Still the Sun

by Charlie N. Holmberg

Nothing ruins a funeral like an unfinished grave.

I’m a digger. I dig graves, I dig furrows for crops, I dig wells. Bodies aren’t going to bury themselves, and it’s not as though water can grow on trees or fall from the sky.

It’s only by utter exhaustion that I sleep.

mood 💀🤣

I walk him up to the third floor, where I’ve gotten Machine Three looking like . . . well, a shape, whereas before it was . . . not as good a shape.

perfect description 🤣👏

If the machines pose the questions, then they must also have the answers. If I get this tower operating again, I’ll understand what’s happening to me. To another, the logic might be unsound. To me, it’s faultless. Fix the machines, fix myself. I feel like Machine Four. Whole in appearance, yet internally broken. I’m running. I know I’m running. I never knew myself as an evader. I suppose I’ve never experienced problems this deep. This . . . murky.

Madness has a feel to it. Smooth, subtle. Like the oil nestled in those hinges, but thinner. It doesn’t leave a noticeable mark. No grease stains. When it first starts dripping, it feels wrong, the way I imagine a knife through the gut might feel. But I can see how one could become used to it. Even comfortable. Oiled up and slick and satiated, forgetting there was ever anything else. And I wonder, staring out into the mist, if I’ve forgotten something.

At least, I reassure myself as I lie in my bed and wait for the mist to fall, if I am crazy, I’m not the only one.