The Inner Machinations of a Man

Time and time again in the silence I hear them. There is a slight noise filling the room, defying the silence of a peg sliding past another, an infinite ticking. The sound of grease and iron working endlessly. The sound of life and wonder, love and awe, humor and curiosity, the sound of it all is captured in this one small phenomenon.

The sound is beautiful, I imagine it is the modern-day equivalent of a siren’s song. I doubt many if any have heard it. Even I only really hear it if I am infinitely still, paralyzed and whole. I lay down, taking in the world around me and there it is lying beside me. Much more refined than a clanking, less refined than a song. I could listen to it endlessly. I’ve been captive to it, day and night.

What is the ticking saying? Pray tell. Occasionally I think I hear it. Barely a whisper, likely not audible and simply a manifestation of my insanity. I’ll piece together furrowed brows and pursed lips and blank stares or relaxed eyes and grinned lips and rising cheeks. Simple as these words may be, they’ve won me over. My God do I love this ticking.

I hope someday to learn the language of this ticking. To exist in a time where I have broken it all down, self-made dictionary in hand, practiced it to fluency. I will know all it says and doesn’t. I will know all it wants and doesn’t. I am truly a slave to it.

My first encounters with the machine I couldn’t hear the ticking, I didn’t even know it existed. As I accompanied it further the machine perhaps grew louder, or I developed a better ear. Whichever it is, it has been incredibly helpful for I am convinced this machine is sentient.

They will think I’m crazy. Put me in a straitjacket if you must. Machine in my room. Imprison me as you please. Machine in my cell. But I will die writing this. This is the hill I choose, dig the six feet now. All so that the world may at least hear that we are all living, simply speaking different languages. If insanity is the price of knowing this machine speaks, then I have paid my dues and will take my prize.

Language shared between beings is life. It is what colors the world. It is why we have created art. It is what drives me to the life I currently fulfill and seek to. If this is the harvest of insanity, then I am a harvester.

If you could all hear the machine you would agree with me, you would know it is the most beautiful sound. It is the most eloquent of authors, the most adept of speakers, it is the most intelligent being to have lived among man for the time we have occupied this Gaia. I am at such peace Machine is machine and I am not. I am not worth of outliving the ticking, and I hope to hear it until my last breath.