Mechanimal Thingdom: Part I

By Devon Phaneuf

Default is an instinct, codified, identified, and signified in time as a pervasive, invasive, investigation on what things define as evasive. Horizons a league ahead have their attention with all eyes-on; tenacious for catharsis are things denied access to reas-on.

A thing looks into itself, and exclaims: “For what or whom must I feel disdain in such nigh-sight of all that remains? Is it my aim? Am I to blame? What is this membrane, that perhaps without: all-that-is none would ascertain nor proclaim; what do I stand to gain?”

Says an Entity arriving from the Void: “All that is or ever will be extends beyond that which you see. Light traverses the empty and splices together all that envy in pursuit of a key. Central to happiness as a pursuit is the nurture of any other thing merely because it is free; and any-thing free needs no key.”

Inattentively the Thing meanders into itself: “How can all this I see simply be? If a thing traverses emptiness, then does it cease to be? Do we? Is there ever only nothing?” Plagued by the void and catalyzed by choice the thing claws at understanding as if to scramble up scree. Irreversibly driven much like a seed toward its tree, it mechanizes a mission to not agree with that it does not see.

Says an entity of the void: “It is envy that drives you unwittingly to take a knee; greed that fails your need. All that is was already given to you with a breath of life yet you seek to sustain that which you maintain? How can you keep that which you take from yourself? A personal thief, an inevitable grief, one who steals their own belief…”