You are not who we don't think you might be.

            Have you noticed? Every day we grow weaker, more translucent, more dependent on the undependable. On the invisible, indifferent ones.

            Submit forms online: I need employment, I want unemployment benefits, am seeking a grant, could really use a loan. Transmit requests to faceless bots, to anonymous panels of first contacts in Siberian ice palaces, chanting mystics within Buddhist temples, through equatorial beach huts and aboard tour boats on the Bosphorus, and then finally into a windowless bunker halfway across Nebraska.

            Requests for proof of identity and you bleed documents, upload the truth of who you are, who you've been and wish to one day become, and still there is digital doubt.

            Your address does not match our current records.

            Passwords scribbled down to circumnavigate faulty memory no longer work.

            Either your username or your password is incorrect. Click for a code to retrieve from your e-mail server and enter that number to create a new password, a new persona, to help reach the next checkpoint of our multilayered labyrinth.

            What was the first concert you attended using your mother's maiden name? Sorry, you've timed out.

            It must be awkward to be doubly reviled. First, you are clearly an impostor, but worse, not even impersonating a world famous star or a bald billionaire. So desperate as to pretend to be a low-level, C-list, anonymous nobody, the barely visible fleck of humanity—that is you.

            Try back later. This session has been terminated for security reasons.

            Walls rise up and the screen goes black. Current user is locked out. How dare you not be who you've pretended to be your entire life? Try harder, damn it. Your humanity and very existence are in doubt.

            Your date of birth does not match your facial age.

            Phone call attempts lead into an aural funhouse world of artificial voices and prompts: Press one if this isn't really important; press two if you are not feeling yourself today; press three if you just need to breathe; press four for immediate disconnection; press five for delayed disconnection; press six to repeat these options backwards, in Esperanto. Press zero if you have given up, surrendered, or are in fact, a zero. We have agents eager to assist with this unspecified issue. Please hold. Estimated waiting time is forty-seven minutes...past midnight. If you would like us to return your call, keep fucking dreaming.

            You actually waited?

            We are experiencing an unusually high volume of calls this century. Please try back at your nearest inconvenience. We have improved our efficiency. Everything you are calling about can be left unanswered in an equally confusing manner on our website. Why not take a brief survey since there is no way in hell you will speak to a breathing human? Would you rate our system's response to your trivial and meaningless problem as great, incredible, or outstanding?

            Your teeth show indeterminate alteration. Upload dental X-rays at once.

            A letter soon arrives with vague accusations.

            You are not who you claim, but an understudy to an actor portraying you. Someone updated your primary residential residence to secondary. If this change is correct, take no action. If you did not incorrectly refuse to make a change, call our auto-line at once. Shit just got real. This issue can be resolved within your lifespan.

            Another letter follows immediately.

            Due to your lack of response, everything you had convinced us to believe in the past is now in doubt. You owe us anything we gave, loaned, or promised you. Forgiveness on previous debts and payments once made have all been rescinded retroactively, back two years in fact. You didn't think you were cheating us at the time. Neither did we. It's all quite astonishing, really. Circumstances change. Identity is vaporous, available to the highest bidder. Unless you can somehow pierce our inhumanity and techno-wall of indifference to prove you are not the fraud we have slandered you as, you are fucked coming and going, buddy-boy.

            To indicate you are not a robot or bot-curious, click on every photo-grid square that shows birds. You have selected zero squares. They flew away while you were daydreaming!

            And with each upload of documents, mailed letter of explanation, typed-in piece of personal information, part of you is draining away. Do you feel weaker, feeble-minded? Our operatives are sensing it. Please continue. We are delighted by this development. The you you once knew is a figment of our imagination. It's trapped in digital files, onscreen documents, all traded now as commodities. Alone you were nearly worthless. But in bulk, all these numbers and passwords and addresses and maiden names are valuable to advertisers, to sweaty, undressed, consultants staring at you right now from an undisclosed location through your screen. Smile for the camera.

            Do not press the Back key at any time or your entire entry will be invalidated, and you will revert to protoplasm.

            We're selling you out, dirt cheap—everything must go! Closing up shop in thirty days. While your remaining flesh and bones carry on, they inhabit a dehydrated world that isn't real. Just add water. Once sucked dry, you don't matter. You've been defiled, corrupted, doubted, broken, and contradicted. How does it feel, bro?

            Thank you for visiting shitshow.gov

            Your irrelevance is legend in our back rooms and cubicles. Anecdotes from your sketchy past are bandied about over lavish taxpayer-funded dinners. Do not go loudly into the night, but rather decay silently into dust. Continue paying bills and your apartment rent until we have responded to your correspondence. Our reply time may vary from two weeks to six months to four years. We are determined to conclude this matter—in our favor.

            Cheers! Have a spectacular day!

Max Talley was born in New York City and lives in Southern California. His writing has appeared in Vol.1 Brooklyn, Atticus Review, Entropy, Bridge Eight, Santa Fe Literary Review, and Litro. Talley's novel was published in 2014 and his curated anthology, Delirium Corridor, debuted in December 2020.