The oar in my hand carves several invisible ripples within this silent "white space."
To my upper right, the cybernetic base is gradually dissolving into the mist. I can feel my companions, still within the cockpit, attempting a final stand against the mountain stones that grow ever more weightless-but the base's structure has irreversibly transformed into soft bird feathers. To me, what was once a fortress of logic has now become a drifting phantom.
I row toward the hidden hermitage in the lower left. It is a home in another dimension.
As I approach the pier, beneath my feet lies a support welded from discarded bearings and pipes. These testaments of industrial civilization have withered and settled through the long years, eventually growing into the hardest bones of the earth.
The beings along the shore known as "trees" greet me with their hollow carapaces and coiling tentacles. Their branches are laden with reliefs, and the blooming mechanical flowers seem to exhale a chilly fragrance. Here, they breathe, they drowse, and they even resonate with me at a certain frequency. After centuries of symbiosis with nature, these cold metal components have acquired the breadth and benevolence of soil.
This is my homecoming, a return to the source of cognition: we stop, no longer using machines to conquer the wilderness, but letting the machines themselves decay into mud, allowing living flowers with precision gears to bloom upon the ruins. I retract my oar and step into that breathing cluster of stones-a survivor, a component, returning to its most rational assembly.
The Murmur of Memory:
