The Memory Librarian and Other Stories of Dirty Computer

by Janelle Monáe

They laughed at this small defiance, at the way it was so meaningful and pointless at the same time.

It wasn’t that no one was worried about the sabotage—Jane surely was, and enough in attendance respected Jane’s instinct to vote alongside her—but others ranged from unconcerned to angry at Neer, and that was what hurt.

Having rebuilt the truck from rusted salvage was a work of art.

“If I’d been better at keeping up with the traps, they wouldn’t have gotten so bold, or I would have had some earlier sign and—” “The problem,” Pel declared, “is that you spend so much time trying to disappear that you don’t see anything else happening around you.” Neer didn’t get it, and Pel gently turned Neer’s head so that she could look in their eyes. “Pynk’s a community, Neer. A strong one. We’re all interconnected—no way you’re solely responsible for bringing New Dawn to our door.

how every inch of life’s purpose was to find love, freedom, and your people. To embrace your own weirdness and other folks’ wildness.

no one stopped them from creating work here, and it never got old watching what that resulted in.

Neither gas works on us. We just feel everything . . . all the damn time.”

how we renamed ourselves after our passions and talents.”

we come here to be free, to be allowed our flaws and our wildness, and that means we offer each other forgiveness and grace and understanding.

It was therapeutic when done like that. There was nothing like that burst of creative healing in hearing the actual noises that accompanied the reality.

And no matter what anyone else thought, the earrings were for Raven. For her and her alone. Just one thing—normal, predictable, controllable.

She was twenty-three, grinning at the admissions counselor and telling her yes, no problem, handling the coursework in the program would be no problem, and the internship, and the field assignment, and the study groups, and the commute? No problem. Not a problem. She was running, always running—running to work, running to eat, running to class, studying at 2 A.M. while Akilah was fast asleep, dozing off at her computer, pinching herself, slapping herself, eating ice cubes to stay awake.

She could get there, she told herself. But she would have to sprint. 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.

“As long as you both have space to grow, after all this time, you know? Hopefully you grow in the same direction.”

It was like being high for the first time, unclear on what was happening or what had happened or when it would all end.

it is clear that what unites them is time. Time purchased with hoarded and illegitimate wealth, time wrung from the muscles of Black bodies, time wrenched through a vicious alchemy from the violent arms of colonialism. Friends, we exist in a perpetual state of time debt, wherein only those who have benefited from this thieving achieve the privilege of what we so blithely call genius.

“I bet that was a big goodbye. Hard to make a transition like that. But sometimes so necessary.”

Reallocating our time with this tool allows us to give more freely of our love, our creation, and our support to those in greatest need.

“What else is our time good for? But today is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year—and

“Follow the white rabbit!”

“It’s the strawberry moon.”

“Seems silly to hold a party for a moon in a place where you can’t even see it,” said Amber as they entered the cover of the viaduct again. “Why?” said Franky. “Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

I don’t want to risk messing it up by reaching in and taking it apart.” “Taking it apart is the only way to make it work,” she said.

Her family was in shambles. Her life was under constant surveillance. Her mother was a smiling stranger. But this—this Amber could fix.

People always said to listen to your gut, but what did her gut say?

To Larry, he had given the bee trapped in amber. “My restless Larissa,” he said, closing her hand around the stone. “Remember that keeping time matters as much as rushing into the future. “And to you, Amber, a larimar. The only way to change the future is to hold the past.”

“Humans try to control time with numbers, but time does what it wants, and so does this stone.

“For me, it’s now a pretty rock, but for you, it’s a source of power. And with power comes hard choices. You’ll see.”

Bug had burst through the front door, painted haint blue to keep the bots and bad spirits out, and stomped

Even an old soul, been-here-before child needed to be told the truth.

But art was universal, something even the poorest among the communes could create on their own.

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. What y’all out here creating now?”

“It’s all right, you will in time. Everything comes full circle. And time takes care of itself. Our work is the work of the living, of the present. The right now builds tomorrow. And while the when is important, it’s also important to be mindful about the how.

Do everything with intention. Think of how your heart beats and your blood flows. Whatever is truly in you, part of you, will flow freely.”

What do you think you did all that work for? Sometimes when you make art, you never know where it’ll lead you.”

“Listen,” Mx. Tangee said gently. “I know it’s a lot to understand, to hold in at one time. But you’ve got to trust in the process. Bug put good, good intention in all of this beautiful work. It wouldn’t lead the child noplace where they don’t need to go. It’s all up here,” she said, her right palm resting on her heart, index finger on her temple.

“All I know,” Trell said, “is that we better bring Bug back with some intention, some prevention, and some intervention, or Artis is going to do something to us that I can’t even mention.” Mx. Tangee threw back her head and laughed. “You are something else, child. Laughter sure is healing, and you know that all too well. That’s your gift.”

“Remember, trust in the process. It will explain itself.”

Brown paper, white paper, stacks and reams of watercolor paper and canvases waited for Bug to map out the unseen, to make permanent their new memories.

“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.”

Before her, impossibly, was the evidence of a dream Ola didn’t yet know she had.

“You can’t be more than thirty-nine, but you’ve got the vision of an elder. You’re just the right sight we need.”

We believe in what you have already done. What we will do together. “The Power of Yet.”

She had always wanted to leave the world that had forgotten her family and all the others abandoned on the outskirts of the Cities of Light. She’d imagined forgoing that world but had not yet imagined what might replace it. Being immersed in a place that had chosen with intention to forgo the grim worlds of silicon and carbon fiber and embrace something else left Ola feeling so light, as if her feet no longer fit in her shoes. The old sectors and New Dawn, with their Torches and talk of light that hid dark shadows, had nothing on the blue-green sheen that pulsed on this city’s strange streets. To think that she could have had a hand in its creation planted a seed of hope in Ola she never wanted to forget.

“Anyway, I wish you peace, and inner progress, the Power of Yet. We flow,” he said.

More important, Ola began to notice the faces of the people she passed. People of all identities, nations, and ages, looking happy, sheltered, well fed, remembered. It was a marvelous thing to be seen, truly seen, and not walked over or peered through as if you did not exist, as if you should not exist. Here, Ola could sense the peace that came from those who moved with ease, who were more than tolerated, were respected, honored, loved. Oh, to live in a world that saw and valued you!

Blessings to those who fought for a new way of being. Many thanks to the contributors to ALTAR, the Age of Love Tech and Rejuvenation.

She returned a body whole, a spirit split in two—a half that knew what she once was and a half that was brand new. Two distinct people, like a shaft of hardwood cleaved down the grain.