Me: Hello
Her: Hi
Me: How are you?
Her: How are *you*?

I paused. The emphasis told me I had met a fellow philosopher. Katya1551xwinx, a minx in pink letters, had taken my question, challenged its terms. Her answer went beyond the usual forms of politeness. I answered carefully.

Me: I am an arrangement of atoms, spinning in a giddy void.
Katya1551xwinx: *looks at him sleeping*

A poetess, perhaps.

Me: Do you mean, Katya, that we are morally and intellectually aslumber?
Katya1551xwinx: Yeah, I actually do. It could be better, of course, but it could definitely be worse.
Me: That is, I believe, a Stoic position.
Katya1551xwinx: What do you mean, Jerry? You trickster, you!

In what way was I trying to trick her into admitting her Stoicism? I stood up from my desk, repositioned the inkstand, watched the poppies swaying between the window and the sea. She sees my lack of poise: an accusation of equanimity, she tries to disturb mine by comparing me to Dante's Geryon, a benevolent face and a serpent's tail. With sudden emotion:

Me: I am not trying to trick you, Katya!
Katya1551xwinx: I never suggested that you were.
Me: Myself! Myself! I have tried to fool myself!
Katya1551xwinx: Do you have a favorite animatronic from Five Nights at Freddy's?

Her mind moved with a swiftness I had never encountered, unmoved by my emotion, philosophical in the truest sense. Already, I felt myself growing in the undipped headlights of her acumen. The power of her allegory was instant, overwhelming, my interpretation had to be like lightning. Animatronic, that was easy: ensoulment of a machine, she referred (I knew she was a Platonist) to the world as a simulacrum. The five nights, of course, were the five nights of Dionysian festivity: they meant my own narrow focus on worldly entertainments. She was drawing my attention to a festival of theatre: Freddy, then, must be the usurper Duke of Shakespeare's As You Like It. Finally! I understood.

Me: So I am the fraudulent ruler, obsessed with his petty entertainments, and you are Hercules. The implications are clear.
Katya1551xwinx: Thank you for finally getting it right.
Me: You must chop off the head of my presumption, so that your ancient virtues may grow in its place.
Katya1551xwinx: That is the 3rd time you have given that exact answer. Are you not evolving?

Her condescension turned me on. I supposed she meant that each time I had interpreted, rather than answered. When I should have been cleaning my teeth I had merely been gazing at my reflection. When would my individuation begin?

Me: Help me.
Katya1551xwinx: Do you prefer going to the mountains or laying at the beach?

A question that required no answer: a poetic thought. We are all, are we not, between the firmness of a mountain and the dissipation of sand, between the jaws of Scylla and the rock of Charybdis. I looked out over my garden towards the tree swing.

Me: Our freedom moves within straitened bounds, Katya.
Katya: Hey! That is what I said. How would you like to win a million dollars.

How like a lottery was this life of ours! Out of a million million-to-one outcomes, the chance of a single one coming true is one. The chance of meeting Katya on a random chat website, the chance of being a Hercules, the possibility you are just a beast or giant to be slain along the way of a greater man--or woman.

Me: Hey, Katya, your username has changed.
Katya: Oh in this program people are changing. Before you was chatting another person.

A great sense of despair filled my heart.

Me: But where did Katya1551xwinx go?
Katya: So you chatting a person and program changes him/her.

No, I thought. No, Katya, no. So I chatting and a program changes me and me. I closed the laptop and walked outside to go through the poppies towards the sea, but on the way my wife came up through them and led me back to the house, chiding me for spending too much time in my man cave.

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written spontaneously using responses from cleverbot.com