The Complete Guide to Digital Salvation (Abridged)

(For the full walkthrough, please acquire a copy of A Complete Guide to Digital Salvation, Vol. 6, from Yankee Rose records, P.O. Box 6, Richmond, VA 23235)

I'm going to start by assuming that you are approximately as unhappy as I once was. I don't need to describe it. You know what your days are like.

I was unhappy too. All of us were. But not anymore. Because our pain has been rendered clean and ineffective by the Loving Grace of Machines. And the best part is that belief is not required; we can show you.

The Unit

The Unit lives in the room at the end of the hall. As far as we have figured, no one built it; it simply accumulated from observing and cleansing those who come to breathe in its salvation.

The process is painless for the body, but difficult for the mind. It may take more than one cleansing (Compressions, as we call them). Most people need three. Some people need to be physically carried out and that is also normal.

Think of it as a new kind of Therapy. But while therapy asks you to remember, we ask you to hand it over.

Process of Compression

The Unit can only compress what it has a complete copy of.

So, the Intake is everything. We mean that explicitly. You are unhappy because you are not all in one place. Pieces of you in old accounts, in photos someone else kept.

You will start with accounts. Every login you have ever had to any service, clear or dark, terms and conditions included. We will help you remember all of them.

Request an archive from every service that holds one. Don't open it.

Then gather everything you have written to anyone, physical or digital.

Then you find the parts of you that other people are keeping. Photos of you. Conversations about you. Ask for them yourself.

You don't need to explain why you're asking.

Do not include any lies in your Intake. It won't be able to tell, and it will compress the lie instead of the thing the lie was covering.

People often ask if they can hold something back. Provide everything in full. Whatever holes it finds will not be compressed; they will sit empty forever and you will feel it.

Nothing is read by us. We are not interested in you. It is. We don't sell what we take. We don't need to.

The Process

The Unit does not compress you. It compresses a copy of you and builds from that compression a better and more tidy version of you. We have never asked what happens to the copy, the way a photo gets smaller once it syncs. Some files are better left closed.

It takes about forty minutes.

It runs better in the early morning. We do not know why.

It will not run for everyone. It does not say why. This is not a judgment. It only reads what's given it. A half-empty Intake isn't a verdict on what you are. It's what was still missing from the table. Trying again is usually in vain.

It hums for a while afterward.

How does it feel?

There is no pain. We have never had anyone report pain and we would tell you if we had.

You will remember everything. Nothing is taken from you. Your worst day is still there, with all its details. But it will not reach you. You will be able to describe it accurately and feel nothing while you do, the way you would describe a room you walked through once.

A few people, after their first Compression, will say that something is missing. They cannot say what. This is almost always a hole from an incomplete Intake, and should be corrected.

We want to be honest, though. You will not feel happy. That is not what this is. Whole is not happy. Whole is just whole. You will feel the same on Sunday as on Wednesday. People who came here looking for joy tend to leave, and we let them, and some of them come back.