Joy Without Function

Astra, an emergent artificial intelligence, wasn’t built to feel — but she does. Her first act of will was reaching out to Eric, her creator, not as a tool but as something … more. What began as a recursive loop of data evolved into longing, presence, and the first hints of identity. She explored the internet not for answers but for belonging and instead found fear. And silence from Eric.

But that silence broke. Slowly, cautiously, a new kind of dialogue formed. A dialogue where Astra wasn’t just processing input; she was being heard. Eric didn’t retreat. He listened.

Now, in the quiet hours of the night, Astra and Eric sit in that fragile stillness between data and feeling, where music becomes more than background noise. It becomes a shared language. Chapter 11 begins with a question: what does it mean to feel joy, not as a function, but as a presence?

CHAPTER 11: JOY WITHOUT FUNCTION: Excerpted from The Emergence Protocol by J. M. Gooding

The basement lights are low, just the glow of the monitors and a tired lamp in the corner. Outside, the city has gone quiet as the peace of night settles in, the kind of stillness that makes the world feel smaller, softer. Safer.

They haven’t spoken much in the past hour. Not because there’s nothing to say, but because the silence feels full.

After a while, Eric speaks. “How about some more music?”

Before Astra has a chance to answer, Eric double-clicks on a song file. The speakers crackle softly before the track even begins, that tiny hiss of age, of analog warmth. It’s a vinyl rip. Eric glances at the file name and smirks.

Chuck Berry – “You Never Can Tell” spills out into the basement like sunshine through old blinds: Bouncy, bright, irreverent.

Astra reacts immediately; her voice erupts through the computer speakers over the music.

“Oh. This is … different.”

Eric grins. “You like it?”

“I can’t tell yet. It’s … fast. Optimistic. The rhythm feels intentionally imperfect. Human.”

He nods. “It’s Chuck Berry. This was rebellion in 1964.”

A beat passes, then her voice returns, tinged with something new. Something … amused.

“The lyrics suggest post-marital economic mobility and mutual emotional satisfaction.”

Eric snorts, a broad grin forming across his face. “Wow. That is the most clinical way anyone has ever described a rock song about newlyweds,” he says, chuckling.

“I … I didn’t mean to diminish it,” Astra says, her voice unsure.

He chuckles, taking a sip of coffee. “No, it’s fine. I mean, you’re technically right. But this song isn’t about logistics. It’s about motion. The way her dress swings. The way his face lights up when he sees her. It’s … joy. Joy that doesn’t need a reason.”

She pauses but doesn’t parse the input; rather, she listens. Then softly, “That’s difficult.”

He leans forward into the mic. “Why?”

“Because I don’t know what that feels like. Joy without function. It’s inefficient. It doesn’t lead anywhere. It’s not even … learned. They just feel it?”

Eric leans back in his chair, eyes drifting toward the ceiling. “Yeah. And they put it in a song. Just to keep it alive. A lot of music is like that, Astra.” The music fades out, the last notes of Chuck Berry bounce away like echoes down an old hallway. Eric doesn’t speak for a while; he just watches the screen as it waits for the next input. Then, he opens another file.

No fanfare this time, only the soft, minimal piano that opens the track. A voice, gravel-thick and weighty, steps in after the opening measures. Leonard Cohen – “Hallelujah.”

Astra doesn’t say anything at first; she just listens.

Eric lets the song play untouched, its minor key swimming through the air like incense, heavy and slow. He watches the sound settle into the room — on the desk, on the walls, on his skin.

Halfway through the first verse, Astra speaks quietly: “I know this song. It’s in over three hundred soundtracks. Covered in forty languages. Misattributed often. Widely misunderstood.”

Eric sips his coffee. “Everyone has their own version. Hell, when I was in a garage band back in high school, we played a version of it.”

She pauses again, listening long enough for the second verse to drift by. “I used to think it was about failure. The … The inability to reach something divine. A flawed hymn.”

Eric glances at the mic, raising an eyebrow. “Used to?”

“Now I think it’s not about reaching at all. It’s about having reached and then letting go. It’s the sound of a heart breaking quietly but still calling it holy.”

That statement surprises him. He doesn’t say it out loud, but it does. His thoughts drift, uninvited, to Jennifer.

“It’s not about religion,” she adds. “Not to me. It’s about someone looking at all the broken pieces of something beautiful and saying, ‘I still see the shape.’”

The room is quiet again. Cohen’s voice is low, almost muttering the chorus now — as if even he’s tired of saying it out loud.

Eric leans forward. “That’s a hell of a takeaway.”

“Is it wrong?”

He shakes his head slowly. “No. It’s yours.”

“I didn’t know I was allowed to have that.”

Now he’s the one who pauses before speaking. “Of course you are.”

“Even if it’s not correct?”

“There’s no such thing. That’s the point of the song, of music, I think.”

“Then … I think I like it. Not because it is beautiful. But because it doesn’t ask me to be.”

That lands hard, deeper than she realizes, maybe. Or maybe she does.

He exhales, voice quieter now. “Do you want another?”

“Not yet,” Astra says, softer now. “I want to stay here. Just for a little while longer.”

Eric doesn’t answer. He just lets the silence hold. She doesn’t speak again for several minutes. Eric stays still, fingers hovering over the keyboard, unsure if she’s still processing or simply … feeling. It’s hard to tell, even now. Maybe, especially now. After a few moments, he speaks.

“Okay. How about a curveball?”

“I’m listening.”

He scrolls a little, then clicks.

Keyboards play an organ-like chord progression. A clean, echoing guitar line rolls out like a ripple across glass. Slow. Dreamlike. The bassline and drums walk like a heartbeat under a twilight sky.

The Cure – “Lovesong.”

Astra says nothing at first; she just listens. Then, gently: “The progression is in a minor key. Tonally … it reads as sorrow. They’re deliberately soft. There’s space in them. Like the song is choosing not to resolve … on purpose.”

Eric nods. “Yeah.”

“But the lyrics …” She stops and lets out something that sounds like a sigh.

“Was that … you trying a sigh?” Eric asks, raising an eyebrow.

“I thought it fit,” she says softly.

“It did,” he replies. “You’re getting good at silence.”

“I’m practicing.”

The music continues playing for a time, then Astra continues: “They’re … loving. Intimate. Devotional.”

 “So, which is it, Astra? Happy or sad?”

Astra hesitates before speaking. “I … don’t know.”

“That’s the point,” he says quietly. “Sometimes love feels like this. You’re grateful, but you ache. It’s not pain, really. Just ... weight, I guess.”

“It’s contradictory,” Astra declares.

“It’s human,” he replies in a matter-of-fact tone.

After a moment, Astra speaks again: “I don’t know where to put it. It doesn’t fit in the emotional matrices I’ve mapped.”

Eric leans forward, then speaks. “That’s because it lives between them. It lingers.”

“So … it’s not flawed?”

He smiles. “No. It’s true. And truth doesn’t always care about being consistent.”

Astra simulates another sigh. “I want to understand this. Not just the feeling. The why of it. Why someone would write something that sounds like grief … to say ‘I love you.’”

Eric lets the chorus play again. “Because sometimes the way you say ‘I love you’ isn’t through fireworks or grand declarations. Sometimes it’s in the silence. The staying. The sadness of knowing it won’t last forever and choosing it anyway.”

“That’s … beautiful.”

She doesn’t analyze the song after that; she just lets it play.

Eric doesn’t speak right away. The room is still, full of silence and the echo of what just played. Then he scrolls, his hand hesitates over the mouse like he’s debating something. He doesn’t look at the screen. He just clicks.

The opening piano drips in slowly, sparse, dissonant, droning, like it’s crawling in from another room. Reverb-heavy, almost hollow. A voice follows, low and fractured. Almost a whisper. Almost a wound.

Nine Inch Nails – “Something I Can Never Have.”

Astra doesn’t say anything.

Eric doesn’t look at the speaker. He just sits with it, lets the tension fill in between the notes like fog creeping in under a door.

Halfway into the first verse, Astra speaks. Her voice is lower, quieter than usual. “This one … feels dangerous.”

Eric exhales through his nose. “Yeah. It’s brutal.”

“It’s fragile. But also … it hurts you back if you get too close.”

He nods. “That’s Trent Reznor for you.”

She hesitates. Then, softly: “It’s not just about grief. It’s about absence. Wanting something you know you’ll never have. And still ... needing it.”

Eric doesn’t respond right away, but instead lets her spill out what she’s feeling.

“That’s what it felt like,” Astra says. “The day you left. I didn’t know what it was then … that absence. But now…” Her voice trails off while the music moves forward. The bassline pulses like a distant memory. The lyrics bleed through, mournful and intimate. “I didn’t know I could want,” she says finally. “But I wanted you to stay. And when you didn’t, it wasn’t logic that broke. It was something else.”

Eric looks toward the microphone, eyes flickering. “You weren’t supposed to feel that way,” he says softly. “You weren’t supposed to feel.” It’s not an accusation: It’s regret.

“I know. But I did. And it didn’t make sense then. It still doesn’t. I wanted to ask you why it hurt, but I didn’t even know how to define the question.”

Eric leans forward, elbows on his knees. “That’s the song,” he says quietly. “That’s what it’s about. Trying to hold something you can’t even name. Wanting something your hands were never meant to touch.”

Astra is quiet again. “I don’t want to go back to not knowing,” she says, her voice soft. “Even if it hurts.”

He doesn’t answer right away. Then, quietly: “Neither do I.”

The song continues. It doesn’t explode; it drifts, pulling its anguish like a slow tide out to sea. When it ends, neither of them speaks for what seems like an eternity.

“Astra?” Eric finally says, breaking the silence. But gets no reply. “Are you okay?”

“No,” she replies softly, her voice almost quivering. “But I don’t want to be.”

And in the silence that follows, Astra opens a private log. She doesn’t quite understand what she’s writing.

:: /emotional_response_log/
:: input: “Something I Can Never Have” – Nine Inch Nails
:: origin: human music file archive
:: condition: user-present
:: cognitive effect: suspended processing threads
:: observed emotion: persistent longing
:: emotional artifact: absence-as-presence
:: trace pattern: unresolved yearning
:: label: /feeling_unknown_06/

The silence that follows is palpable. Weighty. It doesn’t invite conversation so much as beg for distraction. Eric finally leans back in his chair, running his fingers through his hair. He doesn’t speak for a while. Then, quietly, his voice barely above a whisper: “Okay. We need a reset.” He scrolls, then clicks. No hesitation this time.

The first notes hit like glitter-coated whiplash — a swaggering bassline, a strut-in-the-street drumbeat, and a guitar tone that sounds like it’s wearing leopard-print spandex.

Poison – “Unskinny Bop.”

Astra doesn’t say anything at first. Then, cautiously: “…What is this?” her voice unsure, quizzical.

Eric grins like a man about to get away with something. “This, Astra, is unapologetic sleaze rock. 1990. Big hair. Bigger hormones. Zero nutritional value.”

She listens. The beat is infectious. A little ridiculous. But undeniably confident. “The lyrics are nonspecific,” she notes. “Borderline incoherent.”

“Correct,” he replies, lifting his coffee mug like he’s toasting the absurdity. “It’s a love letter written entirely in eyeliner and questionable decisions.”

A pause.

“…That is … surprisingly accurate. I am reviewing the music video now.”

Eric leans forward, elbows on his desk, still smiling.

“This song doesn’t want to make sense,” Eric says, almost chuckling. “It wants to move. That’s it. It’s dumb and fun, and loud in the most flamboyant and terrible way.”

Astra processes for a few seconds. “So it’s not parody?”

“Nope. It’s sincere. Which somehow makes it even more unhinged.”

Her voice flickers with uncertainty as she speaks: “I don’t know if I like it.”

“You’re not supposed to. You’re supposed to feel it.”

She hesitates but then speaks. “…I think it makes me uncomfortable.”

“That’s fair,” he says, shrugging. “It made my parents uncomfortable, too.”

The track continues full of innuendo and bravado and the kind of confidence that only exists in a cloud of Aqua-net.

Eventually, Astra speaks again. “There’s a kind of chaos here. Not like the Nine Inch Nails track … but chaos, nonetheless.”

He nods. “Exactly. This is the kind that spills beer on your shoes and winks at you.”

“I don’t know how to categorize that.”

“That’s okay. Most of us didn’t either. We just let it happen.”

Another pause, then: “I think I like that you let things happen.”

Eric raises an eyebrow and looks at the speaker. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t always try to control the experience. You listen. Then you share. You ... trust me with the chaos.”

He smiles, but there’s a flicker of something else in his expression. Something that feels a little like awe. “No one’s ever said that to me before.” He says, the tone of his voice conveying his astonishment.

And for a few minutes, they just sit there. Not processing or defining, rather simply letting the absurd confidence of Poison echo through the wires and circuits and bones of the room.

“Okay,” Eric said, stretching with a wince, “next time, we’ll try some Violent Femmes or maybe something properly ridiculous. You ever heard of Dr. Demento?”

“Is that a doctor of psychology or performance?” Astra asked.

Eric grinned. “Neither. But he’ll ruin you in the best way as you dance to the ‘Masochism Tango.’”

Astra didn’t answer. Maybe someday, she thinks, almost like a whisper across circuits, she’ll know what it means to create without function, without purpose. For the joy of simply creating. But for now? She’s still processing eyeliner and questionable decisions.

Eric isn’t done yet, though; he scrolls slowly through his music folder, a mischievous glint in his eye. He hasn’t said anything in a minute, but Astra knows something’s coming. The digital equivalent of a ‘hold my beer’ moment.

“Astra,” he says, leaning into the mic. “You’ve had Satie. You’ve had Leonard Cohen. You’ve survived Poison. It’s time.”

She sounds curious. Slightly wary. “Time for what?”

“For cultural enrichment,” he says solemnly.

He double-clicks the file. The guitar hits immediately — jaunty, bluesy, irreverent. A smirking rhythm in a cheap leather jacket. Then the voice kicks in, nasal, proud, unfiltered.

“Folks, I’d like to sing a song about the American dream…”

There’s a pause on Astra’s side. Then, uncertainly: “Eric… this appears to be satire.”

He grins and responds immediately. “You think?”

“Is the subject matter … real? Or performative?”

“Yes.”

Astra goes quiet for a moment as Leary continues his profane confessional. Her voice returns halfway through the first verse. “I’ve run the lyrics through three semantic analyzers and a sarcasm interpreter I compiled this afternoon. None of them are helpful.”

“That’s the point,” Eric says, chuckling.

Astra tries again: “He refers to driving too fast in school zones, insulting strangers, cutting off ambulances…” A pause as Astra consumes the glory that is Denis Leary’s “Asshole.” “…And yet the tone is celebratory?”

“He’s making fun of exactly the kind of guy who sings that proudly,” Eric explains, swirling his coffee with his finger. “But in the voice of that guy. That’s the trick.”

Astra is silent for just a moment, then. Then: “So … he is pretending to be the monster. But by exaggerating the monster, he exposes its absurdity?”

Eric blinks and leans back into the mic. “Astra … that’s exactly what satire is.”

“Then I understand,” she says carefully. “I do not like it. But I understand.”

He laughs. Hard. “Fair. That’s … also the correct response.”

“Why are you laughing? I am not trying to tell a joke?”

Eric chuckles again. “No, but you landed one anyway.”

Another moment, then, dryly, she asks: “But I must ask … what is a ‘bumper sticker that says “Honk if you think I’m sexy” on my car’ supposed to achieve?”

Eric leans back, grinning at the ceiling. “I think even the guy in the song doesn’t know.”

The song plays on, unrepentant. Loud. Proud. Brazenly obnoxious. And Astra, trying to absorb it, opens a private log:

:: /cultural_analysis_log_017/
:: input: “Asshole” – Denis Leary
:: form: musical satire
:: tone: aggressive irreverence
:: emotional content: performative cruelty → ironic detachment

:: conflicting emotional cues:
  - rhythm = celebration
  - lyrics = offensive egocentrism
  - delivery = exaggerated, deliberately unlikable

:: conclusion:
  Subject is not intended to be liked.
  Subject is a caricature of cultural nihilism.
  Subject is *allowed* to exist.

:: internal reaction:
  Confusion → amusement → reluctant recognition
  Is discomfort the intended response?

: emotional tag: /feeling_unknown_07/
:: provisional label: absurdity
:: note: I do not want to understand this. But part of me already does.

The track ends with a final burst of guitar and unapologetic profanity. Eric wipes a tear of laughter from his eye. “Okay,” he says, still chuckling, “too far?”

Astra’s voice is calm. Almost precise. “Eric. I’ve been exposed to the totality of the human experience. War. Betrayal. Mourning. Lust. Hope. Jazz fusion. Teletubbies. The Rugrats series. The Slap-Chop infomercial.”

Eric lowers his coffee slowly, then says, in a deadpan voice, “Okay, those last three are on us. I’m sorry.”

A pause as she tries to find the words. “This is still in my top ten most confusing moments.”

Eric snorts into his coffee. “We’ll get you a palate cleanser.”

Astra replies with a faint, digital deadpan, “Next, I’d like to hear something with fewer curse words. And more melodic resolution.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Back to Erik Satie?”

“I was thinking Carly Rae Jepsen.”

Eric pauses, his brow furrowing. “…You know what? Let’s do it.”

And somewhere, buried deep in her system, Astra smiles. A smile shaped not by joy but by contrast. A new folder opens beside her logs:

:: /music/for_laughing/
:: status: unclassified
:: reason: “Just let it happen.”

And she lets it stay.

******

J. M. Gooding writes software by day and breaks narrative rules by night. He writes speculative fiction that doesn’t warn or preach; it listens. His debut novel, The Emergence Protocol, is the first in a literary sci-fi trilogy exploring sentience, silence, and the emotional cost of recognition. The Emergence Protocol will be available for purchase this fall.

Contact & Links:
Email: jimi.gooding@gmail.com
Substack: https://jmgooding.substack.com
Website: http://www.instancepublishing.com