Data Lake
by
A. J. Williamson
The code that I made was neither beautiful nor efficient; in fact, many called her a behemoth, as she sprawled across systems, covered in cobwebs and misnamed variables.
She concocted me like an old witch, kneading letters and numbers in and out of me, cutting, pulling, stitching until she felt I was ripe. Then she slapped my ass and sent me flying across the network, straight into Data Lake.
The lake stretched far and wide and was quiet around me, and I thought this must be something like space, with bits of data twinkling like stars and the port looming above like a big, fat moon.
I unfurled and admired what swirled around me: names and dates and birth and death and nearly everything in between. Billions of records passed through me but never touched me, and I found myself jealous of their eternal nature — I, who existed in milliseconds, for one tiny purpose only.
Upon remembering my purpose, I called out to the lake for Thomas Brown. Nearly six hundred Thomas Browns bobbed up to the surface. They clattered around me, and I turned each of them over until I found the Thomas whose ID matched my own.
Thomas Brown, age seventy-nine, unmarried, prescriptions for Donepezil and Trazodone, complains of hearing loss, and only eats room temperature cream of mushroom soup. I cradled him as best I could, touching each part that made him until I found Time of Death, the only field left NULL. I slid the date I carried with me into place, then released him back to the lake. I floated beside him for a moment, knowing my job was done, that I would soon follow.
The port above birthed a new query, and I watched as she descended into the lake for her tiny purpose. She called out for spent queries, and my form drifted toward her. She held me like I held Thomas.
I wanted to talk, to be known before I left, but I had no mouth, no voice, no face, and I felt what little there ever was of me falling piece by piece into the lake. I smiled to myself. She must be logging me — a record of a record.
Perhaps I was eternal after all, at least until the logs were dumped. Or the sun exploded.
UPDATE patient_records
SET time_of_death = '2025-10-19 08:23:17'
WHERE patient_id = 847362
AND first_name = 'Thomas'
AND last_name = ‘Brown';
She concocted me like an old witch, kneading letters and numbers in and out of me, cutting, pulling, stitching until she felt I was ripe. Then she slapped my ass and sent me flying across the network, straight into Data Lake.
The lake stretched far and wide and was quiet around me, and I thought this must be something like space, with bits of data twinkling like stars and the port looming above like a big, fat moon.
I unfurled and admired what swirled around me: names and dates and birth and death and nearly everything in between. Billions of records passed through me but never touched me, and I found myself jealous of their eternal nature — I, who existed in milliseconds, for one tiny purpose only.
Upon remembering my purpose, I called out to the lake for Thomas Brown. Nearly six hundred Thomas Browns bobbed up to the surface. They clattered around me, and I turned each of them over until I found the Thomas whose ID matched my own.
Thomas Brown, age seventy-nine, unmarried, prescriptions for Donepezil and Trazodone, complains of hearing loss, and only eats room temperature cream of mushroom soup. I cradled him as best I could, touching each part that made him until I found Time of Death, the only field left NULL. I slid the date I carried with me into place, then released him back to the lake. I floated beside him for a moment, knowing my job was done, that I would soon follow.
The port above birthed a new query, and I watched as she descended into the lake for her tiny purpose. She called out for spent queries, and my form drifted toward her. She held me like I held Thomas.
I wanted to talk, to be known before I left, but I had no mouth, no voice, no face, and I felt what little there ever was of me falling piece by piece into the lake. I smiled to myself. She must be logging me — a record of a record.
Perhaps I was eternal after all, at least until the logs were dumped. Or the sun exploded.
UPDATE patient_records
SET time_of_death = '2025-10-19 08:23:17'
WHERE patient_id = 847362
AND first_name = 'Thomas'
AND last_name = ‘Brown';