1.3.2 | Ovo

I put my hand on its shell.

The rain started three minutes before the auctioneer’s gavel came down. Ovo 1.3.2—the last prototype—sat on a velvet turntable, its shell the color of a bruised plum, humming a frequency only children and dogs could hear.

Not a light. A warmth . Like an egg remembering the hen. ovo 1.3.2

That was three days ago. I haven’t slept since. The dreams have started bleeding into the daytime—hallucinations of glass flowers growing from the floorboards, the child’s voice whispering from the sink drain, the smell of rain that hasn’t been scheduled yet. Last night, I found a photograph on my phone that I didn’t take: me, standing in that field of glass, holding the hand of a woman whose face I couldn’t remember forgetting.

No one raised a paddle. No one ever did. I put my hand on its shell

Ovo 1.3.2 sat on the table. Its hum had dropped half an octave.

I dreamed I was standing in a field of glass flowers. Each one rang at a different pitch when the wind passed through. In the center of the field was a door. Behind the door was a hallway. At the end of the hallway, a child sat on the floor, drawing a picture of me. Not a light

“Lot forty-seven,” the auctioneer said, his voice flat as a ruler. “An experimental pre-cognitive dream engine. Non-functional. Sold as is.”

I think when it stops, so will I.