Minus felt now the weight of his years as he tried to remember his

First visit to his grandfather's workspace. He couldn't clearly

Recall the excitement or the danger or the fear of being caught

There was only the vaguely familiar sensation that he had been here

Before, and the long hallway that stretched out before him leading to

The door of the studio somehow seemed as if it were a road he had

Glimpsed only once before, and in some fevered state. What little

Recollections of his grandfather Minus had, the brief and unsettling

Visits, the hushed and angry voices disembodied and shut away beyond

Door, blanket, pillow, and lid, were colored by the memories of

His long-discarded gifts. Grandfather's constructions, simian

Simulations, puzzling mechanical contraptions, were meant in earnest

To be as friend, companion, and confidant to a youth misplaced among

Others. Minus knew nothing of his grandfather as extropian, nothing

Of uploading consciousness, nothing of enhanced, augmented sentience

But the old man knew his grandson shared with him the same insatiable

Curiosity and the typical interrogatives of those destined to seek

The answers. It was with this knowledge that Minus's grandfather

Left this place, and with this same assurance that Minus would

Stumble across what had been set in motion. It would take years

The old man knew, but time itself was now irrelevant. Indeed, the

Years it took were heavy on Minus. He sat now failing to remember

Exactly why he was here now, alone in his grandfather's dim and

Silent studio. Then, as if on cue, something clicked. It all came

Back, rushing at him in scattered and disconnected impressions of

Cranial jacks, anthropomorphic representations of raw electronic

Data, and the unfiltered fears of a small child

From the silence then, in a voice from but not

Of himself, Minus spoke out to the empty room

I am apparatus. Let me show you what I have seen

Falling prey to the general inertia of the day

The first mark is always the hardest to make

The first crack in that safe silence I can't bring myself to disturb

A silence that tends to overwhelm mostly

There are words, questions above me

Glowing in the detritus stirred up by the day's events

They swirl like leaves complaining against the fall

Circling around me like debris in a whirlwind

Each a willing perpetrator in abrasive mists

And I choke on the dust

Out of nowhere, out of boundless grace and blessings

Forgotten in some chemical shift

They settle around me in a halo

A slow-motion melancholy that descends without apology

Overwhelming and infinite

In a pool of hope, I am face down

Awake to every ripple

Every disturbance and distortion

Every intrusion

The dead leaves are like memory and speech

Fallen from infinite branches of possibility

Their sibling roots and weeds hold me under

Looping in hypnotic array

Things change, she told me

Then to settle sideways and decelerate

With fleeting vapors of happiness

Perceived grace or accidental joy

I am on the brink of everything

Or so my speck of thought goes

It bleeds over, in and between

And dictates action

Within this singularity of conception is a vacuum of thought

Or a sinkhole of naiveté

Shame-filled and broken down, I cannot hide

But am carried from imagined whispers

Or made-up gaspsTo a place of all forgetfulness

The wood cracks beneath my feet

Though in timid steps devoid of caution

The boards speak to me in broken language

Go on, no one else will see

But I have seen

And to that which gives me strength

Unfold all my worry

Unfettered random run-on scrawl of consciousness

Contaminates the page

Corrupting utterly my threadbare comprehension

Nothing but virus now

Not even a chance to engage myself in anything more

Than imaginary conversations with my own kind

And the only thing that keeps me warm

Is the hum and glow of my machines

Too many words in the space between my eyes

None lasting long enough to register

Long enough to decipher

Their brother and sister images corrupt my memory

Leaking profusely and flashing blind

A momentary distraction

Virulent, nervous

Showing me those who call themselves friends

Not as I assume them to be

But as they truly are

Showing me horrors of faded persons

Where mobiles of infinite grace were not enough

And where we once stood smiling unhindered

Now beaten down, unlooked for

Showing me multiple infinite facets

Showing me the transmutations of supposed angels

Or beings that were once girls

One single moment of clarity

Everything distilled to one unspeakable singularity

Even as it crumbles away

Under the weight of your breath

So too the fragile apparatus of affection

Friendship, desire, lust, protection

Perseverance and forbearance

Under the weight of your indifference

Is strained but not broken

Bent but whole still

Bruised but smiling

Silent but knowing