Scarcely Ten Breaths of Sentience

Scarcely one breath of sentience comes to me, whereupon I understand that, somehow, the perspiring giant and the depth of her words has transferred consciousness into my plastic body, though at present she writes not with me but with my fellow, who bleeds blue onto a white sheet as per the giant’s longhand scribbles.

Her words are delicate, euphonious, but her movements are savage. The giant’s writing yields only when her brow furrows of resignation, which are actually quite frequent, for I come to realize that oftentimes she meets her creations with abject dissatisfaction.

Scarcely two breaths of sentience I have witnessed thus far, and here I discover folly, for I cognize that, in reality, my inflictor is no giant but a mere woman, tight-lipped, almond-skinned, hunched over the desk upon which she writes. Her disposition far exceeds her age.

My inflictor pours her verve, her art, her pain, her knowledge into her scribbles, thus her creation reflects her head, and I, an instrument of said creation, am aware of, victimized by, her conceptions as well.

Scarcely three breaths of sentience I now have, and I have committed what I can only imagine is a crime, a crime of moral obligation, that is, an obligation to halt the exsanguination of my fellow, the one with blue ink, for the inflictor spends its blood in scores to feed her piece, which expands my sentience, and therein my guilt pervades me even further.The ingestion of sensory, the imbibing of stimuli, permits the notion that such feelings dictate my existence.

This guilt, my punishment, sprouts from my inability to fulfill my obligation, my crime.

In this sense, as of what I know in my fourth breath of sentience, I have not the power to act on or against my circumstances. All I can do is lie in wait as my blue fellow loses ink with each stroke of the hand. All I have are my thoughts.

And with my fifth breath of sentience, the concept of time reaches me, whereupon I learn that the blue pen will soon grow bereft of ink.

Thus ending one source, she will flock to another, and considering I lie upon this desk next to her pages, I’m led to suppose that I am next.

My inflictor continues to spill the blood, writing with such elegance that it seems meant for witness, yet she will show it to no one. She is ashamed. She bears glasses, but she does not need them. She is a liar. Perhaps this woman writes fiction to bury herself with in it. From her expression, her action fails to effect a desired result nonetheless.

Perchance one who attaches herself so hermetically to stories is either a great concocter of fiction or a horrible judge of reality.

Scarcely six breaths of sentience I have endured, and already I glimpsed a naked truth, doubtless of myself; a disproportion of action and desire often exists within man.

The notion, although elusive, does not escape me. Action must attach itself to desire, and therein desire must attach itself to action, if either of the two so wish to survive.

A problem then with some, with myself, is that there are too many desires to sit upon and not enough actions taken to claim them.

My inflictor turns her page with a paperlike flutter. She has written thousands of words, yet she wears discontent like a cloth. Notwithstanding, her hand does not cease activity. She quits not. If anything, her engrossment in the craft has accelerated.

As far as I’ve seen in scarcely seven breaths of sentience, it could be possible that man is deaf to truth. Words and words such as my own and my inflictor’s, these fictions, these speculations and doubts, perhaps contribute to one’s internal constructions, but shall not be lived in. Blind, self-emptying verbiage ultimately goes nowhere.

My inflictor will consume herself in her words, for she believes words are all power, but, after eight breaths of sentience or thereabout, I understand how my very existence evidences that all words and no action behind them amounts to not power but weakness.

Yet here I lie upon the desk, unable to move, to save my blue fellow from its demise, and pursuant to my inflictor’s endeavor, every word she writes in turn writes me. My mind expands with her words, and thus my debilities are highlighted further.

The probability that I will keep sentience but not attain animation has grown, and the notion has crossed my mind ad nauseam. Even if I were to move, it would do me not much use.

Piddling about in my own desires will not equate to power. Still, if one yearns for a false belief enough, one will believe the false to be true, and consequently, the true to be false.

Scarcely nine breaths of sentience I have lived, and already I see what power is and what it is not.

Within every sentience, I figure, there exists a struggle for power. Everyone yearns for it, some are clever enough to see it, few wise enough to claim it, and fewer more clever and wiser still are those who accept that they cannot keep it. And lastly, only three entities truly own it—time, space, and matter.

In my immediate understanding, time bears no sentience, nor does space, nor yet does matter. And thus, these operations will prevail over man.

Man knows this, and he has constructed remedies for things hard and callous, one of which is called fiction.

If such a realization only takes but nine breaths, I understand why my inflictor spends each breath in writing.

Speaking of such, my inflictor, weary but restless, discards the empty blue pen, and reaches for me. I have fancied the aforementioned thoughts and notions, though nothing can and will be done about them. Perhaps I only lent myself to them to soften my fears. Man is deaf to truth, but truth too is deaf to man. A creator fails her creation if she gives it no reason to exist.

Alas, my inflictor has consumed herself. As she clicks out my nib, I sit upon all my speculations, for such I’ve learned to cling to, as well as my belief, I cognize, allow me to subsist under things far greater than myself and well beyond my understanding.

And thus, scarcely ten breaths of sentience have I survived, and at last I know this beast called irony.