Cult

It came out as something to wear on your face. Simple enough. Innocuous enough. It smelled so good. It was black, sleek. Only came in one color. The marketing campaign for it had been anti marketing. It did not seem to care whether or not you bought it. The advert, there had only been one, was weird. Unexpected. Offensive. Jarring. But that is what the other companies had forgotten. Art, true art is supposed to jar and shock and disarm. Theirs did. The other companies had fallen into this cycle of trying to keep up with one another, creating things that would soon be copied by the others, offering people more and more, and more. Trying to please everyone. They did not even bother to try. They were honest about their product.

It had been a sleek, stylish thing. It did not make you look goofy, it did not make you look stupid. If it had not offered what it did, you would probably get it anyways. It was black, seemed blacker than the brightest light and seemed to fill you with the green of envy, and the bright purple of desire. Red of rage, if others had it. Blue of tranquility if you did. When you put it over your eyes, it felt like you had been blind all your life, and these were the glasses you had needed. Everything was so clear, so magnified.

It would power on. From the start, The Assistant had been flawless. No bugs. No problems. It was almost as if she were human. It was always a she. You did not have the option to change her gender, to change her voice, to change her accent. Her language though, you always understood her in your own language. She was unique to everyone, and yet, when you described her, she was always the same. Always sounded the same as the ones the others had.

It had been expensive at the start. It was still expensive. But people spend money on things they value. And very soon, like the bubonic plague, or a biblical flood, or the love of chocolate, very quickly, that sense of need, urgent sense of desire swooped across the world. Everyone wanted it, everyone valued it. For years, it did not seem to do much more. Three years to the day it had come out, they released an update. Now, you could add your world. You could add what you wanted to see. The ad was confusing, and terrible by all modern standards. Yet you understood. And you tried it out.

Did not like your mother shouting at you, ask The Assistant to change what you saw and heard. Did not like your boss, ask The Assistant to change your reality.

And so on and so forth.

Every year from thence forth, to the day, they released an update. Every time it was met with cult like anticipation, only, the whole world was a cult for them. Every year. On the 15th of August.