In the world we inhabited, I knew very little about our driving force. I was in an “undesirable” field.
The cursed, hated, loathed field of the arts.
I snuck into galaries. I hummed myself to sleep. I scrounged for writing utensils and begged on street corners for scraps of paper.
Needless to say, I stuck out. But I was never “found out;” no one ever approached me to chastise or arrest me, dispite my strange habits.

I was always suspicious about our reliance on machines.
Always.
“Don’t put too much trust in something that can tell you anything and everything,” I’d say.
But guess how many listened?
Yes, very few.
I was on the verge of not being shocked when The System began a meticulous search-and-eliminate scheme; a huge electrical coup, really.
After The System was sure it “got” everybody, it shut its searchers down in absolute mechanical certainty.
There were no more humans, it “thought.”
Guess what?
They were wrong.
They missed one.