Vernon Wright - October 29th, 2008

Certainty is the only thing that’s uncertain… or do I have that backwards?

 === Credits ===
Produced by Halfwit Podcasts ( https://www.HalfwitPodcasts.com ).
Written by Matt Spaziani ( https://vocal.media/authors/matt-spaziani ).
Vernon Wright is voiced by Jonathan Swenson ( https://www.jgswenson.com ).
Based on the journal role-playing game "The Machine" by Adira & Fen Slattery ( https://adira.itch.io/the-machine ).  

Music and sound effects used with Zapsplat Gold, and Ghosthack Music licenses.  

Transcript

Vernon Wright - October 29th, 2008

It needs to keep moving. That’s the trick.

I woke up this morning and all I could think of was the machine. I don’t remember having any dreams, but maybe I was dreaming about it? I don’t know. I read somewhere that we dream every night but we almost never remember them, since it’s so deep in our subconscious. I don’t know. All I know is that screech was ringing in my ears as soon as I was out of bed. I know I wrote about how much I hated it yesterday, but I needed to hear it again. And not just again, but hear it right. There’s music in these scraps of wood and metal. I know there is. It’s what this machine is meant to do.

So I started twisting it again. At first I could only get that small noise, the one I got yesterday when I held it to my ear. Even when I twisted it harder, that’s all I got. Finally, I twisted it as far as it would go, until it felt like the metal would snap if I twisted it further. And then I let go, and it began to uncurl.

And man, it sang again.

The noise was still harsh, still a little wrong, but it felt a lot closer to actual music, to what I think it’s supposed to sound like. It was louder, at least. Nigel and three of his friends were curled up nearby, sleeping, and they all jumped up when it made the sound. And I keep calling it a sound, but it’s not just a sound. It does something to you. The few seconds it was singing felt like hours. Colors seemed more vivid, with blues and greens and oranges emerging from the drab brown of my apartment. I felt…lighter, somehow. Not like when you hear a song you like and become more calm, but like I was floating, rising from the floor. It’s something else. 

Then it stopped, suddenly, when the metal finished untwisting, and I came back down. Nothing had changed, but nothing was the same. There will come a time when I can separate my life into two periods of time, two different realities: before and after, with that note of Music the inflection point in the middle. I really wanted to just twist it again and listen to that sound over and over again. Who am I kidding - I want to do it now, as I sit here writing this. It’s what the machine is meant to do. Of that I’m sure.

But I can’t unleash its potential yet. And I can do better than just twisting it over and over. In school we learned all about repeatability, about how it’s important to make sure a process can be reliably done again and again. So in that moment after the twisting - the first few minutes after the Music - I started thinking about that. I realized that this time, the sound started off really soft and then got louder and clearer the more the metal untwisted. It’s kind of like the ringing noise my dad used to make with finger on a wine glass, how it didn’t start fully ringing until his finger had been moving for a few seconds.

So like I said, it needs to keep moving. That’s the way to get it to sing.

And I need to get it to sing. It needs to sing.

I took a trip to the hardware store and then a hobby store. Completely forgot about lunch, but I didn’t feel hungry at all. I picked up some pulleys, some twine, some wooden dowels, anything and everything I could find that would keep it moving. I think I can make a hand crank to make it move. There might be something like that included in the pieces that I haven’t put together yet, but I might learn something if I just get it moving first. Hopefully I won’t need anything else. I had to put these on my old credit card. I get paid Friday, so I should be fine, but still. Yet another reason why I need to get it working soon.

I spent the rest of the day building a system to try to rotate it one way, allow it to untwist, and then repeat. It’s not working yet, but it’ll get there. So overall, a lot of progress.

Only one bad thing about today. Got a text from Dennis a few minutes ago. I thought I was working tomorrow, but I guess it was today, and I completely missed it. That’s three days this week I missed. I haven’t worked there long enough to get sick days yet, so I’m on borrowed time.

You know what? Doesn’t matter. He’s leaving me, so it’s not his problem anymore. I would have spent all day killing bugs and rodents, and instead I made progress on the machine. I have my credit card, so money won’t be a problem. The Music is more important than anything I’ve done. I’m sure of that.

"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.