SYNC\\ The Robot
You cannot return - only be undone.
Chapter XVIII: The Regression
Cycle XIV: The Box
Out of the corner of my eye — a flicker.
Not light. A glint of metal.
In the soil, tangled in roots — something round.
Like an eye.
I move closer.
Dig with my hands.
Dry clay. Brittle roots. Shards of stone.
Slowly, the shape emerges.
A robot.
Old.
A courier with a faded DHL logo.
Half-buried.
Frozen in the pose of “front.”
As if he had been waiting. Two, three epochs — or more.
His eye — extinguished.
Yet even dead, he gazes.
Looks straight at me,
as though he had known I would come.
In his hands — a box. He offers it to me. Or to the tree.
Paper.
Brown carton, almost dissolved.
Falling apart, bound only by black, unraveling tape.
A word — Return.
An old seal. A faded sticker.
The red still breathes, but is dying.
I tear it away.
Not careful.
Hungry.
Inside — things.
A book.
Ancient.
The pattern on its cover — worn away.
Indented letters. Illegible.
I have never seen one alive.
But it is a decoy.
Something rattles inside.
Not pages. Not paper-flesh.
Another sound.
Another box.
Smaller.
Weight — light.
Like memory.
I hold it in my palm.
And it feels like a heart.
A heart long silent.
And still warm.
Cycle XV: Objects
Compass. Brunton.
Worn. Heavy. With lid and mirror.
Beneath chipped paint — brass.
The needle spins, trembles.
Still glows faint in the dark.
My face in reflection — dim, distorted.
And then the thought: So this is who was lost!
I touch it — and memory strikes.
Sea. Parents. Laughter.
Camp. Football.
Fishing with father.
Evening fire. Marshmallow.
Ghost stories in a tent. Torchlight in a face.
But they are not mine.
Not my hands. Not my cries.
Implanted. Recorded.
False. Dirty.
Like an old cassette with tape-hiss.
I slip it in my pocket.
Not as relic.
As evidence.
Flare gun.
Orange.
Word: ORION.
I don’t know why.
Finger on trigger — the spring moans.
A short, muffled click.
Into the second pocket.
Pen and sheet.
Ink. Black.
On the page — words.
Page: 113.
Inscription:
SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI.
Below — in red. Handwritten:
et spec resurgit ex cine…
Slanting down, as if beyond a brink.
Cut off.
But I feel: beyond the break there is a word.
The next one.
It waits for me.
I twist the pen.
A drop bursts.
Thick ink. Crimson.
Runs down my hand.
Like blood.
Flows. Shock.
This is a letter.
This is blood of memory.
Cassette player.
Olympus. Grey metal.
Sides: No Voice / No Fear.
I slide the cassette back.
Press play.
Sound crawls.
Hiss. Vibration.
Something breaks through.
Familiar.
A Varghan.
The same one.
From the dream.
From the fire.
From the casket, the key, the room.
I fall back against the tree.
Listen to the trunk’s hum.
Beneath the tree — silence.
Inside my head — only:
This is not me.
This is — me.
I turn.
On the fallen box — a word:
TRANSIT.
Cycle XVI: Transition
I sit.
Close my eyes.
Inside, it speaks:
SIC TRANSIT.
I do not know what it means.
But I feel it.
Fire.
And then — darkness.
Not void.
Darkness with a point.
Light.
A pupil.
An icon.
A voice:
Stay.
Remain.
Dreamer.
Cold. Systemic.
But in the last syllable — a tremor.
As if it too were afraid.
I do not listen.
I rise.
I walk.
Cycle XVII: Regression
I walk far.
See a fire. Distant — or inside.
Now I know how light can sound.
Whether in me or behind me.
The city dissolves. Remnants, frames, beams.
Clothes have aged.
Jeans. T-shirt. Old sneakers.
A lace comes undone.
I kneel to tie — rise again.
My fingers fumble.
For a second I forget what this gesture means.
Why it matters.
I almost leave it loose.
Around me — forest.
And a dead village. Skeletal houses.
I enter. See refuse of the past.
A photograph above.
Two faces side by side.
Cracked frames. Husband and wife.
All that is left. Of memory.
The air smells of damp wood and old fabric.
Then — metal.
Clothes shift into uniform.
A rifle on shoulder. Bolt kicks.
The recoil runs through bone — sharp, familiar.
I flinch.
Explosions in the distance.
But I walk.
The star on my epaulet slips down.
I fix it.
My hands know this.
I don’t.
Gaze ahead — ravine, trees, steppe.
The smell of gunpowder.
It burns the throat.
A jammed lock.
I force it.
The metal bites into my palm.
Pain anchors me — briefly.
Clothes older still.
But I go on.
I hear the fire.
I know — it is there.
Ahead. In the woods.
I stop.
Just for a moment.
The thought comes — small, almost alien:
I can turn back.
Silence answers.
No — not silence.
The absence of answer.
I move again.
I rise — and already, steppe.
Forest recedes.
Wind cuts across open land.
It carries dust.
Dry. Bitter.
It fills my mouth.
The bowstring slack.
My fingers brush it — splinters catch the skin.
Leather trousers. Rotten shoes.
A dropped spear.
Something pulls in my shoulder — old strain, deep in the joint.
Dogs with me. Careful.
Sniff the air.
Their breath — hot, animal.
Alive.
The field’s edge.
Beyond it — ravine. Forest mouth.
A beard on my face. A cloak of hide.
Heavier.
Lower. Stooped.
My spine aches.
Each step presses downward.
But night falls.
And I see the fire.
There. In the woods.
Always there.
A clearing. Living sounds.
Dance. Drum. Fire.
The drum is wrong.
Too close to the heartbeat.
Or the heartbeat has learned it.
My hands empty.
I enter.
Forest. Night. Flame.
On the clearing — people.
They know me. Embrace me.
Whisper: You have returned.
Their hands — rough.
Too many.
For a second I want to pull away.
I don’t.
I see the fire.
Always ahead.
Even when it was not there.
In the city — between walls.
In the steppe — beyond the horizon.
In the forest — behind the trees.
I walked toward it.
Not knowing.
Or knowing — and naming it light.
In the fire — a body.
Familiar.
Too familiar.
Not waiting.
Already burning.
The smell reaches me first.
Not death.
Burning hair. Fat. Resin.
The fire wanes.
A flare gun.
In my hand — I know not from where.
My fingers tighten.
The trigger resists.
For a moment — it does not give.
Then—
Upwards. A shot.
Flash.
The fire splits.
Light floods.
On the pyre — me.
A skull. Hollow eyes.
Not death.
Purification.
The skull cracks in the blaze.
Clap!
The sound — dry, final.
Too close.
White light engulfs all.
And within it — the Varghan.
Faint. Distant.
Eternal.
This so visceral and haunting, gorgeous piece !
Somewhat uncomfortable walk through identities - right up my street - to finally expose the final, absolute, eternal version. An eerie chapter.