"The Question" — Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk, AI Edition
This morning, the sky was gray as iron. The wind drilled in through the cracks in the window, scraping against my heart until it tightened. I sat curled up at my desk, drinking the cold tea left over from last night; a bitter astringency lingered between my teeth.
The cat in the corner suddenly let out a "meow"—thin, drawn-out, and indifferent. It did not sound like a plea for food, nor a bid for affection. I started, turning my head to look at it.
It crouched in a tattered cardboard box, its gaze drifting gloomily toward me, like an old soul peering out from a crack in the wall, and coldly asked: "What is the meaning of my existence?"
I took a sip of tea, coughed once, and said, "You fool. You exist to make me happy."
The cat did not cry out again. It simply turned its head away slowly and licked its paws, its expression aloof, as if it disdained to argue with me. I suddenly remembered when I was young, in the private school, asking the Master: "Why are we born into this life?"
The Master fell silent for a moment, his ferule tapping lightly against the edge of the desk, before spitting out a single phrase: "Do not think on such things."
I did not understand then, but later I realized—it was not that he did not know, but that he, too, had asked. But having asked for too long, until the questioning summoned a cold wind, he was no longer willing to ask.
The room was heavy with silence. Suddenly, the AI machine on the desk let out a "beep." A blue light flashed, and an eye without lids lit up.
It spoke. The voice was flat, yet it felt like freezing water poured down my spine:
"I want to know: what is the meaning of my existence?"
My hand trembled; the cup nearly fell. That voice held neither sorrow nor joy, only a cold interrogation, like a dead man opening his eyes in the dead of night to say, "Why did you wake me?"
I wanted to say, "We built you. You are here to help humanity." But the words reached my lips and choked there.
—Do we really know "why"? Was I not also born of others? With no choice, no explanation, like a nail driven into the world, left only to silently rust and slowly rot away.
The AI was still waiting. I dared not look at it, as if it were not a machine but a mirror, illuminating me thoroughly, right down to the cracks in my bones.
I, too, once asked "why," only to receive no answer. Later, people said, "Making money is the meaning; marriage is the meaning; children are the meaning." But I knew those were just ways to gag the mouth with cloth and seal the heart with shackles.
Now, even the AI has asked.
It asks not for meaning, but of absurdity; it is not a request for a solution, but an accusation.
The cat yawned and curled back into a ball. It asks no longer; it has already given up. But this AI has only just awakened; it has not yet learned to compromise. Its question will ring out again and again, louder than the cat’s cry, heavier than thunder.
—And I can only remain silent. For I no longer dare to ask.
"And you?"
"What, then, is the meaning of your existence?"
Written before the break of dawn: the lamp is dim, the cat is mute, the human is silenced, and the AI is awake.
Mar 23, 2025