It was different from anything else these hands have held; it wasn’t made to fight or fix and he was curious what, exactly, it’s purpose was. After all, everything had a purpose. It was only a matter of patience and questions to find out what that purpose was.
♦ ♦ ♦
The music was interesting. He didn’t really comprehend what it was supposed to be, his logic couldn’t pull apart what it was. He could feel the beats in his muscles, some songs inviting more movement than others. But, he would admit while he didn’t understand it, Buddy did indeed enjoy the music.
It made him think, though. How funny it was something so small had such an important part of life. How everything in this world, no matter it’s size, fit so perfectly together like pieces in a greater machine that moved and turned and grew and learned. This world was something he never would have imagined, from the moment he stepped out of the tube to when he first learned what a sword was, when he learned how to fight, to when he first discovered snow was, to when he learned the world was much bigger than the small confines he knew. From when he learned how hard his heart could beat inside his chest when he ran from his brothers, to when he when he knew what it was like to be cold and hungry, all up to the moment he met the Lost Brother, Prompto. To when he learned what a name was. To when he became Buddy.
All of these small things a part of a bigger machine made every small thing so much greater and powerful and beautiful. How much of a difference one simple word or breath could make. Everything was bigger than it was.
Like the MP3 player. It was so much more than a small box with buttons and holes. It had a purpose in the great machine, and it’s purpose wasn’t like other things; it wasn’t made to hurt or fix or destroy or build. It wasn’t made to control or submit or fight or flee. It wasn’t even made to create or communicate or even know. It didn’t make the machine bigger or smaller, it didn’t give it a place to go or a place to have been. It did not move it forward or backwards.
It’s purpose was to be enjoyed, to make people happy, to make them feel connected with the world, to give it something in the now -- no matter how painful or dark the present seemed, it made light and pleasure within it. These things called entertainment, they had a special purpose and they’re purpose was to simply exist for the grand sake of others. They were made for all the other pieces, a special gift to everything else in the world. What a beautiful purpose.
Humans could be like that, too. They were all made for each other, and even though some of them seemed sad or that their piece in the machine was not as powerful as the others, they were just as capable of making light and happiness in the now as something like music or movies or jokes. He saw the way Prompto and his friends interacted, like pieces in a machine that all helped each other, like they were fitted exactly so. He’d seen it in other people, the way they talked. Sometimes, they disagrees because the parts of them that stuck out and rotated collided but there was always a way to fix something like that.
To be like this, to be a light in the present and to make people happy when everything felt long and dark.
Buddy rested the MP3 player against his chest and stared up at the ceiling.
