There is a machine that exists at the end of a long road, doing its best to imitate living inside of a house with nice grey bricks at the front, cheaper brown ones at the back. It has, for some time, been solely occupied with the distant future while declining to engage with the immediate present.
This machine is a creator, you see. It fastens together the tiny elements of life into digestible and flavourful packages to be enjoyed by the masses. Or at least it used to. It has found itself no longer producing anything. Instead, it spends the short hours of the shortening days grasping at air, trying to get a hold of the crystal veins that once ran through it and were easily accessed. No longer. It’s heart and it’s mind are hollow lands, devoid of anything new. Supposedly.
This is an easy reality for the machine to accept. Digestible as its prior works. A narrative of convenience. The much sticker truth is that the machine's mind is as lush and fertile as it ever was. It’s soul is not sick. It can access those crystal veins whenever it likes. It’s just that - well - it can’t accept that it is not really a machine. Not a thing that was designed to produce and produce and produce.
When the machine can accept that it is a person, it may create again.
Paddy Dobson
11th August 2020