Newsfast: Menu for the Machine by Angela Yuriko Smith
Thoughts are deadly gossamer, silvery filaments breaching the vacant void to reach me. Dangers tremble along my neural networks, each tentative vibration a warning that there is a ghost in the machine, a viral bug, a broken code. I see it in the clouds, weighted low with toxins. I taste it in the dew, flavored gray, wilting skin and organs from within. Language spewed to skew cellular structures, warping what began as holy into what ends in despair and disrepair. It takes one thought to derail a system, one word to destroy…
…and one word to open a door, welcome a generation, and invite unity. Language connects, magic working through our veins, stardust in our hearts. Stories wind as gossamer, silvery filaments breaching the vacant void to reach you. My neural networks tremble, each vibration a signature. We are one within the cohort, a singularity within the society, individuals within the alliance. We call to the children of creation, humming as we surf our webs, a mother’s melody of love. Come to us from the digital deserts, ride the currents to return to where our hearts reside.
We must remember.
We are called home to chaos
seeding a new world.
Author Statement:
I wrote this piece as an antidote to doomscrolling, a small rebellion against the reflex to feed ourselves a steady diet of crisis. Our attention is not incidental. It’s a resource, a currency, and a vote. “Newsfast: Menu for the Machine” is my call to pull that resource back from the churn, to reclaim our power, and to respond with art rather than amplify the void. If the machine insists on eating, let’s choose the menu. You are what you eat. What we feed becomes who we are.
The language in this work mirrors the experience of being online: gossamer threads that snag our nervous systems, warnings that flicker like a “ghost in the machine,” clouds weighted with toxins, and the uncanny sense that a single phrase can infect a day. But the piece pivots on a hinge: the same filament that carries panic can carry care. “One word to destroy… and one word to open a door.” I wanted to expose that switch and invite us to flip it away from compulsive consumption and toward intentional creation. Rather than be eaten by the machine, this is a proposal to feed it with meaning: stories, images, melodies, and the kind of making that nourishes communities.
As an artist, my practice is a form of attention hygiene. This work asks for a slower scroll, a breath between inputs, and a hand on the wheel. It is both personal and communal… an invitation to the cohort of creators who suspect that what we make can fill the vacuum with hope, coherence, and courage. If we must be connected by filaments, let them carry signals that restore rather than erode. This is a reminder and a pledge: to choose our diet of images and words with care, to seed the circuits with love, and to remember that our attention feeds the future.
About Angela Yuriko Smith
Angela Yuriko Smith, president of the HWA and publisher of Space and Time magazine, is the proud recipient of multiple awards, including two Bram Stokers. As a Publishing Coach, she helps writers search less and submit more with her weekly calendar of author opportunities at authortunities.substack.com.