The Mechanics of Man

In the late evening, when the shadows were beginning to lengthen, a man suddenly found himself on a lonely and deserted road. He rubbed his eyes and looked around, and felt as though he had just awakened from a dream and come to his senses. He sat down in the road and tried to think, but soon realized that he had no memory. He did not know who he was or where he had come from. It was as though he had been born in the last several minutes. After realizing that further mental effort was useless, he stood up and began walking down the dark unknown road that led to God only knows where.

After a while, the man rounded a bend in the road and came upon an old house that was dark and evidently deserted. He stood looking for several seconds, then decided to enter the house and spend the night there. He stepped on the porch and opened the door; he found the inside to be pitch black. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but found his effort futile---there was not the minutest speck of light in the old house. Still, he decided to enter and as he crossed the threshold the door slammed shut behind him. When he reached back, he found that the door had no inside knob, and he suddenly had the eerie feeling that he was imprisoned. The man tried to swallow his fears and started to explore the dark area that was his temporary home. Stepping carefully, with hands outheld, he slowly moved from wall to wall, finding nothing in between. He became bored with this uneventful activity and sat down against one wall. Soon, he was half asleep, when a ferocious animal roar startled him from his slumber. He leaped to his feet and pressed his back against the wall, waiting in horror for his unseen enemy.

After standing in this position for several tiring minutes he decided that perhaps he had simply dreamed the terrifying noise, so he slipped back to his sitting position and entered again the world of tight-eyed dreams. But suddenly the hideous roar filled the dark house again, and the man awoke from one nightmare into another. After his initial fright had somewhat subsided, he called out, "Who is there?" There was another mighty roar that seemed to shake the whole house, and then he heard a voice.

The voice was not human, but it spoke a language that sounded rather similar to his own. The man listened intently and could make out most of the words, but the unseen voice put such unusual and curious inflections in the words that they seemed to have a meaning other than their usual one. The voice itself was hard to define, but it was rather like you would imagine a lion would sound if he could actually speak your tongue.

The man cried out again, "Who is there?" And the animal voice replied, "Why ask who I am? See for yourself."

And the man said, "It is dark in here and I cannot see. Who are you?"

The animal roar again filled the house, then the voice asked, "Are you hungry?"

The man thought for a second, then asked, "Hungry for what?"

His answer was another tremendous roar. The man trembled and waited. Finally, the voice spoke again, "If you are not hungry perhaps we will go to sleep." But by now the man's imagination was so excited that all ideas of sleep were hopeless. He cried out to the voice, "No, no sleep. Let us talk for awhile."

"Talk?" asked the voice, "What is talk?"

"That is what I am doing now," replied the man.

And the voice asked, "You mean like asking me who I am, and asking 'Hungry for what'?"

"Yes," said the man, "That is talk."

The voice roared and said, "I find no meaning in such foolishness."

The man pleaded, "Please, let us talk, you'll find it most meaningful, you'll see."

The voice gave no reply, so the man continued, "Well, let me tell you what has happened to me. I found myself on the road outside, and I don't know how I got there, or even who I am..."

The animal voice interrupted, "If you do not know who you are what right have you to ask me who I am?"

"Wait," said the man, "Let me continue. I know you will find this most interesting. I can't remember a thing: nothing, nothing at all."

The voice stopped him again, "Perhaps you remember nothing because you never knew anything."

"No," cried the man, "That's ridiculous. There are some things I still know. I certainly know I exist. I know that this is me standing here. I know I'm somebody, and I know that I'm somewhere."

The animal laughed, "This is what you call 'knowing'?" Then he roared louder than ever, and the man began to hear heavy footsteps moving about in the dark house.

The man shivered and called out, "Is that you? Where are you?"

"You ask me where I am when you do not know where you are; you ask, 'Is that you?' How do you expect to know me when you do not know yourself? Ha. 'Talk, talk, talk." Then he roared again. The footsteps began again and the voice roared constantly. The man fell to the floor in fearful tears.

Suddenly the noises stopped, and through the silence the voice arose, but this time it had a feminine and seductive tone; it said, "Come here by me and lie in my arms."

The man gasped for breath and became speechless. When the voice roared again it not only seemed to be completely surrounding him, but it seemed as though it was now filling his very insides. He finally found his voice, screamed and fell to the floor.

After a long stillness, he raised up his head and cried out, "Whoever you are, have mercy on me. I beg you, leave me be, or tell me how to leave this frightening place."

The animal voice calmly replied, "Be still old man, you are home. This is where you belong and I shall never leave you. You do not see me because you look in the wrong place with the wrong eyes. Now be still. We shall eat, then you will lie in my arms and we shall sleep the sleep of darkness."

"Magnus Machina" by Jan Cox, p. 39