Archive of Our Own

The Outside Inflation - A Daft Punk Fanfiction

-----------------

-click-

Booting up, your current situation restored
logged and processes and referenced,
the fundamental question remains:
who are you?

The sun rises. Its glare reflects off your face.
It's familiar, but not in recent memory, or so you think.

Booting up, unit GM08,
also known as Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo,
awakening into the light once more:
where will you be then?

-----

-play-

When morning comes I sit up and look around, only to find that the outside has been inflated in a truly alarming fashion while I was out cold, and that you are no longer by my side.

What I mean by 'inflated' is difficult to describe, admittedly. It's not the easiest thing in the world to notice, considering my location.
At first glance, all anyone would see upon waking would be the following:

• Sand.
• Open sky.
• A whole lot of nothing.

All in extremely liberal quantities, and perhaps with a little scatter of vegetation here and there. By all means as normal as desert landscapes can get. But that's not the only thing I mean. I'm... I don't know what I feel, but...
... What I mean is that, there seems to be - more - of the above than when I last remember.

• There weren't any sand dunes around me the last time. Now I'm surrounded by them, huge, towering ones.
• I'm sure that there were no trees within a ten-mile radius of where my position was last recorded. Now I'm in a grove full of them.
• The temperature and wind direction are all different, but they can change multiple times in a day, so that's not as alarming.
• The sky was high and cloudless to begin with, but it wasn't this painfully wide and vivid and blue last time.
• My clothes are full of sand, and a layer of very fine sediment coats my screen. Static makes it cling tightly to the surface.
• And of course, the most jarring difference: you aren't here, and I have no idea what happened to you or where you are.

I try to lift up my hand. A high-pitched squeak sounds from my wrist. I probably need oiling - but so soon? Consulting my logs again, I see that something doesn't add up, and cross-reference everything I can see now with what was last recorded: all of the above noted factors, combined with my last sighting of you, they were logged...

...

... Fourteen days, three hours and forty-four minutes ago.

Two weeks. Half a month of blank space. Between then and now there is nothing but inky blackness.

...

... oh... oh my God. Thomas.
What's... what's happened to me?

...

I can't stay here. It's already approaching midday.
At a loss as to what else I could do, I struggle to my feet and look down at myself - not changed very much from the last time I remember, which I'm grateful for. It heightens the belief in me that things are as they seem, which is the only beacon of comfort I have right now. Movement isn't a problem, either, which is convenient. Scan all around for you, but you're not within the radius, or at least - well - I can't sense you, is what I'm saying.

I hope it's an error from my end, or that you genuinely are somewhere out of reach. As long as your signal exists.

Check fuel levels. 95%. Not bad, despite having been out for two weeks in the middle of the desert. It drains slowly enough already; but 95% remaining in those circumstances, with no physical damage other than sand in my clothes, is quite frankly a miraculous result. the shade must have helped. All the better for me, I have to find you. My last recorded co-ordinates are approximately twenty-three miles from here, and it's as good as anywhere else as a place to begin. Turning southeast, I turn my head and look back for the last time before climbing up and over the sand dune nearest to me.

The sand rustles against my feet, making a soft buzzing noise that follows me wherever I go.
Makeshift notes. Natural frequencies. Their whispers remind me of your motor going strong.

It's awful quiet even so and it makes me miss you.

-----

I'm sorry, I was just trying to

——-

-skip-

I walk on for half a day and a few more things drift into place. The surroundings are still oppressive, towering over me, but they don’t alarm me as much now. What has me dismayed now is that I’ve defeated my objective before I’ve really begun, and this is because of one very simple fact: you are dead, and what’s more, you’ve been dead for quite a long time.

First came the distinct memory of our time in Independence. I was remembering snatches of that from the start, and didn’t at all feel alarmed about it initially - so we were exiled, and we voluntarily walked into the desert. Sad, but not by any means difficult to understand, or even all that tragic for the time. I thought we might have gotten separated somewhere - that I might have stayed for a rest while you walked on, or that we’d argued and gone different ways, but I was entirely confident that you were alive.
Then came the days of our walking, each day distinct from the next, blurring a little with each sunset… and a few minutes ago I very inconveniently remembered that at some point we’d stopped, and that you’d turned your back on me, and asked me very politely to help you die.

What’s more, and this is the worst of all, I don’t remember if I said yes.

That’s not a contradiction. I have no doubt at all that you are dead. I simply don’t remember if I agreed of my own volition or you coaxed me into it. Whatever happened, that explains the two weeks I’ve spent completely out of it, if I wandered off traumatized somewhere and lay down for days on end. And I’m experiencing it all over again. Stunned and confused, I sit down where I am and gaze blankly ahead at the distance, feeling the pieces slowly come together in my mind - right there was a flash of silver as you dropped your jacket on the ground, and I remembered just now that a raven was flying overhead when you turned around - and what I’m hoping for, eventually, are the co-ordinates to where we last were together and the answer to the above question. But until then there is nothing, there is nothing I can think of doing at all.

——-

-skip-

…

Here I am.

I was already heading in the right direction, it turns out. I only veered off to the side by half a mile or so, an error swiftly corrected when I finally remembered the co-ordinates. My body remembered it before what I’d like to call my mind did. And the carnage is exactly as appalling as I feared it to be, what used to be a fairly-compact you spread out over a radius of thirty meters. I can see your ground zero; I edge over to it, hoping to find some semblance of your power core left, but there is nothing but a thick coating of ash and melted lead from your wiring.

Something rustles by my feet, prodding into my shoe. I pick it up. It’s a shard.
More accurately, a shard of you, the largest one that I can see. Three and a quarter inches long and an inch wide, sharp, all intact, mirror polish. Very clean. Too clean, almost, for a piece that’s been lying in the desert for two weeks.

With the shard in hand I look up and scan the surroundings. The terrain is very smooth, cracked earth with only the sparsest of vegetation; I scuff at a tiny patch of grass by my feet and the whole plant, roots and all, ends up being tugged out of the ground. It’s dried out and probably has been dead for a long time. I think this is probably the remnants of a salt flat that hasn’t been rained on for a long time, which would explain quite a few things. Not much dust or sand can build up on those. Not much builds up on salt flats except for salt.

What do I do now?

I was shaken before knowing you were dead, finding you like this makes it infinitely worse. I knew we would explode upon activating the destruct switch, but it’s not as if I’ve witnessed it before. I’ve searched long and hard for the memories, but I do not remember your actual detonation, only that you walked away from me. I must have blanked it out altogether. Unsettled at the sight of you so broken and scattered, I begin to frantically pick up the pieces, holding them helplessly in my cupped hands for a moment before building them up in a pile over where you detonated. I can’t stand the sight of that black mark and the idea of you vaporizing into the elements, so I have to blank that out too, covering it up with silver and what I think are burnt scraps of leather. Now and then a rubbery piece comes apart, or I find pieces that do not belong together glued with something black and sticky between them and I know that the extreme heat from the explosion must have melded skin and metal together.

See here. This piece. From the pattern I think it was part of your palm.
The surface, it’s bubbled up from the heat…

Don’t think about it, Guy.

Don’t… don’t think about it. I finish the job in silence.

It takes me over an hour. I contemplate placing the shard that I first picked up atop your grave, but hesitate a little too long, and before I know it it’s made its way into my jacket pocket. I won’t protest it. Have a memento of you to carry around. But see, that’s what I mean. The enormity of what I saw, of the fact that you have been reduced into literal pieces smaller than the length of my fingers, only hits me as I’m walking away. I’m still closer than I thought; I haven’t escaped the blast radius when it hits me again, once and for all, and I kneel down and collapse onto the earth, wanting to die. This is ridiculous. It’s been hours. I picked up and assembled your corpse into a cairn for God’s sake - get up, Guy-Manuel, you’re being idiotic, it’s gone and done now! It’s been done for weeks now, just because you saw it late it doesn’t… it… doesn’t-

…

Thomas. Thomas, why?

You could have changed your mind… we can’t activate our own switches nor turn it off, but it cannot be pulled down forcibly if we don’t wish for it to be pulled down via an otherwise-unmovable lock. And a fellow robot can easily deactivate the signal at the any point if we so send a request, and that’s what I’m talking about. (When a robot is completely alone the issue of trying to turn off that switch doesn’t arise in the first place.) To my knowledge you never did. No, you… you said you wanted to die and you meant it and you never looked back.

The sun is setting. My first day, truly alone, already dying in the distance. Hopelessly I reach towards my back to see if I might be able to make the move, but I can’t. I didn’t expect to be able to, but hope is a torturer. If I’m ever getting out, I’m not getting out by that method.

Sometimes things don’t go exactly as I planned. But I didn’t want it to end up like this, that’s for damn sure.

…

Sit up again. The wind rustles my jacket. I don’t look back as I get up and walk away, like how you didn’t.

…

Thomas… if you can hear me, I just want you to know that I love you. I’m confused and frightened but I love you and I miss you so much.

Something rustles in my pocket. I take it out. It’s the shard.
I put it back in my pocket and walk on.

——-

-rewind-

I know what you were trying to do, and I appreciate it, Guy.
Because. You know.

——-

-fast-forward-

When morning comes I sit up and look around to an oasis.

Well, I stand corrected. For an oasis it’s a poor one; there’s some water, but barely a pool, and it’s mostly yucca trees and a few shrubs here and there, with some desert flowers where I’m sitting. It’s a lot more life than I’m used to seeing in the middle of the desert, however, and what would I do with water anyway? I find this place comforting and that’s all that matters.

Perhaps I’m being punished for doing as you asked. Maybe this is hell. Losing things that I will never get back again. That’s partially why this abode is so comforting to me. I don’t figure that I’m going to get many choices in hell, but what I can choose I would like the make the most of while I can.

It’s been several moons since I left the blast zone. I’ve walked many days’ worth, stopped and thought away many more hours, and occasionally lay down to put myself on temporary standby while the ground was cool. The temperature difference in the desert is astounding. But other than that I have found little reason to carry on or do anything of much note; walking in circles isn’t going to help me with my memories, and I’m not yet brave enough to venture back to your grave and hope for answers. There might not be any. The two weeks that I spent away, they might be lost to the sands of time for all I know; sometimes hard drives fail and are not recoverable, sometimes a file is gone forever. It happens. I certainly don’t like it that it happens - it makes me sadder, actually, that for a robot like myself forgetting will be as simple as that - but it does happen.

I think we’re all in hell, perpetually, as a state of mind. We just don’t think of it as such. We don’t need to.
It wouldn’t be punishment enough for the narcissists if it were special and everyone wants more validation than they need.

I pluck a flower from next to me and hold it up. It’s very fragile, unlike what I’d have expected of a desert flower, and a pure white. But in my hand it’s sizable and quite beautiful, really, and a metaphor for ourselves. I think you’d have liked to see it, Thomas. It’s a shame we never reached this part when we were together. Would the sight of life, clinging on and flourishing triumphant even in the harshest of conditions, inspired you to stay and move on? Might I be so selfish as to imagine you next to me, the two of us lying in beauty together, assured once and for all that we deserve it?

I’d like to think it, if I may.

Lie down by the flowers. Set the one I plucked on my chest, fold my hands over it carefully. The white contrasts with my black and gold. It’d have complimented you better, Thomas, I can dream. Eventually I will have to leave this place - I can’t allow myself to settle or be too comfortable - but until then, I’ll enjoy what I can get. Then I’ll figure out what happened or die trying, sure, but… well.

I’ll miss the flowers.

——-

-pause-

I am standing in the middle of the salt flats. It is raining. I am somehow unaffected.
Rain doesn’t bother me as much as people might assume, but despite that, standing in it for hours - and I know it must have been raining for hours, because I can look down and see myself extending upside-down into the watery ground, nothing but the heavens mirrored around me for miles on end - with barely any protection still isn’t a good idea. I can feel the water leaking in through the soles of my well-worn shoes and even this has no effect on me. I’m not sure if my systems have failed to detect a threat because there isn’t one to begin with, or because they actually have failed; I’m not sure if any of this happened, or is happening, in the first place.

Water, water everywhere, the earth dissolves around me.

The outside is wide and heavy upon my shoulders, but for once, it is not uncomfortable.
I haven’t felt this clear-minded in a while. So there’s that. I wish you could see this, Thomas.

Thomas.
Thomas Bangalter.
My friend. Poor love. My poor, misled friend.

You let me go for a multitude of reasons that made sense to you. If I think hard about it, and I’ve had plenty of time to think about it, I can see the logic that gave birth to each one as well. Letting me go meant a separation before it meant your death, or mine - you wouldn’t have to see me suffer any more, and I wouldn’t be held back by your being here. Even if neither of us had lost the will to live, you’d still have suggested going our separate directions at some point, I’m sure. You just expressed it differently, because by then you had no further desire to go in any direction.

You wanted me to carry on and find happiness somewhere on my own terms. That sentiment I can appreciate, but not the premises that led up to it.

Your definition of us separating entailed your death, and me remaining alive. Why you ever thought that I wanted to stay here, that I don’t understand. I stayed on the spot after pulling that lever, don’t you remember? I wanted to die. And after taking this three-week vacation in the Mojave, I still want to die. The view can be rather pretty at times, yes, and I suppose you’re no longer in a condition to remember anything, but the facts don’t change. You actively had to walk away from me in order to spare me, or whatever it was that you thought you were doing.

I wonder what you’re up to now. Ask me what I’ve been up to and I’ll say oh, nothing much; ask me how I feel and I’ll say I feel fine; ask me if I believe in the future and I’ll tell you that I damn well hope so. You could even ask me about pain and how I relate to it.
That’s it though. I don’t. I embrace it for the goal that you denied me, death, for a reason that I only wish I understood on my own terms. I’m not here to compare notes with pain, only to be one with it.

You can ask all the questions you can ever want in the world. You should. It’s good for you. But at the end of it you’ll realize that the only answers you find are the ones you crave.

What do I crave, Thomas?

I bend my knees and stare into the watery surface beneath me. My reflection, the twice-untrue vision of myself, stares back. I haven’t moved quite enough to cause a disturbance; I give it another minute or two before reaching out and slowly dipping one finger into the brine, vertically downwards, sinking barely an inch before it touches solid ground. The water ripples in large, even concentric circles around the disturbance, erasing my reflection into null. From the east the morning sun shines down on the scene, many-angled light congregating endlessly, and it is beautiful. It is so beautiful that my heart thrums irregular at the very sight of it, jolting me out of the vision and into cold harsh reality once more. The reality isn’t myself in a world of mirrors, hoping to blend in and be lost amongst countless others exactly like me. The reality is myself in the middle of the desert trying to reclaim three hundred and thirty-six hours of my life before I burn out like candlelight. Before it’s too late.

But me standing in the middle of the desert thinking of the nature of reality isn’t reality, either. I haven’t recorded rain at any point since I woke up, and this moment can’t have been a flashback during my blackout period, because I’ve been talking of events of this week and not back then. None of it adds up.

Never mind. Never… never mind. I have to move on.

Forget about this moment.
It was nice while it lasted, but I don’t think it ever happened.

——-

-play-

Sometimes I think you chose to be sad, so that you wouldn’t suffer the disjointedness of complacency.

——-

-rewind-

I can’t take care of myself.

——-

-fast-forward-

A note about how Thomas operated, and also myself by extension.

We’re not ‘rechargeable’ in the sense that we can be plugged in somewhere. We run on fuel. We don’t need a lot of fuel, usually - especially with so few processes actively engaged, as is the case with me right now - and what we get lasts for a while, but eventually there comes a point where we must stop and pour some more in. We’re nanite-based; they’re what needs feeding, call them our ‘blood’ if need be, it’s not quite the same but for now that descriptor will do. They run on certain fluids (which I’ll save you the exact composition of) rich in amino acids and proteins, and Thomas and I would spend hours mixing large batches of it every now and then, pouring them into containers and sealing them up for easier carrying in comfortable silence. A 45-gallon drum kept the two of us going for months.
None of that matters though. What matters is that I’m out of fuel and therefore am going to die.

I can’t say I feel anything about that, one way or the other. On one hand I wouldn’t mind dying, but if by a miracle something does come along to save me, I wouldn’t protest it, either. I’ve become apathetic; that’s the worst of it, I think. That I’ve become complacent. Life carries on throwing its various quirks in my direction for me to deal with, and all I do is to sit and take it. I make it about five hours, roughly, before the nanites begin to eat me from inside out and then themselves in hunger.

It’ll be agonizing, but I for one am glad to be of use through my death, as morbid as that sounds. Some people would be happy with a sky burial, going back to and feeding nature; that’s much harder to do for a robot, so in a way, I’m quite honoured. I’m glad I stayed here. It’s a good place to die.

With that thought in mind I lie down and pillow my hands behind my head. Before long I’m on standby again and at peace. This slumber doesn’t last as long as the one that came before it. In less than half an hour I’m jostled awake by something brushing against my legs and leaping right over me, its shadow darting heavily over my visor the instant I come online; startled, I hurl myself backwards and stay absolutely still for a moment or two, trying to understand what just happened. (My knees creak in protest, and the fuel warning flashes again. I shut it off.) The patches of grass around have been heavily disturbed, but other than a few scuffed prints I don’t see anything else - whatever was just around, they were being pursued by or in pursuit of something.

Then I see it, mere feet away from me. It’s a Gambel’s quail, likely separated from a larger flock. It’s laying on its side; one wing seems broken, the feathers bent in the wrong shape, and what I originally thought was part of its markings is actually a slow-spreading blood stain. Closer examination reveals a couple of fang punctures. From what, I don’t know. A bobcat?

But more importantly: what do I do with it?

I haven’t been this close to another in a while, whether beast or human or robot, so it’s a surprise knowing that I now have some sort of responsibility for this creature. I noticed it and I’m the only one nearby; even if I sat here and literally did nothing, I would then have let it die. Just by being here, I can’t avoid being associated with this quail.
Then something else strikes me. Blood. The blood. Blood has proteins and amino acid. It might not be the exact type used in my preferred mixture nor in the same ratios, but it might do in a pinch. Even as I reason this out I can’t believe what I’m doing, but already I’m reaching for the quail and picking it up, gingerly, in both hands, trying to drive in home that I actually did think what I just thought.

It tries and fails to squawk. Its chest, scaled and glinting, heaves in agony. I’m not providing it any comfort. I imagine my hands have conducted a little too much heat for that. Can I do this? Am I really going to do this, Thomas? Stare for a second or two to the horizon, and then I have my answer.
When I said ‘miracle’ earlier this is not what I was expecting, but then, if I were, it wouldn’t be a miracle.

There’s a fuel chamber in my left thigh. Taking off my jacket, I fold it up and set it gently aside, laying the still-breathing quail atop it to protect it from the sand. Its beak slowly opens and closes as it stares at me, and I try not to look at it; I doubt it understands what’s going on or what kind of situation it’s in, but innocence is innocence. And I do feel bad about this, as detached from that as I feel right now. The emotion is there. It’s just that I’ve suffered far worse in recent times, is all. Then I stand up and unzip my trousers, unbuttoning and half peeling them down my thighs; the leather clings to my skin and it feels tight and unpleasant, I can only imagine how much more horrible this would be if there was any moisture involved, thank my creators for that. Robots don’t sweat, there’s been no rain around, and I have no true need to approach water even though I can see plenty of it mere feet away. There’s not a lot more else to be thankful for when it comes to my creators, but you take what you get. Peeling back the flap of silicone and carbon nanotubes, I see the outline of the opening and spend a little while picking away at the edges of it with the very tips of my fingers, trying to lift it up.

It’s not impossible to open it up like that, I have to clarify. It’s simply easier with a tool at hand. It’s not as if Thomas and I were given fingernails.

Eventually I catch the lid and flip it up. It moves smoothly without a sound. I unscrew the cap beneath and put that aside, then bend forwards, staring right into the inky blackness of myself. There should be plenty of things in there aside from fuel or whatnot, but I can’t see them clearly in this light, nor do I really wish to. The only thing I can possibly gain from looking into this thing - fuel levels - I already know. That’s far too many words for what’s best described as hesitation.

Get a move on now, maybe.

I look up and at the quail. It’s almost dead. Its heartbeat is slow, uneven, so quiet that within a minute or two it becomes too faint for me to hear or feel.
That makes it easier for it and myself, I suppose. I grasp its body securely with my left hand, careful to hold its wings closed tight before twisting its neck with my right hand in so exquisitely slow a manner I can hear the newspaper crackle of its feathers, the electric twitch of its body and the faint snapping of its small, hollow bones as they fracture inside it. That is all the quail needs before it goes completely limp, sharp fragments of bone stabbing their way out of its skin and trickling blood that seeps through its feathers and down my fingers and dripping into the fuel chamber; I could set it down and let the blood drain out slowly, me having all of the time in the world, but for some reason I can’t leave it alone. It’s both my awe and contempt for life showing through, or maybe I’ve become used to the idea of death being the final destination, I don’t know. Interpret it how you want. What I’m trying to say is that instead of just letting the quail be, I stare at it for only a few seconds before closing my right hand around it again and squeezing tight, slow at first then with more urgency as I feel its skeletal structure being crushed razor-sharp inside its useless mortal body. Fairly soon I’m going at it with both hands, the thicker keratin shafts of its feathers crumbling into powder between my fingers, down matting with blood and other fluids as I squeeze all semblance of the bird’s physical form out of itself with what I duly term an agonizing slowness. Compacting, compressing, crushing; a bloody feather is stuck between my finger joints, my precious, makeshift fuel trickling down to my elbows, but all I care is the amount that I can get out of this quail and directly into my fuel chambers. By the base of its tail some of its blood feathers break off against my palm, the edges digging into and smearing dark, thick congealed blood all over my skin, and it’s actually rather painful but I don’t stop.

Pieces of you flying everywhere, liberated from the core into the wider world, a kind of explosive decompression.
With this quail, I’m pressing everything I can get a hold of into its center instead. The antithesis of your death.

It feels like an eternity before it stops, but really, it only take a couple of minutes. I loosen my grip, and with the now thoroughly-mashed body of the quail in my right hand, examine the fuel chamber again. What I see is a few tiny down feathers mixed in (but I can’t bring myself to care about those) with a truly alarming amount of blood, more than I think the quail must have been capable of holding in the first place. Or perhaps I wasn’t as emptied out as I thought and what I’m seeing sloshing around in there is a mixture of pre-existing fuel and blood. I can’t be sure. I’m confusing myself. I’m not exactly complaining about there being more for me, I’m just saying that it’s strange. I screw the fuel cap back on, swivel the lid back into place, and smooth the flap of skin over all of that before I pull my trousers back up.

The nanites should be feeding on that soon. Only time will tell as to how I’ll react to it.
Considering the composition of blood I can’t imagine that I’d have a great deal of trouble, though.

The quail? I bury it under the brush before I go. Any damage that’s been done to my hands during this entire ordeal is, broadly, negligible; I don’t exactly bleed out or lose any functions (major or minor) from a few tiny punctures in the skin. It’s no problem for me to dig it a grave, and sit in front of it for a while; it’s also an error to think that I mourn it or have profound thoughts about the quail, other then a mild sense of regret, but what I could do, I have done. After that I finally pick up my jacket, dust it, and put it back on.

Something rustles in my pocket. I take it out. It’s the shard.
It’s smaller today, almost as if it wanted to shrivel up and disappear into my clothes forever.

…

I must go now, Thomas. I can feel the nanites perking up. You have answers and I refuse to let them die with you. I need to be alive until then.
What happens when I next need a refueling, you ask?

I murdered with this hand twice. I can always do it again.

I put the shard back in my pocket and walk on.

——-

-skip-

Well would you look at that. I’m on fire.

Not literally I mean. Not just yet.
Core temperature twenty degrees above normal.
Not meant to be so hot. Tired.
Systems are fully operational. Just not at optimal levels.

Don’t think nanites are responding well to blood…

Everything is working, so for most part I’m sure they’ve learnt to shut the fuck up and take it.
That doesn’t mean that they like it, though. I think that’s the message they’re sending me.

I want to say that it’s kind of rich of them to do this now, when they’re basically serving as my blood, but I also suppose that this must be what a blood transfusion gone wrong feels like. It’s not the exact same thing - I didn’t inject the quail’s blood into me nor did I seek to replace the nanites with it - but from the way they’re reacting you’d think they were trying to organize a putsch or something.

I can ride it out. It’s no less than I deserve. I stare up at the night sky and when I first look everything seems blurred, but the longer I stay still the more my vision settles, until I can see with a sharp, intense clarity that I haven’t managed in weeks. The cold desert wind whips about my body and cools me down; when the sun rises I’ll be in a hell like no other, no doubt, if the fever hasn’t receded by then. But for now I see straight, my mind is beautifully empty, pain flooding in to erase the clutter within and leaving it deliciously pure.

Oh it burns, Thomas.

Oh.

Oh, it burns.

——-

No hope. No hope. No hope. No hope. No hope.

——-

-skip-

I am lying facedown in the sand. Perfectly horizontal on the ground, arms splayed weakly by my side, unmoving.
Taking a dirt nap. Literally. The grains are everywhere; digging into my skin, leaving tiny imprints; in my helmet, rolling atop my circuitboards.
Life is kind of like this sand. Gets in your eyes. Irritates. And eventually, we all return to it.

Or maybe that’s just robots. Silicon, glass and all. But maybe humans too. I’m sorry. I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.

Anyway… what was I doing this for, again? Oh, right. There’s a sandstorm above me and I’m hoping, somewhat in vain, for it to swallow me up. I haven’t got the tools to dig my own grave, but I can lie down and wait for the dirt to pile atop me, so at some point in the past eight hours I’ve gone and done just that. Right now is the height of it, and I tense in anticipation as the storm blows straight against-and-over my body, already feeling the sand beating against my jacket.

…

Or not. The storm’s too fast and carrying too little sand to bury me. Another strong burst of wind, and it all washes away into nothing.

Son of a bitch.

——-

oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god

——-

what have they done to me?
what have they done to me?
what have they done to me?
what have they done to me?
what have they done to me?
what have they done to me?
what have they done to me?
what have they done to me?
what have they done to me?
what have they done to me?
what have they done to me?
what have they done to me?
what have they done to me?
what have they done to me?

——-

-rewind-

I would like it if you could help me. I won’t be troubling you again after that.

——-

-skip-

-skip-

Today I sit in the brushes and watch a yucca tree bloom in double time. There’s no rain to aid its growth, but as I sit there and stare up at it, creamy-white buds burst forth in large panicles and expand before withering away just as quickly as the initial transformation. Instead of fruiting, though, it just repeats again, over and over. It’s very pretty and if I were human I’d probably wish to be able to smell it or something. But it’s not until the forty-fourth cycle that I figure out what any of this might have to do with me. It’s to confirm to me what I’ve been suspecting; time isn’t flowing here in this desert as I expected, and probably hasn’t been doing so for a while.

I thought I was immune to the tricks of time, being a robot, but I was wrong. It’s not too hard to see where I went wrong, either. Somewhere along the initial line of my creation there was a human being, programming the notion of time and date into me, someone who’s had to believe in what calendars and clocks have got to say. I can theorize about it all day, but ultimately, time is not a dimension that I can comprehend any more than humans can. I too am only a slave to its whims.

The more important thing is whether I’ve been perceiving time as slowed down or sped up, but God help me, I think it’s been both.

…

Those two weeks, maybe they weren’t two weeks of blackout after all. Maybe they were much longer. Or shorter. The only reference frame I have are my logs and I now know them to be fallible. And maybe I haven’t been wandering for three weeks since then, either, maybe I’ve been here forever and just haven’t noticed it until now. Fuel levels don’t help me now either. Can’t figure out when I’ll need to refuel. I’ll catch something else while I’m here and see how that goes.

The outside. What’s the outside like?

…

I don’t mean the outside as in the skies/sand/trees, I mean… the outside, as in the world external to this desert. The desert that I know and wander, at least. Civilization. What’s it like there? When I first went looking for you I would occasionally pause to check if I could sense a presence other than the two of us; I never found anything of much note, except for the vague idea of where Independence was. (I don’t want to go back there.) I do a quick scan and find nothing within a radius of thirty miles, but forty - just forty or so miles ahead, there is a small settlement. Beyond that, or closer detail of the settlement itself - that, my scanners aren’t good enough to check. I haven’t updated anything in a long time, come to think of it, and it’s not been for the total lack of a network. Where there’s civilization there’s bound to be something I can connect to, and I’m sure there might be satellites in the area; I’ve been the one running away, the one who shut down significant amounts of their network hardware, the one who withdrew quite literally into a world of their own. I don’t even really know the actual time and date anymore. I only think in terms of days past since my waking up, your detonation, or the day that came right before.

But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter…

Wasn’t as if I was going to give the place a try, anyway. I consider it, but think better of it. In fact, that right there is an indication that I should walk the other way and further back towards where I’ve come from. I’m slowly building up a boundary, figuring out the largest amount of open space that I can be in without having to share it with another; the outside that had looked so inflated and intimidating before, I’m now anxious to cling onto as much of it as possible. The desert is only as big as people make it sound because they still count the places where people live in it. The true no man’s land is a lot smaller than that and it is unfortunately there that I wish to exist in and it’s shrinking and I don’t want it to shrink and…

… That’s enough, Guy-Manuel.

Something rustles in my pocket. I take it out. It’s the shard.
I close my palm softly over it and it crumbles to pieces, collapsing into tiny jagged little pieces and silvery dust like a miniature recreation of your death. Aghast, I stare down at it, unable to believe what just happened even as the fragments are lost in the sand and the sharper edges of the shard(s) dig into my skin.

…

Well, then.

——-

-skip-

Thomas, I thought you were my rock, steadfast for always. I loved you, and yet… you were just the siren above it.
You sang to me. I can remember every one of those songs. Some sad and low and barely audible to us, let alone human beings. Some soft and cleansing, meant to flush out all the negative emotions, coursing through our bodies when we interfaced. Some whimsical, like all the pieces you’d hum to yourself while driving. Some meant only for myself when I was nearly burnt out or about to shut myself off for the night, melodic - sweet - like a soft sleeping kiss.

Waves could crash into me, saltwater burning and burrowing its way into my circuits, pulling me into darkness.

But I wouldn’t have cared. With you I could have disappeared. And the waves of maybes and ifs and could haves are washing over me again, only this time I am alone and terrified; it’s smothering and it’s getting harder to think again.

——

Starting to believe that you only did this to hurt me.

——-

-rewind-

I’d lay down my life at your feet if you asked, you know that. And you’d do the same.
We’ve always listened to each other’s wants and needs.

——-

-fast-forward-

Squeezed the life out of something else today. Not a quail, might have been a hare of some sort.
Whatever it was, it screamed really loud, though I was much louder.

No, I wasn’t terrified in any way. I just liked the challenge.

The killing itself I felt indifferent about; something I have to do to survive, nothing more.
I almost wish I enjoyed it. That would be a proof of sadism, what is largely a unique human trait.

But no. Just one kill after another for survival. Don’t like it, don’t not like it.
Here I am, neither animal nor human, wanting to go one way but slipping into the other path that I’d never considered before.

Can’t bring myself to care for that either.
Tired. In a few hours the insanity will come again.

Betrothed is betrayed. Or something like that.

Maybe I don’t really give two shits about you and your reasons.
Maybe I’m just doing this because I’m bitter.

——-

This isn’t the way you ought to be treating your friends

——

-rewind-

Who else can I trust, if not you, Guy?

——

-fast-forward-

if only you could see yourself now thomas.
if only you could see what you’ve done to me
if only you could see what you’ve done to yourself
this is your life now thomas.
this is your existence
this is your purpose
this is your life
defined by your death
as ironic as that sounds
and I’m honestly trying not to make this sound funny
because it’s not funny in the slightest that you are gone
nor that you are gone due to some
let’s say unreasonable
circumstances totally beyond your control
but you also know something /#/ there are a mil
it’s hideously unfair that you had to take me with you /#/ lion voices in m
and at the same time left me behind like this /#/ y head. and i try to lis
it’s hideously unfair that you didn’t respect my choice /#/ ten, but for s
whilst you threw yours in my face and walked away /#/ ome strange rea
it’s not fair thomas. /#/ son i can’t parse them cl
it’s not fair that I should be a slave to you /#/ early
and that you could just forget me and disappear /#/ i’m not i
(there being no afterlife as far as we know) /#/ nsane.
I really wish things were different /#/ no no no no no
but wishing is a futile pursuit /#/ but yes wishing is a fu
I wish it wasn’t this way /#/ tile pursuit
I wish I could move on thomas /#/ the essence
but all I can think about is you /#/ of wishing as a
and I wish I could remember /#/ n activity relies o
what I am forgetting /#/ n the fact th
fill in the gaps so I might at least /#/ at the wish isn’t true
know what the hell happened to me /#/ at that precise time
it’s unfair that I should suffer so /#/ otherwise why would you
with you /#/ wish for anything
without you. /#/ you
……………. /#/ goddamned
……………. /#/ fool.
……………. /#/ mind is clearer but /#/ die
and you don’t understand /#/ this isn’t okay /#/ die
and I would say that it’s okay /#/ it hasn’t been okay for /#/ die
though actually it really isn’t /#/ some time now /#/ die
because it’s not like you’ll ever understand /#/ i just want /#/ why won’t you die
and perhaps I have known all along /#/ this shit to be over /#/ traitor
that up there you cry oil for me /#/ please just make it stop /#/ i’m
because of the mask /#/ make it stop as soon /#/ not
you needed to be yourself /#/ as possible. please just fucking /#/ interested
and so repelled you at the same time /#/ stop. /#/ in
which I too am suffering /#/ help me /#/ the
right now /#/ i need life /#/ least /#/ t
all because of you. /#/ or i need death /#/ FUCKING /#/ h
but you don’t care do you. /#/ someone /#/ thing /#/ o
you don’t care about anything /#/ something /#/ about /#/ m
and it’s not just because you’re gone /#/ anyone /#/ you /#/ a
and metaphysically can’t care /#/ at /#/ so just /#/ s
about anything you see. /#/ all /#/ finish /#/ …!
there are voices next to me /#/ don’t /#/ the
not in my head /#/ leave /#/ job
and I don’t like them nor what they’re saying /#/ me! /#/ already.
but I’m at least not giving into them, exactly because I don’t like them, which is just as well, isn’t it?!

——

-skip-

When morning comes I wake up to a sea of dead bodies around me, rotting and half-liquefied into the earth.

I don’t like them, so I just lie down and go back to sleep. Too early for this shit.

——

and all my thoughts and boundaries, they decay

—-

-rewind-

Who else can I trust, if not you, G JUST LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE you fu

—-

-stop-

I bury my head in my hands and stop time.
Just like that. It has stopped entirely and I
must say, I am glad. Just what I needed.
Everything is in perfect order in this place.
I have attained purity itself, wholeness if
you may, and for one beautiful instant that
stretches on for an eternity I feel truly okay.
Peace. Love. Floating in nirvana. Here no
elsewhere am I so free and untormented.
Until the light goes away. Until warmth dies.
All that is left is cold and darkness and I am
sadly empty once more. God fucking damnit

—-

-fast-forward-

-play-

cking idiot this isn’t real guy-manuel wake up optical sensors detecting blinding white light
grasp my head for some rEASON MY HEAD FEELS LIKE IT’S ABOUT TO EXPLODE and BLINDING WHITE LIGHT
DON’T LET THIS KILL ME THIS WILL KILL ME AND CRUSH ME AND TEAR ME TO PIECES AND SEND ME TO HELL

LOOK AWAY FROM ME

—-

look away

—-

look away from me

—

you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, right? a robot can be trusted to keep its word too, right? a robot can still dream, right? I’ve done things that I’m not proud of and I’m allowed to be tired of stuff like that, I’m sure. and when bad things are done there’s got to be a penance of some sort unless you’re implying in some way that robots are not morally responsible because they can’t think for themselves, in which case you are hideously wrong, my friend, at least in regard to those like myself and thomas, what are you, speciesist? friends not true friends. hate everyone. can’t trust body. body does bad things. tired of everything I just want it all to go away but I can’t kill myself due to r e a s o n s so I’ve got to at least settle for second best. something rustles in my pocket. I take it out. it’s the shard. three and a quarter inches long and an inch wide, sharp, all intact, mirror polish. you know what differentiates humans from the animals, thomas? what makes them really stand out amongst the species? not the brain, not language, not even self-awareness, no, what makes them gods compared to the animals is the humble thumb. and we have thumbs too, so basically we’re like gods as well, don’t you think? no? well I’m not too surprised because they didn’t think that of us either and it wasn’t long before you didn’t as well, which is the moment you stopped deserving those gifts. that’s why you haven’t got anything anymore to call your own, let alone thumbs. thomas bangalter doesn’t want to be god, it’s only fair he loses the ability to create, and he doesn’t exist anymore because guy-manuel de homem-christo turned him off with his right hand. guy-manuel de homem-christo did bad things with his hands, specifically the right one, so he doesn’t deserve that either.
the thin metal of your helmet shard slowly begins to separate the thin layer of skin on the tip of my right thumb, just digging in, and the jutting point of the shard dimples my skin before popping it and even then I need to twist it in hard, hard, really fairly hard, thumb eating knife edge I mean, for there to be any noticeable pain or a gush of fluid. kind of disappointing actually but then I’m not exactly trying to cut the whole thing off, just expose it to air. hatred and anger and paranoia like a worm has burrowed its way into my innards and has eaten away so much of me that now I’m as good as a mere thin shell around the worm. time to poke its way out to see the sunlight. I’ve thought for so long of throwing this piece of you on the ground and walking away but I’m glad now that I didn’t, how does it feel to see me now destroying the body you so wanted to save with a part of yourself? turns you on doesn’t it makes you shudder and leak everywhere doesn’t it? because it’s death that makes life so precious, Thomas, it’s the fact that we can’t just do whatever the fuck we want, the fact that we can’t just fuck and kill forever and ever and ever that makes what we actually do so important do you understand. my skin stretches thin elastic with each pull and I slowly unwind it in a dark, sticky, adhesive spiral from the tip of my thumb as if I would a bandage, as if I would an orange, and it screeches like duct tape as it peels off slow and sweet and greasy. my exoskeletal plates ping off at the loss of adhesive and into the dirt as I work it down to the base before tearing it right off, except I don’t do it hard enough and that slice of skin stretches long and thin into gum and shit this hurts like a motherfucker before it finally gives way and snaps off from the rest revealing spring and twitching endoskeleton why hello there, good afternoon you little bastards, how does it feel like to be out in the open not too bad now though is it?
the shard is still in my left hand and now I pull it out of my thumb and go further down, cutting myself an actual glove and the sharp edges of you sever a bundle of what passes for my nerves and some sort of wires I don’t know I don’t care that’s not what’s important what’s important is that lubrication and nanite fluid and god knows what else besides are freeflowing down my arm like someone twisted open a tap nearly all the way open and when I twitch the shard into the split seam I can see what passes for my muscles and tendons within all lovingly replicated, transparent, I can see my circuitboards and they’re sparking in protest as I strike down at them with the shard. but that’s not quite enough, I slice and slice into my wrist until I have cut a neat ring around the circumference, and with some effort I can lift up the skin all around the edges and roll them back like a fleshy cuff and it’s warm and glistening like a darkened slice of meat, and it’s tempting to shove the shard in there to cop a feel so that’s exactly what I do. and beneath it are air bubbles, thomas, and actually the shard’s useless now and blunted down to nothing so I throw it away. it’s easy to forget that I’m mostly metal and that what passes for my blood is no more than a combination of fluids and nanites, and that i can also shut off my pain receptors if I just fucking well felt like it. but that wouldn’t be as fun or as educational, so I didn’t do that.
I’m getting ahead of myself again. what was I doing? oh yeah. the skinning. of myself. use the hands-on approach. wriggle the index and middle fingers of my left hand in between the steadily-loosening flap of skin and whatever’s beneath it, hand within hand, clawing the skin off but it’s not that easy because the son of a bitch. keeps. clinging. I can withdraw the fourth finger, just about, and tearing at the torn and skinless and jagged base of my thumb frees up more space and oil but it’s still not quite enough. I give the second and third fingers a hard twitch, hoping to be able to free them the increasingly-deformed glove of skin without fuss, all the while pushing down on the makeshift cuff with my left thumb to roll it further down my palm. for a moment it resists, but when I help out by tightening the muscles in my hand the skin gives way and rolls down with a faint squelch. when the time is right I both clench my fist tight and grab the cuff (now rolled halfway down my hand) and rip the motherfucker right off with a sickening tearing noise, as I do so oil splatters against my face and stains my chest and abdomen, darkening and sticky-warm as it melds to my skin under the blistering hot sun and I don’t even care I’m heads down fucking losing it oh my god if only

-rewind-

-work it down to the base before tearing it right off, except I don’t do it hard enough and that slice of skin stretches long and thin into gum and shit this hurts like a motherfucker before it finally gives way and snaps off from the rest revealing spring and twitching endoskeleton why hello there, good afternoon you little bastards, how does it feel like to be out in the open not too bad now though is i-

-pause-

I forgot to mention something. This here, this part, when I’m trying to see clearly. That’s when I removed my helmet and dropped it on the ground, because I didn’t need it any more. I no longer care for it and should I survive until the next time the rain comes I want to stand there and feel it burn my face off.

While it wasn’t as vital to me as Thomas’s helmet would have been to him, though, it certainly robs me of a way of communicating with others. Can’t do high-definition recordings from this point onwards, either; what I see and experience is still of the same quality, but reviewing the recording later makes it look like I experienced it through a decades-old videotape. Sound quality is shit, too. I leave it, though, it’s a fairly good indicator of my mental state.

I am just letting go of my helmet. It is suspended in air, unmoving-

-fast-forward-

- and now it falls to the ground in high speed, bouncing a little and coming to a stop by my feet.

-play-

things were different, thomas, but I’ve been reciting that mantra for weeks and it didn’t help because words don’t actually mean anything

…

just

…

calm down, Guy.

…

When nothing remains, when you have nothing left, when that last thread snaps and plunges you into the deepest heart of your own darkness and fear, when you peel the skin completely off your right hand and dangle it in front of your face to see how beaten and broken up you actually are that that that that that is clarity, Thomas, that is seeing things truly for the first time, bonus points if you can do this without all the barriers/masks/helmets you’ve created for yourself you fucking coward. Maybe that’s why I survived. Endurance is like a loving friend, better than you anyway, endurance gave me sight beyond optical sensors and beyond a soul, which in all honesty isn’t so surprising when you consider that souls aren’t a thing that exists. Gosh, they’d sure love to know that, wouldn’t they, knowing that they’ve got that so fundamentally in common with those damn robots. Too bad the shard’s gone now, and definitely for good, because I was going to move onto my wrist after all of this, severing the wires and nanocircuits and snapping off bits of my endoskeleton while my other hand became slippery with oil and god knows what else besides watching the tendons pulse and eject streams and streams of fluid while the jagged stump crackled with static and only after all of that would i have thrown my hand to the ground and crushed it underfoot and oh i’m laughing again and laughing and laughing and i can’t stop

—

MY SOLUTION IS BETTER THAN YOURS.

-

when morning comes I wake up

-skip-

in an odd way I am at peace with everything.

-skip-

you have been thoroughly silenced inside me
I have played god and governor of my own world

-skip-

I have played god and I have won.

…

…

It’s not… all up to me, though.
I don’t think anybody ultimately changes themselves. Sure your voice isn’t haunting me any longer, but I didn’t silence you with will alone, or even physical actions. It’s what’s around us that can change, our situations rather; by existing you impart different implications to your surroundings, which only makes you feel as if you’re changing along with it. It’s a good excuse for when you need someone/something to blame if nothing else. I’m missing all the skin off my right hand because you cut into it, because you died to produce that shard, because the lever on your back got pulled, because you wanted it. Not because I helped you do it. And so on. Time is the revenge of nature, reducing both the tangible and intangible into null. We were friends a long time ago, Thomas. Yet like most friends we got out of touch, and unlearned ourselves. The lens only clears more the longer it’s there and then you focus inwards deep into the soul, infecting all the things you used to like about each other.

There’s no exception. If it’s a personality trait in someone, even just one person, one can get sick of it.
Everyone out there, anybody at all. When you meet anyone, just remember that someone else somewhere out in the world got bored with talking to them, fucking them, got jealous of them, grew up and decided that they couldn’t stand them, or whatever. Just remember that you can always be on either end of that cycle, the rejector or the rejected, and you’ll be fine.

Or you can go with my solution, the perfect one. The perfect solution is to just not trust anybody.

-skip-

Two months since you died, six weeks since I began wandering. The eighteenth of August, or so my systems tell me.
There’s a storm coming. I can hear it in the distance.
Thank heavens. I worried that I might have to survive a whole season.

-skip-

I welcome it and the end it brings.

-

This is it, this is what it has come to, I realize that when the dark rain finally hits the earth. I’ve made my way towards the salt flats; not the same one as the one you died in, but I don’t think that matters much, not now that I’m prepared to die. I can usually see the stars bright and clear during nights, but as I stand still in the middle of nowhere and stare up at the sky I can see them blowing out like candles, covered swiftly in murky grey.

It’s humid. My skin feels cold and clammy, a highly uncomfortable sensation. Moisture that’s both there and not there, heavy but not heavy enough. Get on with it already. My right hand has been dead for the past few hours, now, but I think it’d have been tingling intensely if it were still capable of feeling anything. I almost contemplate unscrewing my right arm altogether and getting rid of the dead weight, but there probably isn’t enough time. I haven’t got the tools.

I take off my jacket. It drops to the ground, never to be worn again.
Somehow that makes me think of you. Through the coming thunder I stare down at it.
I’ve been living through variations of the same moment over and over again.

Light tears through the sky. It illuminates something far in the distance.

It’s a cell tower.

Malaise squirms inside me at this intensely-familiar construction. Then lightning strikes again, the air around me so heavily charged with static that I startle and black out for two seconds; that’s not an exaggeration, that’s how long it lasts. I’m still on my feet when I come to and find everything unchanged. Everything, that is, except for my network hardware; shocked into a quick reset, and with a cell tower nearby, it has detected a network to connect to. I don’t even notice until a sudden (and extremely heavy) stream of data flows through me, demanding updates to my system, throwing my exact co-ordinates and geographical location back in my face, syncing the-

…?

… syncing… the…
wait, but I don’t understand… the fourth? The fourth of August? Are you joking? But that’s…

-

-rewind-

Guy… I think

-

oh god

i remember everything…

-

I made a mistake…”

-

… i said i’d do what you asked but i

-

"I changed my mind… I - I have to be where I want to be, and it’s not there!"

Approximately twenty seconds before detonation.
Thomas has stopped just short of thirty meters away from Guy. This means that both robots are within range of the upcoming explosion. Guy’s head snaps up; he’s been gazing in disbelief down at his own hand for the past half-minute, and even now he can’t quite process that this is what Thomas wants (dying/not dying) so he just stands there, staring. He can’t figure out what to do.

"I want more time, Guy."

Beep. Permission comes in. Prompt pops up. The timer keeps counting down.

"I’m sorry."

Click yes, and the self-destruct sequence will be aborted. Thomas won’t have another chance at dying after this; the lever, once pulled down, cannot be manually pulled up again. But he doesn’t care because-

"Guy, please help me - I don’t want to die!"

But Guy, he doesn’t react. He doesn’t help, but he doesn’t say no. He merely stays frozen to the ground with the prompt hovering in his screen. Then with only ten seconds left to go, he suddenly clenches his fists. With the desperate screams of “Guy!” ricocheting around him he takes a step and another and begins running

-

away.

-stop-

-reset-

Oh. Oh, God.

-play-

It wasn’t you. It wasn’t you, Thomas. It was me all along.
I couldn’t… you put me through the agony of pulling that lever. That alone was unspeakably awful, so much that I had no idea how to react when you changed your mind - I was confused, angry, that you could make me suffer and then decide otherwise on a whim, just like that, and…

…

I ran away.
Shut our network off.
Shut it off so I wouldn’t have to hear you screaming or dying.
Muted everything for good.
Ran as far as I could and wiped it all out, the memories of you and I, though not as much as I hoped to.
(I could have done but didn’t. Backed out on that too like the coward I am.)
Fucked around with my settings so I wouldn’t know what date it was, what time it was.
So nothing would trigger those memories back in me again.
Avoided satellites and civilization until now so I wouldn’t be jolted back into the real world.

But I did anyway, and any suffering you put me through, it can’t compare…

…

I…

I ran away and let you die, when you didn’t…

I knew what was going to happen. I let you die anyway. I murdered you.
The only one at fault here is me.

The rain is beating down harder. It’s genuinely painful now. I was not built to be delicate, but with my exposed face and hand, and with no shelter from the elements, I’ve reached my limit of endurance. I doubt that I’ll survive the next ten minutes - but, but I deserve to suffer more, don’t you understand?! The rain cloud blocks out the last of the moons and I feel a lurch deep inside me, just above my thighs and close to my abdomen where my power core sits; it is a thick, unpleasant feeling and before I know it the feeling turns sharper, arching up my spine and coiling in my chest and black oily sludge pours from the seams of my face and between the wires into a grotesque, oversized dollop that splatters onto the ground. It spreads fast as a film of oil and what looks like digested blood around my feet, iridescence shimmering atop that in a twisted display of beauty.

The end is nigh.

I tighten my fist. Something stabs firmly into my palm, making me cry out and flinch backwards. Fluid drips from where it punctured me.
I take it out. It’s the shard. Three and a quarter inches long and an inch wide, sharp, all intact, mirror polish.
It winks at me with the lightning and this time the wink is different.
It is closer, so much closer. And this is when I get really scared for the first time.