Ken Poyner
Utility
The great machine started: slowly at first, the slack in bands suffering into tension, small wheels half-spinning to strain. A flicker of lights racing across one set of panels and then galloping across another. The sound of the machine refines itself, from the low murmuring that shakes limbs and flares nostrils, to the higher telling of angels, bathing. We wait as piecemeal the parts begin to sense each other and work together. Most of us have put the larger part of our lives into building the machine. Now we will find out what our grand accomplishment is designed to accomplish.