Vernon Wright - October 19th, 2008
Yep, after cooling down for a little bit, Nigel is still here and I'm just gonna keep him. This has been great and I've enjoyed having someone near.
I still feel bad about the little girl, and…yeah, I probably shouldn’t have taken him. But he’s really at home in that box, and he’s good company, and…fuck it, I might be a little crazy, but he is smart. He figured out something with the machine today.
Okay, yeah, that sounds kind of crazy. I think he figured something out. He might just be goddamn lucky, but either way, I’ll take it.
I had my day off today and decided to work on the machine again, and because I can’t catch a break, the power went out. It’s an older building, and there wasn’t a storm, so I think some idiot tripped the breaker. There’s a few college kids who live above me who are always blasting music…maybe it was them, I don’t know. We called the landlord, but it’s Sunday and he’s not in the area, so it took like two hours for the lights to come back on. I went and grabbed dinner while that was going on. I never really liked blackouts.
Well, when the power finally came back on, I saw that Nigel was playing with one of the machine parts. At first I was worried that he would damage something, but it wasn’t that. He solved it even more.
Those metal prongs? It turns out they…I don’t know, unfold. That’s the only way I can describe it. It’s kind of like the accordion parts that stick out of the wooden pieces, but it seems even more mechanical. The rod Nigel was playing with was split at the top when I found him, but not in a messy way, not like he had been chewing the metal. It looked very intentional. Another, smaller prong had unfolded from it. I played with it, and it looks like it can easily be folded back in, like it’s on a swivel. The only way to see it is by the very fine lines that outline the smaller piece, and even those are hard to pick out unless the light hits it a very specific way. All I can think is that Nigel started to chew on it and his little teeth were thin enough to pry it loose.
It’s a pleasant surprise, that’s for damn sure. I adopt a rat and he’s either lucky or a fucking genius for his species. Probably just lucky, right?
Well, either way I’m keeping him. Maybe he’ll get lucky again. Either way, I’m excited to keep going now. I was starting to slow down, and I hadn’t seen anything interesting about the metal pieces. If there’s one of these unfolding pieces, there’s gotta be others. I’ll grab a flashlight tomorrow and see if I can find more.
"This Machine Belongs to" is a production of Halfwit Podcasts. This episode was written by Matt Spaziani. Vernon Wright is voiced by Jonathan Swenson. Based on the journaling game "The Machine" by Adira and Fen Slattery.
If you'd like to support our endless toil with the machine or listen to our other podcasts, visit HalfwitPodcasts.com, or find specific links in the show notes of each episode.
Lastly, the most efficient way to build The Machine is by telling friends of its importance in our once meaningless lives. Some day, This Machine could belong to you.
