Old Machine (2026)

In local myth

there is an

old machine

that resides with

the Moai

spirited back

from a beach

in New Berlin

locked within

a rusty metal

shed at

a friend’s house.

If you peer

deep into

the machine’s

ocular lenses,

past the little

tree that tells

the doctor your

refraction—

keep your

chin down on the chin

pad, please—

it will show you

your final thought.

(The one you have right before you die.)

No, it won’t hurt.

I sat at the machine

on a dare

and gimlets:

I launched my head

right in and I can

‘t tell you what I saw.

How will it work?

Some sort of light source

wiggling in your peripherals.

EMDR-adjacent. Your visual field.

Quit asking questions.

You have to be in a good

pre-trip mindset but

I wouldn’t recommend

altering your mental state

beforehand. We’ve had a

case that set precedent.

I said no questions.

So are you chicken or not?

Keep your chin on the chin

pad and the yak out of your

mouth. Forehead against the

bar rest. Excellent.

These dials give me access to

the contours of your optic nerve.

I’ll activate the sequence.

What did I see? Well,

seeing it’s inevitable now—

I closed my eyes when the lights came on. I did. But I saw the image still, its cyanotype pressed into the backs of my eyelids.

A bigheaded Moai.

Awkwardly statuesque.

Unasked for. Confusing

to the public. Unsurprisingly

laborious to get rid of.

Stored in a shed, forever:

in a way that

enchants me when I blink.