"Angel, or Marionette...?" By Amber Michelle K. myaru@etherealvoid.net I don't understand that man, sometimes. Doesn't /he/ understand anything? Doesn't he understand what he's doing to me? I don't even know who I am, anymore... Just sitting there, watching Lacan as he works so diligently... it's like watching an angel sometimes. He's so intent upon his work, and I see such ease, almost peace, within his eyes... Every paint stroke seems to change the very air in that room, turning it into something I thought I'd lost forever... But who lost it, I wonder? Who am I? Who am I, to sit in that chair and pretend that I am any part of the angelic goodness he claims to see in me? Is he truly seeing /me/? Or does he turn away from that reality, and instead strive to see /her/ in my eyes? I am not Sophia... I am not Elly... I am not even Karen. I'm a machine... a machine with no real identity, but its purpose... A machine that cannot break its bonds, no matter that it can feel, and love, and hate... or cry... But my creator will never know how much I wish I could be those women; Elly, loved by her Contact, Karen, loved by her family... I was just an afterthought, a system entered into Elehaym to ensure existence of the beings that would become the body of our so-called 'god'... A machine cannot understand the longing of a human soul... And what does that make me? What am I? Who am I? A thousand upon a thousand women, crushed and merged and /screaming/... Always screaming... But /her/ essence... her essence is calm, shining... I feel her, even as she becomes a part of me. Her deaths, her loves, her thoughts... Her presence quiets the screams, appeases the damned... I /feel/ her, as if she were me... she /is/ me... But there are only fragments... fragments, cast out at the Anti-type's death... cast to me, to merge with me, to give me a soul... me, the machine. Is it possible for a machine to have a soul? Is it possible that I truly feel, rather than remember the feelings of a thousand others? Could it be that this fascination with Lacan... is my own? That this love for Ramses is... genuine? My affection for Krelian... reality? What a twisted humor the Universe presents, indeed...