to not see purpose, doesn’t mean you don’t have one
In a time when people took to the stars, leaving Earth to their electric custodians, one robot found a relic, both wonderful and frightening. A wind-up pocket watch. The sweep of hands of which stood before and encircled a mesh of gears, giving pulse to the passage of time.
How it survived, what it was doing here, would ever be mysteries. What was evident to the robot, cradling a precious ancestor, was the wind-up’s singular purpose. Why am I not like that, thought the robot. I tend to tasks without connection, ending each day with no evidence of difference. This timepiece digitizes the river’s flow.
The robot toiled in misery for long after, until it meshed with others of its kind. Some big, some small. Handing off objects as information bundles of bright materials, shooting into the stars. Lost in the light, the robot found itself no heir to the watch, but to a meaningful cog. One gear of many without which no big hands would sweep.
