Of Gears and Humanity

| 10.2

[DAMIEN]

When the pain faded, when peace settled, I was home. Home and wandering the silver streets of the metallic city built for machines, not me. There wasn't the sun in the sky, or a moon. There were stars, yes, but when I looked up at them, I knew they weren't right. They weren't sitting in the sky correctly; all scattered like fallen paint with no real direction, art with no meaning. I was about to question the position of them... until I saw myself.

Myself. Me. An out of body experience.

I questioned my own existence.

Now, no one ever gave me instructions on what to do when I saw myself. And it wasn't even me, rather it was younger me. A boy, not even a sight of hair on the sides of his face like I do now. But curiosity made me walk over to the boy who looked like me, behaving like I did. He sat on the front bench of the place I called home without a care in the world. And I, needing an answer to what I saw, sat right beside him.

There was a book in his hand. A Wrinkle In Time, that was the title. The first book Unique ever read to me when I was young. I remembered it made me happy; I used to live in those pages, my escape. Yet, when I tried to take it from him to relive the moment myself, my hand went through him.

I frowned.

This is a dream, isn't it?

"Damien?"

Both the boy and I turned back, looking behind the bench, at the open door of our home. Unique stood in the doorway, a smile on her face. Her violet eyes shimmered as she walked out to greet us. She moved to sit right where I was. Dream or not, I couldn't intrude, so I moved. I let her sit. And I watched a younger me smile up at her with eager eyes.

"Why are you out here?" she asked him. "Is there a reason?"

"Mother," the young boy looked at her with curious eyes, "I'm just here. I'm just thinking. If I'm out here, am I bothering anybody?"

"No, Damien," her hand stroked his face, "you never bother anyone here."

The boy pursed his lips. "Can I stay out here? Even if it's just for a little while."

"Of course you can." As Unique hugged the boy again, I crossed my arms over my chest. I remembered this night; it wasn't a dream but a memory. This night was the start of my endless wandering, finding comfort in the stars. I thought if I looked at them long enough, I'd find the meaning to my existence. Being the last human on Earth had to have promise, didn't it?

And this night, this morning, was also the first time I felt Unique's support.

I watched as the boy pressed his face against her chest. As I looked at him, I thought I could smell her. Unique didn't smell real, more metal than anything, but the scent calmed me like a mother's scent would to their son. And I knew it calmed him because he closed his eyes.

A smile pulled at my lips.

"You can stay out here all you want to if it makes you happy, Damien," Unique said. "I will never hinder your human growth."

"Human growth," another voice broke the space. Arvon's voice. I followed the sound as if the wind carried it to me. That was when I saw him, my father, standing in the street with his hands in his pockets. Unlike Unique, he didn't go to embrace the boy. There wasn't a smile on his face.

It was as if what was said angered him.

Unique straightened. "Arvon?"

I watched, narrowing my gaze, as Arvon walked down the street towards the bench, towards the boy. He grabbed the book the boy kept close to him, flipping to the middle page. A minute passed as he read a paragraph, then another, before he dropped the book in the boy's lap.