The illusion of direction

The clutter on the desk resolves into a number of mechanical devices, all beautifully machined, tooled and assembled with a Victorian solidity, but the quantity of apparent purposes still leaves a sensation of chaos.
“This is the base for my collection. The first tools for making tools,” the desiccated sliver whispers, apparently addressing the metal itself. “This is our reason for being.” He looks, almost wistfully, through the window onto the unreal lawn outside. “Without it, there is only…” He pauses and looks lost. He wants to indicate what is beyond, but he has blocked it out too thoroughly. “Disorder…?” he finishes weakly, as if a question.
For a moment you wonder if he is asking if you have understood, if you agreed, or if his choice of word is correct.

Things we do not see

She has moved out of your vision, and that is where she is now. Her shape is drawn from the void she leaves. Peripheral flashes that draw your attention to what is not there. The hardest thing is, as you are brusquely washed and treated, dressed in old clean clothes and manhandled down a corridor to a panelled room, the hardest thing is to imagine she ever fitted into this place well enough to leave that void. Any picture you get of her does not resemble that received by your senses. What could she want of the people who had created this? What could she be to them? Stop. Wait and see what comes.
Towards one end of the room is a desk. It looks as if someone has spilt a dismantled car engine onto it and tried to reassemble it into twenty different things. Behind it there is a desiccated sliver of a toad. By way of introduction, he points at the desktop and says:
“This is stronger than man. This is stronger than nature.”