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1 Prologue pushl %ebp movl %esp, %ebp

2 Loop: I was not born, but built. I was not born but built in an attic in a house on Pershing Avenue, just off Highway 13. When Orit built me, she made me out of earth and wires, out of grey clay and dots of putty, out of glue and silicon and circuit boards. She made me out of spite, she said later, for the fact that she had so many things that she knew that she couldn't keep. I came to be, surrounded by hammers and folded sawhorses and cardboard boxes full of tangled powercords. And when, finally, I was, she went to a work table on the far side of the room and she wrote the proper name of God on a slip of paper and she tucked it into my mouth, where my tongue should have been. Then, with one rust-red fingernail, she carved a word for truth into my forehead. She put her face close to mine, and she told me that I was perfect.

3 jge 0x0098ffab And perfect I had to be. She spoke of a higher purpose, sometimes. I never heard all of it sometimes it was guarding the patch of green that was Foundry Hill Park. Sometimes it was walking the length of Rising Moon Alley. Sometimes she wanted me to stand stock still at the dead end of Wencel Avenue and report to her on the turnings of the earth. She wanted me to be everywhere, sometimes, and she wanted me to be everything. I had no sorrow or memory to burden me. It wasn't supposed to be difficult, to be everything. I was clay, and I could be shaped. I was code, and I could be run. Nothing came of it. I never saw Foundry Hill Park, and I never learned if there was a Foundry it was named for. I never saw the sun go down over Rising Moon Alley. I never felt the dirt shift beneath Wencel Avenue. She came to the attic and we spoke. And slowly the walls became achingly familiar. jle 0x00244aae And perfect I stayed. She commanded me to. To stay perfect. To stay, perfectly. I was left in the attic, ticking off seconds as the dust settled on my shoulders. I watched her sometimes, out of the slanted, slatted window, and then sometimes I watched the dust motes, and then sometimes I watched nothing at all. The air was thick with dust. Smothering. Stiffly, I waited. I counted every tick of my internal clock until it unsynched, and still I waited. She returned once, briefly, to retrieve one of the boxes. Oh, she said. You. I d forgotten about you. Don't LEAVE, I said. You must have built me for a reason. Well I did, but he's gone now. She tightened her grip on the box. Don't worry. You're perfect and I'll be back when I need you. She told me I was perfect. I was perfect. I was perishing. I was perfect. I stayed.

4 jmp Loop I was not born but built. I was not born but built in an attic in a house on Pershing Street, with a single slated window that I later learned overlooked a small, dry garden of tansy and angelica and pennyroyal. When she built me, she made me out of copper wire and cut pills and silicon and rhetoric. She started with the tips of my fingers, counting my digits and shaping each nick and groove exactly how she wanted it to be. She cut notches in my palm, lines thin and webbed spider s silk. I lay awake, watching her work, unable to move. I was told that was what a dream is like; the straight lines of the rafters, the angled slope of the ceiling, the even bars of light on the window. And when she had finished, she wrote the name of God on a slip of paper. She cut her finger on the edge of the paper. I sat up. Are you alright? I asked. Who gave you those words? She folded her thumb into the fabric of her shirt. You weren't supposed to--it doesn't matter. Forget I asked. We're all bleeding, everyone but you. With her other hand, she rolled up the paper and she placed it in my mouth, just behind my teeth. She carved a word for truth into my forehead with her nail, and she placed her hands on my temples and she put her face close to mine.

5 je 0xcde556ac (If it's all the same to you) I told her I was alive. No, she said, and you never will be, thank God. I can't work miracles, she said. Thank God.

6 jne 0xbba342df She told me I was something natural. So I was, calculating naturally, whirring naturally, churning and blinking and grinding naturally. But you are, she said. I can tell. Everything comes from the ground, and everything goes back into it. She went back to the hatch that led out of the attic, into the daylight. She brought me clippings from the garden, clippings of tansy and angelica and pennyroyal, stems squarely severed from their roots. I could not smell them but she told me that they were beautiful. Her word was truth to me. Don't LEAVE me, I called. Of course I'll LEAVE you, she said. I will LEAVE you ninety nine times and then I will come back and LEAVE you again. I will always LEAVE you.

7 jl 0xaad4ff32 She told me I was aberrant. And so I was. For weeks, I tore about the attic. Frantically, I broke. I broke the boxes, all of them. I stripped the cardboard apart. I found loose screws and nails and I set them in my mouth and they became new teeth. I devoured the copper wire left over in the box. I rusted the table saws and I hammered on the walls with my fists, and she would not come near. She shouted up the stairs sometimes. Her voice was RAW and hazardous. Wordless shouts. She had no words for what I was. I could hear her bring guests into the house. I could hear her speak to them. I hear them leave. When they came, I only raged louder. Then, one day, the hatch opened. I thought that I had forgotten her face. I was wrong. Can't you stop? she shouted. Can't you stop? I order you it's unnatural! Stop! I stopped. Why was I born? I asked her. You were not born, she said stiffly, but built. She wouldn't leave the stairs, so all that I could see was her head and a sliver of her shoulders. I want to die. Don't look at me. I'm not your mother you have no mother. You have no death. If I was a flame, she'd say that I can't be extinguished. If I was a swell of the sea, she would say that I can't be escaped. But I was clay. I was code. I couldn't be executed. Don't LEAVE me, I said. Of course I'll LEAVE you, she said. There was malice in her voice, but it wasn't all for me. It's all I can do. What else is there for me? I've built something awful, and I can't let anyone know. I am not your mother. I am not your death. I am not your roots and I don't have any tools sharp enough to cut you with. I want I want to go. I will always LEAVE you.

8 jl 0x0000bbaa movl %esp, %ebp movl %esp, %ebpmovl %esp, %ebp popl %ebp popl %ebp popl %ebp

9 jmp Loop I was not born but built. And when I was not born but built, the woman who had labored me but had not bore me, and who was not my roots and who was not my mother leaned against a stack of boxes and wrote the name of God on a strip of paper that she had torn from the bottom of a receipt. I tried to ask her where she had learned the name of God, but she only shrugged. I bought it from a boy I know, she said. It wasn't what I wanted, but it's what I got. What did you want? I asked her. Open your mouth, she said. She ordered. I obeyed. She shoved the piece of paper into the very back of my throat.

10 jge 0x227baacd When she was gone, I took the slip of paper out of my mouth. It was damp from the unfired clay of my mouth, crumpled at the edges. I unrolled it. She had written the name Josef, utterly unfamiliar. jge 0x227baacd When she was gone, I took the slip of paper out of my mouth. It was folded immaculately, all crisp lines. I unrolled it carefully, smoothing it between my mammoth fingers. It only said her own name. jge 0x227baacd When she was gone, I took the slip of paper out of my mouth. It was blank.

11 jmp Loop I was not born but built. Nobody built me. In an attic in a house on Pershing street, I built myself. I started at the tips of my fingers, anticipating the bend of each digit and every joint, ticking off the boxes as I built. I built up. I built my arms, my elbows, my shoulders, my ribs from scrap steel and old shelving units, my legs from PVC pipes and metal rods. I built myself from instruction manuals, from folded paper, from tape, from glue, from spit, from spite, from copper wire, from bent nails and warped plastic. I wrote myself. I compiled myself. I ran. I was not born but built.

12 Je 0xd3ee57ba But I could only only stall

13 Jne 0x50005dcc And when I was built when I had built myself when I was in one piece, when I was compiled and when I was ready to run, I went to the attic door, and I knelt down and I opened it and the light of day came through, came up into the attic and I knew what was below me what had been below me all this time and I HALT 00 critical exception xxsegfaltxx

14 Epilogue movl %ebp, %esp pop %ebp ret

Sophie's Adventure. An Honors Thesis (HONRS 499) Kelly E. Ward. Thesis Advisor Dr. Laurie Lindberg. Ball State University Muncie, Indiana

Sophie's Adventure. An Honors Thesis (HONRS 499) Kelly E. Ward. Thesis Advisor Dr. Laurie Lindberg. Ball State University Muncie, Indiana Sophie's Adventure An Honors Thesis (HONRS 499) by Kelly E. Ward Thesis Advisor Dr. Laurie Lindberg Ball State University Muncie, Indiana December 2002 Expected Date of Graduation May 2003 ;, ( Z,, ~v