a battery QUOTES

1 " Anger's like a battery that leaks acid right out of meAnd it starts from the heart 'til it reaches my outer me "

2 " This week
in live current
events: your eyes.

All power can be
dangerous:
Direct

or alternating,
you, socket to me.
Plugged in and the grid

is humming,
this electricity,
molecule-deep desire:

particular friction, a charge
strong enough to stop
a heart

or start it
again; volt, re-volt--
I shudder, I stutter, I start

to life. I've got my ion
you, copper-top,
so watch how you

conduct yourself.
Here's today's
newsflash: a battery of rolling

blackouts in California, sudden,
like lightning kisses:
sudden, whitehot

darkness and you're
here, fumbling for
that small switch

with an urgent surge
strong enough to kill
lesser machines.

Static makes hair raise,
makes things cling,
makes things rise like

a gathering storm
charging outside
our darkened house

and here I am:
tempest, pouring out
mouthfulls

of tsunami on the ground,
I've got that rain-soaked kite,
that drenched key.

You know what it's for,
circuit-breaker, you know
how to kiss until it's hertz. "

― Daphne Gottlieb , Why Things Burn

3 " People say I talk slowly. I talk in a way sometimes called laconic. The phone rings, I answer, and people ask if they’ve woken me up. I lose my way in the middle of sentences, leaving people hanging for minutes. I have no control over it. I’ll be talking, and will be interested in what I’m saying, but then someone—I’m convinced this what happens—someone—and I wish I knew who, because I would have words for this person—for a short time, borrows my head. Like a battery is borrowed from a calculator to power a remote control, someone, always, is borrowing my head. "

4 " How to tell your pretend-boyfriend and his real boyfriend that your internal processors are failing:

1. The biological term is depression, but you don't have an official diagnostic (diagnosis) and it's a hard word to say. It feels heavy and stings your mouth. Like when you tried to eat a battery when you were small and your parents got upset.
2. Instead, you try to hide the feeling. But the dark stain has already spilled across your hardwiring and clogged your processor. You don't have access to any working help files to fix this. Tech support is unavailable for your model. (No extended warranty exists.)
3. Pretend the reason you have no energy is because you're sick with a generic bug.
4. You have time to sleep. Your job is canceling out many of your functions; robots can perform cleaning and maintenance in hotels for much better wage investment, and since you are not (yet) a robot, you know you will be replaced soon.
5. The literal translation of the word depression: you are broken and devalued and have no further use.
6. No one refurbishes broken robots.
7. Please self-terminate. "

― A. Merc Rustad , The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015

5 " Laurie herself was more focused on the years when her kids were little, when she felt so necessary and purposeful, a battery all charged up with love. Every day she used it up and every night it got miraculously replenished. Nothing had ever been as good as that. "

― Tom Perrotta

6 " It’s degrading being routinely subjected to a battery of medical tests to ensure I continue to deserve a place in this new world. "

― Siobhan Davis , True Calling (True Calling, #1)

7 " What if we were to subject public servants like politicians to a battery of psychological tests like the MMPI? Maybe we could determine which of them were more likely to become corrupt and save them the trouble of lengthy, expensive campaigns where they are ultimately harassed by greedy corporations. "

― , Quixotic