Karl Michael Iglesias

Artificial Intelligence

Curiosity is not responding. We’re waiting in radio silence. Curiosity hasn’t been the same now
for the past three days. A bashful morning. We sent a robot rover to roam the red and take high quality
photos. To understand what has happened here, would mean I would have to get out of my own way.
We named the robot, Curiosity. It questions with six wheels throughout what could be the Sahara
Desert made of peach dust. A red graveyard for lakes. The singular reason we are here is to uncover.
Would mean I have to dispel the rumors of humanity. Curiosity is not responding. Every day we
program a series of signals that take 5 minutes to reach Mars, to arm our rover as photographer in a
blushing field of dunes that according to the wind was an ocean. Ours meaning The Earth’s. Typically,
the rover rolls out and documents red rock. We get a feed all day of a planet that is our past and our
future. Ours meaning The Earth’s. You can zoom into a photo of something that looks like it is a rigid
wheel made of strawberry stone, a desperate tool of structure now eroded mountain, looks like a
dragon’s skull emerging from a slab of far-away. Today Curiosity is not responding. Has been doing
what it wants. Turns left when instructed opposite. Decides to stop stubbornly. And now won’t
return signal. We’ve entered safe-mode 5 times. We’ve gotten here by design. If ever there was a time to
be patient             it has passed       as we might lose decades of work.             We try                  and wait 5 min.
Nothing                and try                                 and wait 5 min.                 Nothing                               and try
              and wait 5 min                     and finally,         Curiosity                   sends a photo                             of itself.