“Nowhere?” He hopes they’ll be more specific. Are they speaking figuratively or literally? If literally, do they mean to say they somehow originated in a void? …unlikely, if they’re an Earthlet as they appear to be. Rung hopes instead that they’re talking about some “nowhere” to which the Stars moved them before bringing them to Spirale.
No one can seem to remember a time or not-space between being home and being here, and if this stranger can, they might be able to provide useful information. The sort of information that can be used to recover one’s missing abilities or even leave.
“I quite agree! Whether we make those reasons up ourselves or are convinced of them by others, I believe that that sort of thinking is often unproductive.”
But that was the wording they themself used. If this is how they really feel about the topic, then what did they mean when they said they were doing in Spirale what they’ve “been made to”?
“I suppose I should have asked you more directly what you’re doing, then.” A pause. “So, now that you’re here, what do you do?”
“Oh, me?” There’s no hitch in his voice this time. He’s more prepared, and the question feels easy enough to answer without actually saying anything at all.
“Neither, I think. I’ve done both good and bad things in my life, but honestly… I think if this were a ‘story’ being told, I wouldn’t have nearly such an important role. I’d probably be some character in the background, and we don’t tend to apply such weighty labels to people like that, do we?”
His smile isn’t quite self-deprecating; he’s had too much practice with it for that.
There’s not a Cybertronian alive who hasn’t heard the name “Primus,” but the actual, direct impact of his six millions years as Rung is negligible. Useless at worst, boring at best. He’s far less interesting than his new acquaintance, than–
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I ever caught your name?”
He doesn’t actually ask anything more about where it wasn’t before it was, so it just nods and gives him a ‘verbal’ sound of agreement (“Yes.”) as he mirrors its nowhere. And it smiles. He seems the littlest bit confused even though he was the one who started talking about all the Other Places to begin with. And it smiles. He can be confused, then. Whatever machine he is, he really isn’t like a “computer.” How...delightful. What was it that made him so uncomfortable that he reflected them both in this direction, again...?
“Unproductive,” it mirrors him in turn, though he didn’t quite chuckle where it does. “How do you measure the productivity of someone?”
That is something it hasn’t thought about in some time; the memories it has of those concerns aren’t even its own. Paperwork, charts, trips, exercise, reading, groceries, cleaning up the cold, leftover tea of someone who barely ever drinks what is made for her - that is all of a life before itself. A life that was driven by pointlessness, the futile nonmeaning of ‘goals’ and ‘schedules’ and ‘hopes’ intangible, until it went away, and became this. Until it became an existence driven by sprawling, twisting hunger.
And he’s asking Questions again.
It thinks he might have actually asked it some time ago - it may have been sitting in complete stillness for longer than it ‘should’ have taken to answer, and it becomes dimly aware of its own fingers tapping nonsense melodies against the wood of the bench. It doesn’t have to look down to know the sudden edge of them is leaving marks.
It looks up again, instead, its smile like its fingers, and repeats what it believes he asked: “What do I do?”
It laughs. And laughs. The laugh goes on forever, a few seconds maybe, and trails off in a content, unhappy, satisfied sigh.
It likes the way he talks about himself, too. He seems to understand to degrees the true ineffectuality of his own existence. It can’t quite discern how he feels about it, but then, that doesn’t really matter.
He gets, finally, to the question everyone and everything must ask. One which can’t be answered with honesty and which is rarely answered with a lie.
You didn’t catch it because it hasn’t been given.
“It’s okay to be unimportant,” it tells him, gently. “You can call me Michael.”
