Goines On: What does Goines want for Christmas?

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Goines almost always asked his wife what she wanted for Christmas. He wasn’t good at thinking up what she might want. Besides, in theory, they didn’t get each other Christmas gifts anyway. They just went on being one another’s gift to the other. Goines liked that. And it simplified things.
    But what about asking himself what he wanted for Christmas? The idea was prompted by a questionnaire he had been sent that included the question, “If you could have anything you wanted, regardless of cost, what would it be?”
    At first, the question had floored Goines. “Regardless of cost”! He never thought in such terms. Did other people dream of things like that?
    Dreaming reminded him that he could ask his muse for help, so, before going to sleep that night, he called on her to come up with something. What did he want – what might he want – regardless of cost?
    In the last hour of the next morning’s dreamlike wakefulness preceding the 6 o’clock alarm, an idea came that Goines was sure would need munificent funding, and maybe a few scientific discoveries and technological inventions as well. His mind flashed on the episode of the Spanish dramatic series, La Otra Mirada (A Different View) in which the boarding school’s science teacher, who once invented water-repellent footwear, goes on to invent a smoke detector as well, after a fire in the school’s chemistry laboratory at first discourages her from continuing to have a lab at all.
    What Goines wanted to have was an AI device that could read and understand all of the many books Goines wanted to have read and then be hooked up to Goines’ cranium to transfer its understanding of each book directly into Goines’ brain to stock his store of knowledge. The device could read and understand books at a rate of up to 100 pages in a few seconds, and transfer its learning to Goines in short sessions (15-minutes on average).
    To prepare to participate in these transfers, Goines would receive professional training in the art of deep relaxation and concentration, which, in addition, would benefit both his mental and physical health generally.
    The AI device would have other abilities as well. Its dials could be set to collaborate with Goines’ in brainstorming sessions (it really needed to have a name – “Arti”?). Together, Arti and Goines would be able to come up with things like: quirky connections to inspire creative insights into the nature of being; new meanings to be found in life; remedies for spiritual ailments; techniques for overcoming procrastination; tips for getting out of the doldrums; suggestions for interpreting recent clues as to what was going on in the minds of spouses, neighbors;….
    Goines could already see that Arti would enrich his thinking, and his life, more than he could possibly appreciate.
    Goines of course knew that he wouldn’t be getting Arti for Christmas, but he already had his priceless muse. And she hadn’t cost him or anyone else anything. She had just come “with the territory” that was Goines.
    Why had he never named her?, he wondered.
    And in that moment she told him: “My name is Artesia.”

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