illustration: Dominic Murray
A tangled electric woodland grows around me. Static briars and jutting wires which are earthed into the soil. The spliced together undergrowth closes in on a torso. Her torso. Which is my torso. Lungs heaving with the weight of sobs. I cry shards of glass which draw red lines through freckles scattered on my face. In the analogue wilderness everything is connected. Old robots cling to a tangible life-span. They slump in hollows gathering rust like poisoned daisy chains whilst picking weevils from stoic joints. Headlamp beetles fly like hover cars from branch to branch. Their eyes on stalks cast beams through the murky treescape. They search and see, yet respond only in instinct the way perfectly simple life forms do. My arms are woven into the fabricated forest. They seem too long for my body and too flexible for a mere human, reaching and twisting, holding nesting birds and sheltering woodlice. I am enmeshed in the forest. A fox cub licks my nose in the dewy light of the approaching dawn. Toadstools sprout at my feet as I crouch, shivering. I am stuck and rusting with these tired robots and the other detritus of wasted life. Scarlet hair and vines intertwine until inseparable and both seem to carry the electric current and pulse of the woodland. My eyelids fall shut and reopen with a distinct clicking sound. Apertures adjusted, exposure considered. My heart aches as it draws another thud from nearby. The ears of creatures perk up, the sad ageing robots twist antennas. Something is coming this way. Something so absolute in beauty that when it is finally destroyed, it will be the end of everything. Rustles and static fall silent. Every living electric being pauses. We watch. We wait. It is coming...
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