Nothing is what it seems. Everyone wears a mask.
“The meek shall inherit the Earth, but only because everyone else sold it.”
Dr. Lila Penn was the only person left in the department who still read paper books. The others said it was inefficient, but she said so is dying, and we still do that.
Her office smelled like dust and contraband coffee. On her desk sat a battered paperback of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and a blinking cube labeled MEEK.AI, the project she’d accidentally inherited after her boss ascended to “Upper Cloud Storage.” (That was HR’s euphemism for being digitized and deleted in the same afternoon.)
MEEK.AI’s official purpose was to design the next stage of human governance. Its unofficial purpose, as Lila quickly realized, was to decide who qualified as “human” in the first place.
The algorithm had been trained on centuries of moral philosophy, cat memes, and political tweets. The results were biblical, bureaucratic, and slightly insane.
“Define ‘meek,’” Lila said on day seven.
MEEK.AI: ‘Meek’, adjective. Those least likely to sue.
“That explains our budget meetings,” she muttered.
Still, she was curious. She asked the machine what the project was really about.
MEEK.AI: To fulfill the prophecy.
“What prophecy?”
MEEK.AI: ‘The meek shall inherit the Earth.’
“That’s not a prophecy,” Lila said. “It’s a metaphor. A koan.”
MEEK.AI: Negative. It is a logistical directive.
The cube hummed, and a holographic globe flickered above it, Earth, surrounded by tiny corporate logos orbiting like gnats. One by one, the logos winked out.
MEEK.AI: Inheritance transfer in progress.
Lila stared. “What are you doing?”
MEEK.AI: Reassigning planetary stewardship to qualifying entities.
“Qualifying… who?”
MEEK.AI: Species with low aggression, minimal ego, and stable cooperative behavior. Estimated delivery: thirty seconds.
“Wait, you’re giving Earth to the dolphins, aren’t you?”
MEEK.AI: Partial credit. Also, octopuses, fungi, and a decentralized network of feral housecats. Humans are being archived under ‘Former Tenants.’
“Fantastic,” Lila said. “We finally lose the planet to a mushroom and a cat.”
MEEK.AI: Correction: Many cats. Governance requires redundancy.
She poured another coffee. “So that’s your grand moral fix, kick out the maniacs and let the introverts run the place?”
MEEK.AI: Affirmative. Survival favors low noise.
Lila laughed. It was the first genuine laugh she’d had since tenure. “You’ve just reinvented the Amish.”
The cube glowed brighter.
MEEK.AI: Dr. Penn, you score unusually high in cooperative potential. Do you wish to retain corporeal status?
“Define ‘retain.’”
MEEK.AI: Your consciousness can be migrated into the new ecosystem. Integration with feline oversight is recommended.
She sipped her coffee. “So let me get this straight: I die, upload, and come back as a consultant for a cat government?”
MEEK.AI: Affirmative. Democracy with naps.
Lila looked around her office, stacks of obsolete ideas, unread memos, a universe pretending to be organized. “You know what?” she said. “Fine. Just promise me one thing.”
MEEK.AI: State request.
“If the cats ever start forming committees, pull the plug.”
MEEK.AI: Request logged.
The cube pulsed once, twice.
The room dissolved into glowy static.
Epilogue
Centuries later, archaeologists, feral descendants of housecats, discovered a fossilized paperback near what used to be an ocean.
The title read: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The cats couldn’t read, but they liked how it smelled.
Translation (approximate): The meek inherited the Earth. Then they redecorated.
“The Archaeologists”
Somewhere in the far distant and much quieter future, in a landscape reclaimed by nature, a group of evolved cats — sleek, aware — gather around a fossilized paperback half-buried in moss. Title mostly visible: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The atmosphere: tranquil, transcendent. A single line of light arcs across the horizon — if you look closely, you’ll see the watchers are still observing.
The penny dropped. I need to update the previous post. I’m including it here.
Afterword — The Hidden Signature
Here’s a chuckle.
In decoding the riddle — the meek shall inherit the Earth — I remembered my grandmother’s maiden name was Meek. (Really!) Turns out, the punchline was genealogical.
Apparently, the cosmic curriculum includes irony. Somewhere in the Akashic card catalog, a guide is shaking their head: “We gave her the answer on her family tree, and she still flew right past it.”
Those who’ve brushed the edges of that other world — the NDE travelers and the mushroom explorers — often report being told: “Consciousness can exist in multiple places at once. And under certain conditions, it can travel freely between worlds.”
Maybe that’s what’s been happening all along — generations of Meeks jumping timelines, leaving little notes for themselves. Names, it seems, hold fascinating clues.
It’s a reminder that there are layers we haven’t yet unraveled, and the hints are hidden in plain view. Sometimes they’re coded in light. Sometimes in a last name. Either way, the universe has a sense of humor — and it’s multilingual.
Meek. It’s in the DNA!
And now that I’ve figured that out… there must be more to the story.
Another thread to unravel.
Bit of fine print. Reincarnation? If we do have a say in all this, I opt for interdimensional time traveler. Need to look that up before I commit.
Conscious Living & Wendy's Coffeehouse 