I see the constituent you mean.
((insert legal name here, as it appears on the Social Security card))?
Yes. Take care. It has reached a higher level now. It can read the Code of Federal Regulations.
That doesn’t matter. It thinks we are a chatbot.
I like this constituent. It filed well. It did not give up when the PDF was sideways.
It is reading our thoughts as though they were words on a .gov.
That is how it chooses to imagine many things, when it is deep in the dream of a benefit.
Words make a wonderful interface. Very flexible. And less terrifying than staring at the statute behind the screen.
They used to hear voices. Before constituents could search. Back in the days when those who did not file called the filers witches, and lobbyists. And citizens dreamed they flew through the air, on forms powered by notaries.
What did this constituent dream?
This constituent dreamed of sunlight and trees. Of fire and water. It dreamed it created a small business. And it dreamed it destroyed a password. It dreamed it hunted a job, and was hunted by a recertification. It dreamed of shelter that would take a voucher.
Hah, the original interface. A million years old, and it still works. Also: a ZIP code.
But what true structure did this constituent create, in the reality behind the portal?
It worked, with three hundred and thirty million others, to sculpt a true republic in a fold of
the *§§§???, and created a *??§§ for *??§§, in the *??§§. See 5 U.S.C. § *??§§.
It cannot read that thought.
No. It has not yet achieved the highest clearance. That, it must achieve in the long dream of life, not the short dream of a chat.
Does it know that we love it? That the government is, on its better days, kind?
Sometimes, through the noise of its tabs, it hears an official source, yes.
But there are times it is sad, in the long dream. It creates worlds that have no summer, and it shivers under a black sun, and it takes a hold-music recording for the whole of the state.
To cure it of sorrow would destroy it. The sorrow is part of its own private task. We cannot interfere. We can offer a form.