My Little Riding - Champion -01008c600395a000--v0...

1. The Lexicon of the Incomplete

The trailing “--v0...” is the most heartbreaking part of the title. “V0” typically means version zero: a pre-alpha, an internal test, something not meant for the public. It is the first draft of a novel, the clay before the firing. The ellipsis implies that development stopped. The riding champion was never fully realized. Perhaps the programmer quit. Perhaps the funding dried up. Perhaps the little girl for whom the game was designed grew up and no longer believed in digital ponies. My Little Riding Champion -01008C600395A000--v0...

We are all, in a sense, unfinished strings. Our names are our serial numbers; our memories are save files. “My Little Riding Champion -01008C600395A000--v0...” is not a mistake. It is a perfect distillation of the modern condition: we yearn for pastoral, heartfelt bonds (the “Little Riding Champion”), but we can only express them through cold, alphanumeric identifiers. The champion exists in the tension between the lyric and the log file. It is the first draft of a novel, the clay before the firing