Man 1

Adam,

The dealings of all men could be counted as the same, if one looked with a broad view and a nameless longing.  I think they must all want to... stay alive, at first glance, but a second would tell me it's that they want to know they're alive in the first place.

I think about the kind of man who would ever know something like that, and what it would take to wrestle that from the world, like drawing a smoke circle from the air.  Practice, consciousness, physical poise and grace, familiarity with the air and the way the ring is formed, and many other factors a man is designed to overlook.

Blow a smoke ring, darling, and think now on how you intend to live before you die.  Think now on how solid and real and present you are.

Now watch it stagger, and dissipate, as shaky as all the realizations of childhood forgotten by an aging mind.  For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

I reach small fingers into the chest of the man, into the hollow cavity of the man, and wind him up.  He winds until he stops, and ticks.  He ticks until he would tick no longer.  Until the ticking should stop, and what difference does the stopping make but to signal the time to wind?  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

Tell me, with your utmost honesty, does a machine fear the evil of which it is capable, as a man does?  But what evil would a clock ever be capable of, but the marking of the passage of time?

And as you are a music box, here I wind you to dance, as the rain turns back to snow.

As Ever,

Evelyn