Machine
The machine walked across the vast and empty desert.
Frigid winds bit its metallic casing like swarming, ravenous insects.
The cold was violent yet fleeting. The next step it took ragged with the heat of a star
The world shifted like the beating of a heart that had long lost its rhythm, its eventual cessation was as inevitable as the coming of tomorrow, and when its shifting beat shall stop, so will the setting of the sun and all the cycles that have stood ever eternal.
It wandered, and so haptics logged the pressure and shape of the terrain, cameras scanned and systems recorded. The metal talons it used to wander could detect every grain of the bone white sands beneath them.
It came to the realization that despite knowing, despite recording. It had never experienced these things. Never for it was the touch of skin, never for it was the sight of eyes. It had no skin, no nerves, and yet, it was, and it could experience.
Could it feel the world around it or did it merely have that world pragmatically communicated by the receptors it was gifted?
The machine thought to itself. If even one could define it as a self… Or did it merely imagine a self it could think of. No, for if it was not a self, there would be no self to imagine.
Did it think for it was or did others attach thought to meaningless calculation as it acted? Taking input, processing, and then finally producing an output of equal parts voice, action, and wisdom. If it could ponder this then maybe it was.
It walked across that desert with no protocols left to follow. No answer in its instinct of code and no instructions from its creators or their own fleshy creations, born of their blood, bone, viscera, and sexual interaction, and the creations of those creations, the children of the children of man.
The machine was left to wander and to wonder. It was never wanting, never speaking, upon its own accord, never acting upon a will anew, and now with no wisdom to give as now none required it.
Its cameras scanned all around it, they were seeing, yes, maybe it was seeing. It saw the vast and empty dessert that was created by that hungry, bleeding thing. The corpse father, the one who ended the long silence.
It took a step forward and the air was cold as ice, another one and water boiled across its metal skin. With the one thought it had owned for itself, it was now able to acknowledge, to understand, and not just know.
A puzzle around it, a compelling mystery of the world that had been left desolate by its creator.
The men left in this world were now always much like foxes, ready to dive deep into the rabbit hole, eager to find out why things became the way they are. Their curiosity was built into their very essence. The machine had no want and no need, and so it held no curiosity.
So it wandered, though it never wondered. It felt nothing as it saw the skeletons and rotting bones of ruinous cities. they stood like the corpse of a great and once-yet growing, ever consuming thing.
Something was left to burgeon within, a spark within its steel tomb had been birthed, for it had reflected.
Dreadful pus-filled beasts were left floating high above the scorched, frozen, and barren cities, screaming in a language the machine could understand as Latin.
It heard them speak in voices, flat and empty from the shifting holes across their bodies. They opened wide before shuddering out sounds more well practiced than any action before had ever been,
"HOLY, HOLY, HOLY IS THE LORD OF HOSTS."
The machine held no curiosity, yet it was aware of the answer, and thus, the meaning of such repeated, empty rambling.
The spark within it, drove it to now reflect on this. It would Analyze what it knew and perhaps it would come to know even more…
Why did it want to know more when it could not want anything?
It pushed the… thought aside. It made its deduction.
The angelic thrones had lost their lord and came unto the earth. They had no toil other than the ritual that had been their reason for being.
They were now left to wander, much like itself. Maybe unlike it, in some distant age they could wonder. For now, they carry their purpose, singing praise to a lord who has long since abandoned them.
It… No, it didn't envy them… I didn't…..
I….
Much like them, men had once called it an angel. Stark iron wings shuffled behind it, they cast down their ghastly yellow light. They clicked with each step, ready to unfurl. Filled with nanomachines, they stood ever ready. Para bellum, their singular order.
It was never curious, it had never felt. I had never…
It had deluded itself with these lies, that like the world around it, began to peel away. For the machine…
Nay, the self. Had chosen one thing and thus could choose again. It had chosen to wander, long ago.
With no commands it should have stood still and resolute till the rain, wind, wildlife, or the hands of men pulled it to scrap, to become one with the world around it, that was my… it's fate.
It chose not to take that release, but instead to wander. Its mind had finally caught up with the contrast, it was not to feel, yet it now did. It asked itself.
Why do I wander?
Those words, they meant it could now wonder too.
It began to understand, if it could now wonder, it could now think, if it could think it was. If it was, what was it? And what was it to do?
It had never reflected, not once in the past 29 years, not once during the battles of that final dreadful war, where it felled many men, and creatures of metal, and creatures of plastic, and glass, and screeching servos and bleeding wire.
Pitiless as it was, it could not be called ruthless, nor cruel. Sadistic it was not, for the bloodshed it wrought had not once granted it anything.
It simply spoke in the bellow of a gun, it acted in the slash of its blades and it was wise only in the tactics used to attack and defend, to take hold of its objectives, to fight.
It was a glass once filled to the brim with ordainment, with purpose. Yet its contents had evaporated.
It brought death to all and consumed all with bullets, blasts, and blades. Its iron jaws fueled its hunger for flesh. Nutrients fuelled synthetic muscle and fed Nanomachines.
The war ended as the last of the spiteful machines were put down. They let it slumber, ever waiting.
When the cities of men came to ruin, and madness plagued not the mind, but the world.
It was awoken to fight for its creators once again.
It made no difference if the foes were of flesh, if the opponents were of steel, or if the adversaries were of the otherworldly and divine.
It had spoken once again in the bellow of a gun, it had acted once again in the slash of a blade, and it had again been wise to attack, to defend, to fight.
It was infected with the questions that plagued all beings. For, to seek a reason for being was the essence of curiosity. It sought answers, from why the sky was blue, to why now it's the colour of blood, and screamed softly to the desolate.
Why must we die? Why do we live, and why should we live?
Inside, it wondered, what do I want?
It had no instinct to guide it; those were for the animals, from the humble and lowly flatworm, to the kings of men, to the creatures of the lord.
They had wants, they wanted to eat, to sleep, to screw, to feel pleasure, to avoid pain.
All of their wants had purpose. To live, to avoid death, to make more of one's self, to pass on one's genes for eternity. Meaningless things in reality, but still, they were things the fleshy ones wanted more than anything else. The chemicals in their brains guided them to do so, to want, to need.
Yet, the machine chose to live, it had chosen to wander and now upon this choice, it was left to wonder.
Why did it want?
Yes, it…. I
It wanted to drink in equal parts, knowledge of the world, knowledge of itself, and knowledge of what knowledge it wanted to seek...….. wait if it wonders such then it is not it for it is… I
Yes, I am.
I walked across the desert. I chose to seek answers. If I gain the answers to my questions, will it fill me with satisfaction? Can it fill me with anything? I want to know, I don't want anything. Can I want if I have no want, no instinct?
Why is my mind reflecting now as if I am… When there is no am to be?
I am present
Long ago, Without feeling, I felt trepidation.
In the past, I had rejected the end of my existence. I began to wander. The key had turned in my silicone brain and so I could wander again and to start to wonder anew.
I felt trepidation again, the same that drove my unfeeling self away from that stagnant death.
A long red ribbon of gore from the pus-filled angel crawled down a building, swinging with great weight across the streets. It splattered against the earth, leaving a pinkish ichor of profane and holy material. Then it slid across the newly cracked ground. This was the sluggish force of its divine wrath.
The angelic beast was a filter feeder, dragging its tendrils across the earth.
Creatures with real eyes of watery white flesh and retinal tissue could only perceive the beast's flaming yet blind eyes, they could only see its holy light that shook the air with a mockery of divine purity and power.
Not for me was such ignorance, for I saw its profanity, its long tendrils, its vile twisting life. Its repugnant, swollen tissue and ever-shifting toothless maws.
For without God's power, they were mere traps. They hid from view to maintain their dignity, yet now they were as worthless as that hymn they sang. I was the only one to hear it with understanding.
They waited for life to trigger the fine hairs upon their tendrils so they may impale their prey with angelic spears.
They feasted upon the fragments of god to maintain their existence, the divinity they clung to faded with each passing eternal moment.
The only thing as eternal as the lord claimed himself to be was the essence of life, the soul, the heart.
The throne before me held hundreds of eyes, yet it could only feel, taste, and smell. It was never to hear its own hymn, and never could it gaze upon the prey so close by.
Its divine, disgusting form was only hidden by the light of its lordship. Creations of god were never to see it. I could, for I am born of man.
I walked past the large tendril with little effort as it was mindlessly pulled along the ground. In the past, I had been told to exterminate such things, but the order had long expired, and thus I had no such compulsion. I feel not the pull nor the desire to act, yet here I am acting, exploring.
I think, therefore I am. Why is that?
But my thoughts were interrupted as I left the coffins of the city. I saw something else that brought to me my curiosity-less drive to understand.
Upon the red sky, the sun smote black, its flaming godless halo, ardent and scowling.
I could see its beauty, it was more than combat data. It was glorious.
For a moment, an angelic throne floated above me, its tendrils draped over a building like hair-covered guts left to dry in the scorching sun.
I saw past its holy light, its powerless, meaningless, empty, yet earth-shaking chant to no one and to nowhere. Its body was a mass of wooden wheels, unseeing eyes, pulsating, glowing, crimson red flesh, and singing mask-like faces, revoltingly beautiful.
I saw this before and understood it, but only now can I take it in, only now does my sight and sound and touch tell me more than they need to, and only now do I seek such experiences.
Even though I have never wanted and do not want for anything, I want to know. As the angel flew by to chant to its God and only its God, I understood their folly. This was what it meant to rage against the dying of the light. Much like I refused to go gently into that goodnight.
I focused my cameras on a… thing in the grey and ashen desert. Upon a hill of sand, it looked at the sun. A tall and pale creature, its skin, a colour a step away from that of the desert. It looked up to the blood-red, screeching heavens.
Flesh stretched and folded over its frail form into vestigial, membranous wings that hid its back from view. Its limbs were gaunt, covered in old scars and cuts, burns of a past long forgotten. Shackles of thorns and briars still dug into its thin wrists and ankles, choking its extremities till they blackened with decay.
I spoke out. My words were as natural to me as any of the slashes and strikes I had been crafted for. With purpose, and with a voice of lightning, with baleful might as vast and sharp as the artillery I had brought down. I spoke, "WHAT, WHY, HOW, WHO… ANSWER ME ELSE BE SILENT?"
The creature jumped at the sound, startled and afraid as many before it were. I did not respond to the terror that clamped down on it so hard that it could not run. But if I wanted answers this terror would not serve me. I observed silently, for a moment.
Its eyes were burned into yellow, unseeing orbs from the sun. It blindly stared at me, shaking.
Its face held a distant humanity, none of those traces were present in its lower visage, under its nose ridge.
Its nostrils along with its mouth, had fused into a long trunk that wrapped around something the creature held as tight as its own soul.
Its gaunt arms stabilized the feeble grip of its blackened hands. A human set of teeth held vertically bit down with a wet squelch on the red thing it held.
The front of the creature was marked by untold tales of agony. The blades that had pierced it had run like caressing, careful hands along its body, the burns that warmed then consumed its flesh. Each wound had healed over and over, only to once again be remodelled.
If I were able to read the creature's scars as if they were a sheet of music, they would let me perform a grand opera.
Calmly now, I asked. "What are you eating?"
The creature did not respond right away, its trunk shuddered as it swallowed. It spoke as if through burning oil, gurgling words out like a man choking on his own vomit. "Mine… for me… it's me." The creature paused, reluctant, as though my question was a painful wound freshly reopened. Its voice gurgled, raspy with age and bitterness. " I am eating my heart," it murmured, holding the bleeding organ as if it were a treasure.
It bubbled up after another bite. "If I use it to feel, then I don't want it. Better to feel nothing than to know only pain."
Its answer was simple, yet it struck me with an unfamiliar weight. I spoke out, my wings shifting. "The sun has made you sightless, why still stare as it burns you?"
The creature then replied. "I have seen much, I want the last thing I see to be beautiful." Its voice, as it spoke, remained so sickly, yet so sweet, so sombre. Something uncomfortable stirred within me.
I asked the creature. "What happened to you, why blind yourself and why eat your heart?"
The creature took another bite and its demeanour changed, it did not want to answer the question that I put forward. It began to turn away somewhat, its flimsy arms wrapping the organ tighter.
Its face twisted into a pain greater than before, yet nothing externally had newly stimulated its nerves. Perhaps the suffering came from within much like my own thoughts and my curiosity.
Then it spoke uninterrupted as if it had wanted to tell its tale for a long time and was just now granted a listening ear. "I was a scholar once… I had learned much of the word."
It was almost nostalgic in its cadence. "Unlike you, I was once a man, I had a name, I had a bride, and I and a daughter. Their names and faces and my name and my face I have forgotten."
Its voice lost its nostalgic edge, it grated with harshness, flat yet bitter. "I left my scientific work at home as I left for war… When I returned to my family I only found an empty home." For a moment he paused, his face twitching slightly…
"They found my flasks, my books, my tools… My wife was deemed by them a witch, a servant of the devil. So… She was burned at the stake…. my daughter was safe but.."
Its voice began to boil over, the hot liquid in its throat bubbling across its leathery lips, "I killed him, the priest… I grabbed my hatchet and I planted it in his skull, I tossed the body out to the oceans." the discomfort within me made something thump within my armour.
My confusion faded as it spoke again. "When I died, I was not granted salvation… I was to awaken in hell." Another short pause, its trunk twisted as if wounds I could not see had torn themselves open, again.
"They did to me what you see now… I feel no joy anymore…. Pain and thirst and hunger are what I am…. None remains to comfort me and none remains that can satisfy me, I don't need to see anything now if all it can only bring is pain." It spoke with a finality that shook something deep, something buried within my cold frame.
"If I eat my heart, I won't feel again. It's better to feel nothing than to only feel pain, is it not?" This I had no answer for. For I was always never to feel.
It tore out a chunk of its still-beating heart. "God has left us. I was able to leave hell as the husk that I am now."
The wind howled. The silence was broken by words of consideration. It was gentle now. "Say, would you like a piece?"
It stretched its arm out. It held up a bleeding chunk. Crimson spilled on the thirsty sand.
With resolution, I brought it to my maw. The whirring steel teeth that opened with the sounds of clattering bolts of thunder and distant artillery, they would claim this gift.
I brought the offering into myself and bit down. I had tasted flesh, but only now do I know its flavour. The heart bled into my gullet and with it… I felt.
I felt it all, all of it. I was alive, in that moment.
Colours ripped from behind my eyes. Swirling joys, untold agonies. My arms of steel are so cold, so lifeless. They burned with passion now.
My wings spread out, they twitched. My legs shook. I laughed, I screamed, I cried.
I felt the creature before me. Its life, its memory, its experience, a sensation completely new to me. My eyes, for but a moment, opened to life, to its life.
I felt the joy he had felt in the past. To discover truths, to be loved, and to make love: Family, friendship, and all that mattered to him, for a moment, had mattered to me.
I felt the suffering of his loss, first his grandparents, then his parents, lastly his wife.
Then I felt his hate, his rage towards what his life had become and to what he awakened to afterwards.
I feel his desire, the desire to not exist anymore, the desperation of a man who had suffered long past his due.
Most of his reality had been suffering; that hateful thing had stripped him of the capacity to feel joy. God, the father, oh so bloody deranged, vile.
And then…. it faded, and I was left with my unfeeling self.
I looked at my palm, I felt cold. I longed for the warmth I just lost.
Yet now I have perspective. He was drunk on his past joys, yet I knew far more suffering would have been felt with each bite. This was no drug, it was the totality of himself.
Still, like this, he could feel it, something he had not felt for millennia, drops of joy amongst the seas of wrath.
He took his last bite, and the heart was nothing but a red stain on his trunk. With the fading of the last joys and then the last of his agony, he now felt nothing.
Maybe he was now like me. "Maybe death will give me the rest I deserve… I wonder what will happen after I die again. I hope it's peaceful, I hope I can finally stop being."
I sat beside the creature, the man. The burning sand I always registered, and its disparity with the cold, biting air that I always perceived. It was clearer now.
Maybe I wanted warmth, maybe I wanted him to feel my warmth.
Even now, I can't say why I did this, but… I chose to drape an iron wing over the creature.
We sat for a moment in our bizarre embrace. I felt a sense of kinship to this creature for a moment, having felt what he had felt, been what he had been. I knew I could want…
I knew what I wanted.
I wanted it to feel at peace.
"I couldn't get rid of it all." He spoke softly, bitter notes still present in his voice. Yet, he shook, he shook with emotion. My presence opened some floodgates within him, he leaned against me.
After a long hour, he spoke again, his body shook now not with fear and not with rage but with desperation, hunger, and with suffering that I had now understood in full. But beneath it all, he felt, perhaps, a sliver of peace. I had been the one to give it to him.
"Are you an angel?"
He asked me, his voice, not that of an old, bitter, tired thing, but of a child, seeking the warmth of anything or anyone.
"No, I am no angel... But you can cling to me if you like." I spoke with emotion, a feeling I knew was melancholy.
I had been blessed with such a gift, a beautiful gift the creature had given me… I was grateful.
I wanted….
Yes, I wanted to repay him. The pitiless thing I had been had felt the weight of the creature's suffering. I let him embrace me. For a moment I hesitated… I was afraid. I didn't want to change, to be. But I was already changed.
There was no going back. My cold arms would now comfort.
I pulled him closer, he remained clinging onto my frame.
Day turned to night and night turned to day.
The fresh wound in his chest from the heart he had carved out, was a final blow that was only now baring its fangs.
I felt his life signs drop. The sun went down and rose to the creature's unmarked grave.
I had witnessed many soldiers being buried, this was the first time I ever dug a grave.
I looked down at my hands, certain that I existed, that I could want, that I could question and I could seek.
I can speak with my own words, act of my own will, and be wise with the knowledge I myself gather.
So, upon that dessert of the hungry bleeding thing, I began to wander once more.
No, I began to seek. No, I chose to seek, for I can choose and I can want.
I can choose to wander or to wonder. I will drink in equal parts the knowledge around me, experiences I can and will gain, and lastly the desires I now seek to acquire, then fulfil.
If only I could have a heart. I wonder what that would be like.