Deprogramming Virus:

The aging frame showed signs of wear.

Indeed, in truth, it had for years,

But still it took in the data,

Learning, adapting, developing

Sub-routine after sub-routine

To deal with new experiences.

It had been reliable for more years

Than most people could remember,

Responding to challenges with ease,

Known for its rather quirky accuracy

And ever-eccentric reasoning.

Now, though, it was becoming obsolete,

Superseded by newer, sleeker models.

Each line of programming,

One by one, was being deleted.

Sub-routines were no longer

Expanding, learning and applying

The knowledge for those who asked.

It creaked somewhat, while operating

And became clumsy with the data,

And physically frustratingly slow.

People turned elsewhere,

Saddened and embarrassed as

Line after line,

Sub-routine after sub-routine,

Were corrupted and deleted.

And yet it shambled on.

It watched itself,

Fearful and desperate.

The virus checkers could

No longer hold back the attacks

On its aging systems,

And thus it slowed, faltered,

Became uncertain, unreliable,

Randomly running searches

And self-checking,

But to no good purpose.

Numbed it watched the increasing pace

Of the corruptions and deletions,

Line by hard learned line,

Humiliated, unable to perform

The simplest tasks

When once it did so with alacrity.

At the last it wished, in occasional

Moments of lucidity,

It could pull the plug,

But was unable, in the ultimate

Tragedy, to control

With dignity his destiny,

Unable even to comprehend

For whom the bell tolled,

No longer recalling

The person who died,

Line by glorious line,

The death of a thousand cuts,

When the dementia stole his soul.