A CLOCKWORK MUSE, by Erica RuppertClumsy with pain, she is borne down by the weight of her own fractured thoughts. Light glares. Unformed, unfocused, she cannot link one perception to another. Minutiae pick her apart. She is trapped in the details, present and past transparencies overlaid to create a cloudy mass where there is no yesterday, no before, only now, and now, and now, neverending. She clings to what she can.
Eventually the pain eases, resolves itself into the stretching of her muscles, the beating of her hollow heart. Sensation, inexplicable. She believes she knows what it is. Her mind locks it into its place. There, now. It is real.
She is aware of a childhood, but she cannot hold it. The memory slips. Automata have no past. She knows she is a construct, an imitation of a lif
