I feel like patchwork.

Spare parts and duct tape, a machine moving and functioning even though perhaps it should not. Climbing hills that should be impassable by such a broken down bucket of bolts. Occasionally stalling, but generally moving headlong into labors and endeavors.

Inside, the joints strain as belts and gears threaten to fly apart causing irreparable damage to this fragile colossus.

Image by Ro

But deeper inside, protected by a web of snaking cables and hoses, lies a chamber that powers this wreck. Within is an energy the machine does not understand; the warm glow of life that should have been.
The image of a child, forever sleeping, surrounded by light and warmth, radiating a glow that feeds life,
creates life,
is life.

The machine should collapse. Should implode upon the chamber, encasing it, surrounding it, protecting it forever.
But the glow pours through the cogs and wheels, keeping them at their work. And the glow makes the machine take notice.
Take notice of the other lights around him, the two other machines, small and perfect, treading along in it's path. Examining and collecting the debris it leaves in its wake, learning and cataloging from the work of the great patchwork machine.

And so it carries on, inexplicably, for them, because of them.