A thought-provoking story by Trent. I hope you enjoy!

Pixabay image by Brigitte Werner

Princess Varas stared out of the window, her face blank.

“Are you OK, your highness?”

“Yes, thank you, Maz.”

Although she didn’t turn, the princess could still feel her maid watching her.  She was sure that Maz had something important to say, but would wait until she was asked.  That was fine to Varas.  She’d make her maid wait a little longer.

“Maz,” she said a few minutes later.

“Yes, your highness?”

“Was it always like this?”

“What, your highness?”

Varas sighed.  She could see only a few hundred yards beyond the castle walls before the fog bank.  She couldn’t ever remember the fog not being there, and yet…

Varas bit her lip.

There were those flashes.  Random memories of what she came to call “the time before”.  But they weren’t her and they weren’t here.  Which was impossible.  She was always here and, of course, she was always herself.

But what did “always” mean?

Part of her thought “years”, perhaps a little over 27 years.  Another part thought “always” meant just that, forever.  And yet, there was the feeling she had only been there for a short time, days, perhaps weeks, maybe a couple of months at the very most.  Days.

*

“A thinking machine?  Preposterous!”

Vera ignored Mathew and watched the machinery beneath them in fascination.  She could feel the energy, though part of it was noise, the constant turning of all of the gears and wheels and rods and axels. She was sure that it would be deafening on the other side of the two panes of thick glass.

“It doesn’t think in the same way as you or I,” Professor Smith said.  “It won’t write a sonnet, but I would trust it to create any equipment over a human any day of the week.  My assistant, Robert, is genius at making it do what we want.”

(Continue Reading: A Whir in my Ears)