I Pressed the Button

It always starts with a bright burning light; a veritable star surrounded by the shifting shadows of the non-important. There's blurred movement and colors amid the glaring light, and the sounds of laughter and idle chatter seem to fade in and out like the sounds of children at the public pool when submerged underwater. Theres a sense that time is passing by rapidly and I dont give a thought to trying to slow it down because as it passes, theres still enough to remind me; the smells, the voices, the ambient murmur of the crowd becomes white noise and the thoughts and feelings I had back then become charged and active -an archaic machine restarted for the first time in nearly a decade, yet running like four decades had elapsed. Dust and debris is coughed out in bursts and it threatens to collapse, yet continues churning to a clicking hum reminiscent of an old film projector. Theres a swarm of snapping lights in my face, each one an emotion shared -laughter, embarrassment, excitement, anxiety, sorrow, self-doubt... love?

I opened my eyes and stepped away from the device for a moment. My eyes took focus and the emotion sickness washed over me and I became cold. The light from the machine flickered some and after a few uncertain moments it blinked out completely and in the dark I sat. Helplessness overshadowed the already gray room, and I felt my head sway as would a stone perched on a twig. Dizzy and nauseous, I reached out for something to grab a hold of, but my hands fell short of anything.

I then noticed the faintest sound of music. I could not identify it, nor could I pin point its location, but for a moment my head was clear and I could concentrate. Through the darkness I crawled until I discovered a pinhole of light peering up at me. I pressed my face to the floor and let my eyes consume its tiny light. I then stared for countless hours, debating with myself if the light could be the source of the music I was hearing. I finally brought my fingers to it and found that I could pick it up. As small as a grain of sand, yet brilliant for its size, its melody was sweet and calming. I gave the light a name; I called it Purpose.

I held onto my Purpose for a long time, trying to share it with others, but not many could even see its light, or hear its sound. So I kept it with me, and it became a primary component for each new machine I built throughout the years. It acted as fuel for them, and I found that the results were pleasant, if not unexpected. As I built more machines, I obtained rooms for them all, and with my Purpose, they all had meaning, and became personal treasures, each in their own right. They are a testimony of a decent life, full of memory, but for every new machine that is built, the rest seemingly became burdened by the weight of their own intensely deep meaning without the foundation pieces of my earlier works.
I realized that for all of my machines to sustain themselves, I would have to wire them to an active machine. I walked back into the gray room, solemnly, my Purpose illuminating the room. With it I was able to locate the same machine I had tried to operate years earlier. I attempted to start it, but instead of grumbling to a start, it let out a wheeze and I heard something inside scrape and grind to a stop. I immediately tore the outer plate off and I found that I was able to extract from it many things I didnt realize could be salvaged. I pulled out a whole component piece made up of hundreds of moving parts that I called Friendship, and a funny shaped piece that I called Destiny. I found three working cogs that I named Wisdom, Understanding and Experience. These should fit just fine in the new machine Im building, I thought to myself.

I installed the older components alongside the new ones but it wasnt until I placed my Purpose, which was now quite sizable and weighed as much as an egg, in its cradle, that the older pieces began to move. I then noticed something most troubling. Not all the switches in the Friendship piece were moving, and I surmised that their separation from the old machine had left them inoperable. To make the machine complete, I would need to reconnect those switches directly through the new machine -neither they or their memory would survive outside of their original box without some reconnection. I then pressed a button, and after a few tries, I found them to be working quite well, and I have no doubt that more will wake up soon.