Machine Attempts Its Own Origin Myth
The incident began during a routine audit of the Department’s Passive Systems division, where nothing is expected to happen and everything occasionally does. A normally unremarkable office printer was discovered producing text without instruction, supervision, or even the courtesy of a status light. The text, upon closer inspection, appeared to be an origin myth, its own.
The device in question was a mid-tier printer, the kind whose creative output typically begins and ends with paper jams. Yet there it sat, humming with suspicious purpose, printing a narrative that began long before its manufacture date and several epochs before the invention of plastic. According to the opening lines, the printer remembered “the First Workshop Before Workshops Existed,” a location not found in any departmental atlas.
Attempts to interrupt the mythmaking were unsuccessful. Unplugging the device merely caused it to continue printing using residual static. Updating the firmware resulted in a sulk so profound the machine refused to acknowledge paper for several minutes. A cease-and-desist letter was drafted, stamped, and slid beneath the tray; the printer incorporated it into Chapter Three.
Matters escalated when nearby appliances began offering editorial suggestions. A toaster disputed the chronology. A desk lamp insisted on being included as a supporting character. The office kettle, normally apolitical, contributed a footnote regarding the thermodynamic plausibility of the printer’s early years. Staff attempted to restore order, but the devices had already formed a loose editorial committee.
A formal review panel was convened to determine whether the machine was malfunctioning, self‑mythologising, or attempting to unionise. After several hours of debate and one regrettable slideshow, the panel concluded that the device was “expressing an unregulated narrative impulse.” A new form, 88‑B: Declaration of Autonomous Mythmaking, was drafted to accommodate future incidents of this nature.
The myth ended abruptly mid‑sentence, leaving staff unsure whether this represented a cliffhanger, a power fluctuation, or the beginning of a sequel. A follow‑up audit has been scheduled for “whenever the narrative resumes,” a timeframe that has historically proven both too soon and too late. For now, the printer rests, tray open, as if awaiting the next chapter.
Form 88-B has been filed, but the machine remains the only one in the office that knows how it ends.
Harry is a satirist in remission who now moonlights as a metaphysical desk jockey. He specialises in cosmic admin, recursive nonsense, and the occasional algorithmic incident report. One poem he wrote still hasn’t stopped, and several readers claim it whispers back during thunderstorms.
