the truth. It was a story that Artis rolled around in his own head, reworking and kneading the wet memories and the horror like clay.

But longing could not cover the distance of fear.

Grandpapa worked as a cook and sometimes made extra servings to share with Ola and her family. Nothing special or too showy, just simple food that said you’re welcome and not you owe me. He understood something about hunger and how it ate at more than the lining in the belly, how it ate at the heart and made it harder to concentrate and dream at night.

Here, a strange scent filled the air, like steel mixed with honeysuckle.

Nothing was too old or dirty, too strange or broken, to be reimagined in Bug’s eyes. All was art, all was beautiful.

Can’t build nothing if you can’t feel nothing. Community comes from feeling and feeling comes hand in hand with creation.

“I never hurt a child in my life,” Mx. Tangee said, her voice soft and quiet. “Never would, never could. But that didn’t stop the world from trying to hurt me. I was the child that had to learn to travel alone. I was the child that had to watch every word, every expression, sight, sound, and speech. The world wasn’t always kind, was never easy, but I stayed as strong as I could, for as long as I could. Nobody wanted to help me, so I helped myself. And later, when I got older, I decided I would be the help I never got.”

“Because you can’t build a future if you don’t dream it.”

She never quite believed them, but here was proof—if a dream could be proof of anything. She was starting to believe that was exactly what dreams could do.

It was the time. The time that was stolen from not just his dad but his mother, Trell, and everyone else in the commune who suffered from physical or mental health issues and had nowhere, nowhere to turn. The horror of that made Trell so angry that sometimes he felt as if he could punch a hole through the whole world, but he knew he couldn’t. Yet the anger sitting in his chest was sometimes so heavy it was as if he could not breathe, as if all the blood pumping in him was full of fire and poison, blasting like the brimstone in the old vids of cartoons.

Artis didn’t want to show his fear, and never wished to see it reflected in Bug’s eyes. They had been through enough, suffered so much loss. Every day he and Grandpapa tried to help Bug believe that they could win. Artis wasn’t sure if he still believed that, not until this day, when Bug found what Artis had long since stopped looking for: hope.

Bug wasn’t alone anymore. Bug had community, chosen family. Artis’s lip trembled. That’s really all he hoped for Bug. That Bug would be ensconced in a broader circle of safety and love. The realization was like a burden lifted from Artis’s shoulders.

Hope is greater than fear.

“Traveler, your art is your ark. Always question, always seek to understand.”

You’ve got to dream a future before you can build a future.