What Can Be

As I sit in my stench and filth, I am illuminated solely by the flickering of the display before me. Images appear, perform their tasks, and continue on. I know my own eyes to be dull, full of sleep and weariness, yet here I sit and watch. Other projects surround me in their incomplete states. Them I pay no mind. Only this completed project holds my interest, this viewer into other worlds.

Upon successful activation of the device, the display has only followed the activities participated in by my counterparts. I am at a loss to explain why this should be so. Do I, perhaps, act as an antenna, filtering the signal to the device by my genetic coding? Am I special in some way, that I would appear in all possible realities? Are the variations I've seen, as great as some of them have appeared, not actually been that varied? Were I to invite another to view the scope it may lead to answering these questions. Scientific method would demand I follow this path, to bring others in to view the scope, to gain varied results, in an effort to discern what truth may reside within this matter.

Yet, I find myself unable to accomplish this task. The concept of making another suffer as I have would be cruel and I fear the addiction I find in myself would be replicated in another. In truth, I know not which outcome troubles me greater: that another may become fascinated in a like manner or their desire to utilize the device would be such that would prevent my access.

I know within myself that I should turn away, use my energies towards a new goal, but I find myself unable so to do. Other tasks appear in my mind, begging to be accomplished, but I do not do them. I neither rest nor eat properly. In truth, were sustenance not brought to me, I should already be long dead. I sleep fitfully, in the briefest of moments when action lags on the display. When I stir, do I deactivate the device and allow myself to rest? Of course not. I fear that the machinery may never function again were it to cease for but a moment, so I locate another world and begin viewing anew.

Yet, would the non-functioning of the device truly be such a terrible thing? It torments me. I cannot turn aside from it.

At times, in my weariness, I regret assembling the scope. I hesitate to utilize the term 'create' in referring to the device for that part of the process is but a blur to me now. Inspiration being what it is, the completion of the device came to me in a flash. To where, then, can inspiration be credited? Is it the interaction between the conscious and sub-conscious minds? Is inspiration triggered by some outside force, positive or negative, holy or infernal or otherwise? Or, perhaps, is there another me, on another world, who transmitted the design of the device to me so that he may no longer feel alone in his observation of other realities?

I have no way to discern the difference at this time. Perhaps the reasons and origins of my situation are immaterial. A tool is only good or evil based on its use. Even if the device be of infernal design and exists only to torment me, it is still I that am allowing it to torment me or not. It is but a machine and nothing more. Isn't it?

Yet, perhaps again the details remain unimportant. Perhaps 'why' and 'how' pale in comparison to what is understood. Why I am here viewing this machine's output is less important than the fact that I continue to observe the output.

I no longer do anything of consequence. I am but an Observer.