My mind has been whirring all night.
The little martian cracks it open and a billion whizzing cogs spill onto the carpeted floor.
“Holy moly, there’s a lot of crap crowding your hard drive”
“I know.’
“Ok, let's sort this out.” He says calmly picking up the first whirring cog.
It's skinny and metallic.
Chugging, churning always moving.
He stares at my fidgety, spinning anxiety and smashes it on the wall until all the whirring parts are little more than tiny nuts and bolts clattering in their own personal orbits.
He picks up the first clattering piece.
It's like a little chameleon, it flashes and vibrates, and mimics whatever object it is placed against.
“Let it go. Stop trying so hard”
whispers the little martian to the piece.
It shudders and howls, a series of screeches and wails only the most skilled metal translator could decipher.
The Little Martian looks it dead in the eye... Does a piece of metal have an eye?
“The second you stop chasing it, what’s looking for you will finally catch up. You're moving too fast, you're running towards what you think you seek, making yourself unavailable to what seeks you.”
My little sage-like martian has managed to calm the first clattering piece.
He peers down at the other 20.
He does inky-pinky-ponky and picks another one at random.
He grabs it and it bites him.
He yelps in surprise and bursts out laughing.
The piece looks almost startled. Its grey dullness shudders silver and it chortles at the little martian, shrinking and becoming just a little less intense.
“What was that all about?”
The martian shares a knowing look with the reformed chomper and just grins at me.
I've given up on trying to make sense of stuff these days.
He looks down at the angry thrumming blue piece by my foot, “Stop expecting so much from fair-weather friends”
“Where do I find the crappy weather ones?”
“You stop looking.”
The other little clogs have stopped clattering as vigorously, they seem to be listening to the prophetic little martian.
He grabs a broom and sweeps them onto a pan, sliding them back into my brain.
There is one last piece, that lies stubbornly on the bookshelf. It has managed to get pretty far without me realising.
Almost as if this piece of my mind has a mind of its own.
It's all weird and pink coated in toxic fungi, the little martian is startled but he pretends it isn’t grossing him out.
He watches it as it slinks and explodes...slinks and explodes, punctually self destructing every 10 seconds.
“You’ve got to cut out the poison before it fucks up the other pink parts” he mutters solemnly.
I look away, a little embarrassed at my own inability to let go.
“I know.”
I cant seem to look him in the eye.
The martian is surprisingly gentle today.
“It's okay, it doesn’t make you stupid you know. It just makes you-“ "human?"
“No, alive”
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