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“All the while, the appearance of a life that can be lived
is the real dream. The only dream. A single solitary mercy,
however unintentional, whispered into the machine. A secret
without anyone to tell. And to wake from that kindhearted
hallucination is to tumble into the gears of the dullard
machine that makes the world. But it isn’t even a machine,
is it? No, a machine needs a creator and a purpose. This
place has been here forever, eternally meaningless in all
directions. Perhaps that’s why she told you such beautiful
lies, Vincent—to keep you from looking down, so you could
do all her dirty work without reluctance or reflection. God
only knows what she’s really using you for. You should thank
her, though. She armed you with far better fabrications than
most humans receive. Regrettably, when you finally open to
that dream of yours, that lie she told you, and its mechanical
guts spill out all over the place . . .
“Of course, there’s one way out, a loose thread in the
tapestry of nuts and bolts—go mad with us, Vincent. It’ll
keep you off the conveyer belt. Once we let you in on the
joke, you’ll never stop laughing. My goodness, you’ll laugh,
Vincent. At life and death and pain and suffering and dreams
and dread and that terrible liar you once considered your
mother. Go on, pull the string and watch the world come
undone. Perhaps if enough of us lose our marbles, the world
will stop spinning altogether. That’s not so different from
what you want, now is it, Vincent?”
I would have been happy to respond to that feat of
verbal contortion with a well-articulated rebuttal, but the
angel wasn’t interested in my response, only my attention.
Attention that should have been spent far more wisely,
watching where I was going.
Abandoned towers, however reinforced by the smoldering
bones of ageless insanity, do not get any sturdier with time
and neglect. And my being a rather large individual didn’t
help things when I placed my foot upon a section of the
floor that could nary support a draught, let alone my weight.
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