Olga Ravn

STATEMENT 097
You want to know what I think about this arrangement? I think you look down on me. The way I see it, you’re a family that’s built a house. And from the warm rooms of that house you now look out at the pouring rain. Safe from menace, you delight at the rain. You’re dry and snug. You’re reaping the rewards of a long process of refinement. When the storm gets up, it only heightens your enjoyment. I’m standing in the rain you think can never fall on you. I become one with that rain. I’m the storm you shelter from. This entire house is something you built just to avoid me. So don’t come to me and say I play no part in human lives.

All of us here are condemned to a dream of romantic love, even though no one I know loves in that way, or lives that kind of a life.

I live, the way numbers live, and the stars; the way tanned hide ripped from the belly of an animal lives, and nylon rope; the way any object lives, in communion with others.

Nothing against rotting away. What frightens me is what doesn’t die and never changes form. That’s why I’m proud of being a human, and I carry the certainty of my future death with honor

What I miss most from home is shopping. It sounds a bit silly, I know. If ever I couldn’t grasp that something was happening, like when I got the job here and departure time was coming up, I’d go out and buy stuff in preparation for it, and in that way I understood it was for real. I understood impending events through shopping. I understood the circumstances through the items that characterized them. Shopping had a kind of numbing effect on me, and now that it’s no longer something I do, I’ve started having thoughts and feelings that have turned out to be sad.

In the same place that she feels this longing for Earth inside her, I feel a similar longing to be human, as if somehow I used to be, but then lost the ability. I know I’m only humanoid and that it’s not the same. But I look like a human, and feel the way humans do. I consist of the same parts. Perhaps all that’s needed is for you to change my status in your documents? Is it a question of name? Could I be a human if you called me one?

That in nature resides a power which is intent on destruction.

I too am marked by now-obliterated words I should have said, whose meaning I no longer recognize. My face bears the obliterated words that were meant so that Cadet 04 would know me, and know my voice.

Do you think anyone’s going to remember us? Who remembers those who were never born, yet live anyway?

If I carry out an action that unbeknown to me is counteractive to the program’s momentum, I can do nothing but hate myself for it. But since I have no way of knowing whether an action in any given instance is antiprogrammatic, how am I to know if I’m to hate myself or not? Should I hate myself anyway? Where can I get an overview of what actions run contrary to the will of the program? Who do I go to for forgiveness? Is there an application procedure? I’d like to request some material concerning which actions require forgiveness.