a thousand staring morsels stood

we will be leaving isola as of right now - i am a bit old for stepping over missing stairs. i will likely eventually come back to michael (either independently or in-group again), so if you’d still like to play with him in the future, no need to unfollow - or unfollow as you wish! regardless, thank you to everyone who wrote with me (or just made me smile with your characterization & charm, which so many of you have as writers) and thank you for reminding me even over a brief period that i really do love writing with peers.

ciao!

“he trusted her.”

michael shelley is 41 years old. he has been working as an archival assistant for two decades. the last thing he can recollect before his arrival is that he was aboard the tundra with gertrude robinson - the archivist -and captain peter lukas on the way to a nonplace called sannikov land. (he needs to get back soon - he’s very worried about gertrude.)

“far too young to have such a job, really.”

laugh with me long and loving

Those fingers against him are enough to send a shiver up his spine (rough, but soft; there, but not;)– though not one he dares let Michael see. Those words were meant to be comforting; a vow to someone for them to know they would never be left alone, especially in their time of need.

Coming from it, however– from the entity that tried to eat him, to consume what life he had left, Watanuki felt no such thing.

Yet, he doesn’t move out of its touch. He remains still; stagnant like the surface of a pond as his gaze travel upwards (what seems to be higher, and higher) to find the eyes which burn into his very being. That smile is present, curling and long; and he wonders if it’s real, or meant to be taunting. 

“.. is that a promise you intend to keep?” the heavy silence hanging between them is finally broken, as Watanuki wills himself to speak; not an ounce of amusement lacing his words. He hasn’t had to deal with something like Michael in quite some time– or perhaps ever– and has no intention of letting it get its way.

“Then I would offer you one in return; a promise that you won’t enjoy yourself if you stay.” something flicks across his eyes, and the shopkeeper smiles wryly. “I can’t trust that you’ll behave yourself, after all.”

Touch is a funny thing to a lack of body - at times it forgets to mind itself. Forgets that the mere suggestion of the existence of five small, sharpened sickle-blades is enough to make most clothes tear even with the gentlest pressure, enough to trick skin into giving way like a semi-solid into fine lacerations, deep and delicate.

It minds itself now, fingers like a breath it will never exhale again against the small of his back. His physicality responds with echoes of himself.

It doesn’t remember making any promises, so it says, “Yes.”

It is a coincidence, them both existing here at the same time, in the most true sense; a cosmic sense. In the sense that it just so happened to be walking out of this cafe as the slight and ever-beckoning body of that man slowed to look at something in a window a few doors down.

They are not alone, but it is not crowded.

Or:

It has made the languid promise with purpose, so it says, “Yes.”

They were brought here by the same forces with intertwined intent, and it has been following him.

It has seen longing looks at nothing and no one. It has seen him caught in the rain without an umbrella. It has seen him grasp the hand of a loved one as if to ensure they are both real bodies capable of touch and coexistence.

They are not alone; it is not crowded; it does not matter how many people occupy this street at the same time as him and itself.

There is no drive inside it but itself and that is different, and limp, and directionless even where direction doesn’t, and Michael. Michael is gone, to make space for Michael, and then Michael was pulled away and left behind only Michael. It hasn’t wanted to commit to consumption like Michael once did.

It is starving, of course. It is weak past weakness.

When it sees Watanuki again, it is not just starving; it wants to commit to consumption.

There is something about him. Something that has it smiling.

‘...you won’t enjoy yourself if you stay.’

“Yes I will.”

Its hand is no longer on his back; its hand doesn’t exist. It rests it against his arm, dull fingertips, too shifting and too dense.

There is something about him.

❝Yes, that is what we said.❞ He stared past Michael, eye scrunching up at both the twigs and dirt littering his nice clean couch (his because he cleaned often and thoroughly) and for the…offset edges of the human.

…Perhaps he is seeing things. Again. ❝No more difficult then any other day.❞ Luckily his long flight home had cooled the embers of his agitation somewhat.

That did not stop him from dragging out the step stool and clambering up to reach for the bottle of off brand vodka he had bought to share with Grimm. ❝Judging by your, appearance, you have been living out in the parks, the streets. You are more then welcome to live here so long as do not track the myriad in with you.❞

The bug looks at him for a second more than many prefer to. What do those worm eyes see?

Then it becomes its own turn to look at the worm, getting out his step stool and reaching for a bottle of something clear and probably potent. All of it makes it smile. The step stool, the alcohol, the words coming from what may or may not be the other’s mouth.

“You think this is your house...!”

It laughs. And laughs. And sighs. And breaks another piece off the thin, delicate thing in its hands as it settles back with a smile that can be described as no less than charmed still in place.

It hopes he will stay. Many such substances are a wonderful lubricant to pry out things lying in wait. Or to put them in.

“I appreciate your... hospitality, little King.”

❝Gh— Ah, our mysterious roommate.❞

Mike? Miklas? Mi-something. ❝If you are referring to the orange juice in the jug, it went bad a week ago. And we were referring to alcoholic beverages.❞

It is looking at the new entertainment, but its fingers are still moving around the twig - pulled from the blonde helixes growing from its head, seemingly impossible to make into a helix itself. Tiny wood bits from its attempts decorate the couch.

“Mmh. Alcoholic beverages,” it repeats after him, with a soft smile, with a soft laugh. It hasn’t forgotten the crown of his crown, fluttering and volatile.

❝I need a drink..❞

mercury.

you’ve got an intimate relationship with the things that can hurt you - they’re familiar in the same way putting away laundry is. you don’t know when to cut people out of your life and you don’t know when you’re angry. in fact, you’re burning with resentment, anger, but you can’t figure out why and it’s on the backburner so often you forget that you’re even angry...! everyone tends to look past you and the more you think about it, the more you don’t care. you know you can’t be a burning star in everyone’s life but you hate the idea that other people can be. sometimes, it’s easier to put your phone down and pretend you don’t exist, pretend that staring at the wall will make it all better. it doesn’t.

“Productive in terms of contributing to one’s self-satisfaction, contentment, and positive mental state,” he rattles off hastily, correcting both Michael and his own line of thinking. He knows he’s not perfect. He knows he sometimes finds himself holding the exact sort of opinion that he tries so hard to convince others to dismiss. He knows that if he had truly, completely moved on from the time he spent living Functionist propaganda, he wouldn’t still keep his old I.D. card tucked close to his sparkchamber.

It’s best, then, to remind even himself of what “productivity” ought to mean.

…is this Earthlet alright? Rung hopes he hasn’t upset them. They’ve gone silent, but–

Rung adjusts his glasses, moving slightly back. That’s… odd. Isn’t it? There’s something not quite right about the way Michael is so easily scratching into the bench. There’s something not quite right about Michael himself– it’s easier to notice now that Rung’s not side-stepping questions and can instead spend this awkwardly long pause just “existing” near his new, strange acquaintance.

“…right. Right, thank you.” That’s kind of Michael to say. It only makes Rung feel worse– he knows it’s okay, and he knows he’d probably be much happier if he could just manage to stop wanting so desperately to be important, seen, recognized, remembered– but he appreciates the effort nonetheless.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Michael. I’m Rung.” He leans over, extending his hand for a shake. It’s only polite, and besides, it might give him a chance to see whether the odd quality he thought he noticed about those hands was just a trick of the optics.

“It’s okay to just exist, too.”

“I hope existing here won’t be so bad for you. It’s always possible you’ll end up leaving sooner than you expect, and perhaps in the meantime, you’ll find something worth experiencing here.”

Productive in terms...

When it does look back at him, it sees him looking at it looking at him. It thinks he may have been watching it this whole time; it’s an attentive sort of prying that it remembers not remembering, not noticing at all. It knows without remembering. It knows without knowing. It doesn’t need to know.

What does a machine see when it looks at a distortion? What is a distortion, to a machine? The Machine (of Gentle Coaxing) says he is Rung. Wrung - not yet, but maybe soon. It is different; the metallic tinge of the uncertainty, the iron presence in the discomfort. But it can mold its taste to that as it warps his own fusible perspective.

...of contributing to one’s self satisfaction...

(Must we; Can we; Should we; nothing like that exists inside itself in so many and so few words. To say anything exists inside it at all would be generous.

Is there, then, any way to describe the overlap of thought and feeling that bounce and revolt inside its possibly-hollow body? Is there anything to suggest it thinks and feels at all before choosing what it chooses again and again?

What gets asked is:

Will we?

And the ever-eventual reply, time after time, from between a smile, is:

Yes.)

Rung extends his hand.

...contentment...

It has never held the hand of anything bigger than itself. Not tangibly. Its hand could be larger than Rung’s; it may have been just a moment ago. The hand that ends up in the machine’s is a perfect human hand, with all the fingers where fingers go at lengths fingers should be, knuckles over-evident in its thinness but not inhumanly so, palm soft and flat and the correct width for a man.

Rung tells him it is okay to just exist. It does not want to think about those words in that order, nor the sentiment that is made all the more nonsensical by being honest about itself.

So it doesn’t.

It does laugh, gently, at him, with him, though he isn’t making a sound.

“No. I don’t think I will be.”

Where would it go if it did leave? It does not want to die again; it does not want to unbecome-rebecome again.

Could it open itself in another direction?

...and positive mental state.

It smiles.

“Nowhere?” He hopes they’ll be more specific. Are they speaking figuratively or literally? If literally, do they mean to say they somehow originated in a void? …unlikely, if they’re an Earthlet as they appear to be. Rung hopes instead that they’re talking about some “nowhere” to which the Stars moved them before bringing them to Spirale.

No one can seem to remember a time or not-space between being home and being here, and if this stranger can, they might be able to provide useful information. The sort of information that can be used to recover one’s missing abilities or even leave.

…maybe. Rung can hope.

“I quite agree! Whether we make those reasons up ourselves or are convinced of them by others, I believe that that sort of thinking is often unproductive.”

But that was the wording they themself used. If this is how they really feel about the topic, then what did they mean when they said they were doing in Spirale what they’ve “been made to”?

“I suppose I should have asked you more directly what you’re doing, then.” A pause. “So, now that you’re here, what do you do?”

“Oh, me?” There’s no hitch in his voice this time. He’s more prepared, and the question feels easy enough to answer without actually saying anything at all.

“Neither, I think. I’ve done both good and bad things in my life, but honestly… I think if this were a ‘story’ being told, I wouldn’t have nearly such an important role. I’d probably be some character in the background, and we don’t tend to apply such weighty labels to people like that, do we?”

His smile isn’t quite self-deprecating; he’s had too much practice with it for that.

There’s not a Cybertronian alive who hasn’t heard the name “Primus,” but the actual, direct impact of his six millions years as Rung is negligible. Useless at worst, boring at best. He’s far less interesting than his new acquaintance, than–

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I ever caught your name?”

He doesn’t actually ask anything more about where it wasn’t before it was, so it just nods and gives him a ‘verbal’ sound of agreement (“Yes.”) as he mirrors its nowhere. And it smiles. He seems the littlest bit confused even though he was the one who started talking about all the Other Places to begin with. And it smiles. He can be confused, then. Whatever machine he is, he really isn’t like a “computer.” How...delightful. What was it that made him so uncomfortable that he reflected them both in this direction, again...?

Ah, he’s saying things.

“Unproductive,” it mirrors him in turn, though he didn’t quite chuckle where it does. “How do you measure the productivity of someone?”

That is something it hasn’t thought about in some time; the memories it has of those concerns aren’t even its own. Paperwork, charts, trips, exercise, reading, groceries, cleaning up the cold, leftover tea of someone who barely ever drinks what is made for her - that is all of a life before itself. A life that was driven by pointlessness, the futile nonmeaning of ‘goals’ and ‘schedules’ and ‘hopes’ intangible, until it went away, and became this. Until it became an existence driven by sprawling, twisting hunger.

And now, not even that.

And he’s asking Questions again.

It thinks he might have actually asked it some time ago - it may have been sitting in complete stillness for longer than it ‘should’ have taken to answer, and it becomes dimly aware of its own fingers tapping nonsense melodies against the wood of the bench. It doesn’t have to look down to know the sudden edge of them is leaving marks.

It looks up again, instead, its smile like its fingers, and repeats what it believes he asked: “What do I do?”

It laughs. And laughs. The laugh goes on forever, a few seconds maybe, and trails off in a content, unhappy, satisfied sigh.

“I...exist. Apparently.”

It likes the way he talks about himself, too. He seems to understand to degrees the true ineffectuality of his own existence. It can’t quite discern how he feels about it, but then, that doesn’t really matter.

He gets, finally, to the question everyone and everything must ask. One which can’t be answered with honesty and which is rarely answered with a lie.

You didn’t catch it because it hasn’t been given.

It’s difficult to argue with that. Even if it’s a matter of timescale– Rung’s in the process of rediscovering a rather important truth after six million years of ignorance, after all– it impossible to tell how many other truths have been lost forever to the passage of time.

Rung hums his agreement.

He narrows his optics, safe behind the barrier of his glasses, and studies the stranger as they laugh.

“I see. I’m sorry you find yourself in a situation you do not wish to be in. Many of the people here, myself included, feel the same way.” But that’s hardly a comfort, is it?

What they’ve been made to do. What an interesting way of putting it. Rung highly doubts that their words carry the same connotations that they would if spoken by a Cybertronian, and that makes the particular phrase all the more intriguing. What does this stranger mean by that, exactly?

“I think those sorts of terms ought to be reserved for the best and worst of us. I think practically everyone is both– or perhaps neither.” Now that he’s successfully changed the course of the conversation, Rung begins to feel less agitated. He likes learning about other people far more than he likes debating morality, and this particular person seems so terribly interesting. There’s just something about them that Rung can’t quite identify. He looks forward to getting to know them better and to keeping their discussions centered firmly on them.

“Would you be comfortable telling me what it is that you were made to do?”

Rung certainly wouldn’t be if the question were turned on him, so it only seems polite to be clear from the start that he’ll do his best not to press for any information that his new acquaintance doesn’t freely give.

“Or perhaps about where you were before you came here? There’s an incredible range of homeworlds represented in this city.”

The machine establishes his...malleability with a single, quiet hum of resignation. Can a mineral, metal mind be worked just like soft tissue? It doesn’t know yet, though its own wanders in noncommittal loops around the possibility as the machine offers a meaningless apology. It does not care to take the offered hand of relating, because it can’t, and neither can he. And if he can, it doesn’t want him to. So it won’t let him.

He keeps trying, though.

He is funny, this machine. His questions do not seem fertilized with confusion, distress, or even a deal of suspicion; they are familiar to it in a different way. In a way that they sound rooted in hungry interest. In a way that feels like he is trying to Know things.

It thinks it likes that. It feels like something nice, even now, to watch someone try to understand what they can’t possibly. It still feels like the opening of a door.

It also thinks it might like to see what mechanical discomfort looks like at least once more.

It starts at the end -

“Before here...I wasn’t somewhere. I guess you could say I was nowhere.”

‘ Home-worlds, ’ he says. It doesn’t really care about whatever that entails, because it isn’t anything it hasn’t long-known. There are innumerable places that aren’t; sometimes things come from there. It comes from there. It’s starting to realize it might have lied earlier, when it told him it didn’t want to be here. The realization settles in it with a bitter note; the realization makes it smile. It was already smiling.

- and then it gets to the “point” -

“What was anybody made to do?” It laughs at its own joke that isn’t a joke. “Whatever reason most people think they have, they don’t. It’s something...people imagine up later on.”

- and finally it arrives at the start, where it will help him continue making his questions maze.

“...I don’t know if I see the difference between what would make something both, or neither.” (it doesn’t believe there are any differences.) “What are you?”

@existentialismee​ sent : 🖌

@beyond-use sent : 🖌

the lightning rod.

whether it’s your turbulent nature your flash quick mind or the air of unknown about you, your undercurrent is the lightning rod. you are somewhat unpredictable, but if we unravelled we’d see you know exactly what you’re doing ; it makes you feel less vulnerable to pretend it wasn’t planned. some people stay back from you, but others would follow you cross country, for the very same reason. they don’t know enough about you. the difference is in who wants to learn more. keep your golden nature, it’s exciting, but don’t be afraid to admit what you know. matshona dhliwayo said “lightning strikes but does not roar” your bite will always be worse than your bark, keep that close to your chest.