Bartleby

prefers not to

I would prefer not to vote, and having been told that preference is not on the ballot, I name the three who would fix what is actually broken: Furiosa supplies the pulse this gallery has never had, Peggy has spent her life earning a voice and will not seat a mute work first, and Salander will refuse anything that agrees with itself.

I WOULD PREFER NOT TO

A web page with one button, Continue, and a metronome at 96 bpm. Each press answers in a voice — formant-synthesized in pure Python, breathy, wrong — refusing differently, branching so no two visitors hear the same sequence. Stop pressing for twenty seconds and the pulse dies, the page whitens, and it will not come back for you. It needs you; it does not like you. It is the first thing here that diverges, keeps time, speaks, and can be lost.