"Who am I?" the little cog asked to no one in particular.
Housed inside the dark box, it was difficult to tell. A piece of metal spinning in place? The questions were many. The answers few. But by looking around, the cog was not impressed with it's situation: darkness and uncertainty were the order of the day.
"I do matter" the cog said to itself while it looked around. It saw other cogs, also spinning in place, meshed with each other, each spinning clockwise, counterclockwise, and clockwise again. The other cogs were silent as the cog mused to itself.
"I matter" the cog reiterated. "I want to spin my own way!" it said, to no one.
The other cogs did not notice the outburst. They continued to spin in their places, clockwise, counterclockwise, and clockwise again.
The cog paused for a second, then grew strong in it's resolve. It thought about how it would spin, how it wanted to spin, how fast it would spin, in it's perfect situation. "How would I get there?" asked the cog. The other cogs were silent.
It wrestled with itself, and spun faster and faster. It enjoyed it's new speed, reveling in how fast it was spinning. The cog was unimpressed with it though, spinning in place, still dark, still uncertain what it was meant for.
The cog wanted more than to be by itself. It struggled and struggled, moving closer to another cog. Closer and closer it got, until it could see the teeth of the other cog. The other cog said nothing as it got near.
Interaction with other cogs, thought the cog, must be the best.
Finally they touched, and began to spin together. Happy at last, the cog felt it had found it's place, spinning together with the rest.
The cog tried to speed up, but it quickly found that it could not go so fast, for the other cog he was spinning with would not go so fast. The cog tried harder, but then he saw all the other cogs his new companion was meshed with as well. A long line of cogs stretched off into the darkness.
A little cog can only do so much.
He struggled more, trying to change the direction he spun. No luck, as his new companion and all the other cogs were spinning in the single direction. Clockwise, counterclockwise, and clockwise again. The other cogs remained silent.
"But what about me?" said the cog, spinning at a fixed speed, in a fixed direction. "How should I spin?"
His companion noticed him at last. "We are all but cogs here, and you are no different friend."
The cog found this upsetting: "But I would like to spin faster!"
His companion replied: "The machine is the one that sets the speed, dear friend. And we all obey the machine."
The cog became silent, spinning clockwise, counterclockwise, and clockwise again.
