Petrol Tears and Oil Sweat

The machine, the machine was all that mattered. A screw, a conduit made of an earth metal, electrical wiring and small motherboards. All that mattered was the machine. Fuck everything else.

That high stuttering voice, whining and trying to evoke a form of wheedling which it can never perfect.

Oh and oh and fuck off. Morty. Fuck on I guess, the machine is still all that matters.

All that matters is the machine, even as he pulls away and his mind swims and all senses are dulled by so much alcohol running in his blood that he could make a vampire drunk.

Repeat, actually incite the grating voice into existence. Hand wringing, remonstration and ultimately disappointment which nearly matters as much as the machine, nearly. And so the parts are left even though the only thing his mind can cling to is the fast paced whir of calculations and reasonings, weighing components and laws of science and just how much he can do with hands trembling and numb from so much hate and liquor.

The task is too simple, always too little, so insignificant in complexity that his brain hurts from lack of stimulation. He continues though, completes it and shoves it back at the voice just so he can go back to the one thing that matters.

The machine, the machine, he would live and die for it, blow his brains into a Rorschach painting of fleshy matter and spinal fluid that decorates the wall and finally lets them all know what it is he sees in the writing on the wall. And when the alcohol fades and his hands shake so bad he can't work, he drinks more. Numbed and hollow but full of his work and the machine. He sweats oil, breathes his science and machine parts, he is nearly a motherboard who exists to create and birth more and more.

And then he's done, hands that tremble this time from the knowledge of the end, that his work is made and pointless, yet able to destroy worlds, change the courses of history and act as a God over a world that is meaningless. His machine is meaningless. And then, he cries his petrol tears, tear ducts dry and face wet with it. Overwhelmed as his purpose is gone and it never was a purpose to begin with.

That voice that had been nagging before comes back, gentle and innocent but worried and caring. It's a little light, an empty promise of purpose and fulfillment which is just a little less empty than his others. He stands and this time it's a yellow shirt covering an adolescent body and mind struggling to find a place in the universe, this half of his existence which matters most.

Those wide eyes, inexhaustible curiosity and hidden bravery, the pubescent libido, the anger and frustration with the unfairness of life, all of it make up something that matters more.

Maybe now, with something that matters, he can keep his petrol in his heart and his oil in his mind.