The clock, having recently found itself in the habit of waking early in the day, opened its single eye and surveyed the small, dark world in which it lived.
“It's morning, Maya. Time to wake up," the clock declared, quietly and evenly. The machine could not view the entire travel trailer that comprised its limited universe, as it occupied the same space perpetually. And so, upon hearing no response, but still sensing the fragile emotional state that it called wakefulness in a human nearby, it cleared its ersatz throat, and spoke again, this time with more conviction.
"As I am an artificial construct," the clock continued then, now officious and bubbly, "and not subject to the vicissitudes of human error, I can, therefore, assert, with a reasonable degree of surety, that it is, indeed, time to wake up."
“It’s too cold in here,” another voice said, groggily. This voice was organic and female, with the natural syncopation given to all living creatures. “My feet hurt. You know that a cold floor makes me disagreeable, and no one is going to hand over their hard-earned cash to a nettlesome fortune teller."
“I am well aware of your numerous imagined infirmities," the clock said. "Lights and heat coming on, presently."
Although incapable of autonomous thought, the machine still laughed inwardly to itself at the concept of its creator skating over an ice-cold floor, like a moon-pebble tumbling down a lunar hill. And with that, a bedside lamp winked on, and a space heater, parked well and safely away from Maya's collection of dolls and books, began to glow.
Maya kicked her sheets and blankets aside and sat up in her bunk. There were often more days than not when she almost despised the clock for its saccharine candor and artificial decorum, despite the fact that she had constructed it with her own hands, and bestowed it with life.
Almost, Maya thought, and, fortunately for the clock, today was not one of them.
“So, where has the wind dropped us today?” Maya then asked aloud. “Wait. Strike that question. I’ll know, soon enough.”
More lights, made to wring the last bit of life from a dying sun, winked on in succession. Maya stood and smoothed her cotton shift, then, as she did every morning, and walked to a cheval mirror.
“Do you notice anything different today? Any nascent physiological changes? That is, anything that should concern me?" Maya said although she knew that the clock, nor anyone else, could see her standing semi-nude before the looking glass.
The clock mumbled something pithy about the ambient temperature and humidity level within her incommodious little caravan. Maya ignored the machine and continued her examination, taking note of her appearance; her face, body, limbs, and her lustrous, blue-black hair still retained their preternaturally youthful appearance, as they had, and would, for eternity.
Maya then turned from the mirror, walked to the window directly above her bunk, moved a curtain aside, and surveyed the trailer park outside.
”Look at this place," Maya said. "You know, Sometimes I wonder why the world doesn’t just give up on itself already.” The clock, unable to see the what, if anything, lay beyond the closed window, chose to remain silent, however and withheld its opinion instead.
Maya turned her gaze to the fairground just beyond the trailer park. The roustabouts were at work there, she reasoned, as she saw a scrim of dust rise into the same bleak, greenish sky that loomed over all of Ravensback, Michigan.
Then she closed the curtain and returned to her solitude and shadows.
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