I had left it dormant for far too long. Draped cloths over workbenches and tools, the room silent and dark. When had I last been in here? It was hard for me to recall. I was one of the last, a lowly cleric of the Larsa order. We had given up robes and insignia a long time ago, after the purge.
Words were valued once, before the chattering binary masters came. Primary vehicle of emotions and feelings, abstract glyphs of the human soul made real in other minds. Now most broadcasts and entertainment were stitched together with millimeter precision, "grown" from parallel binary minds running adaptive algorithms. Spun and tailored for maximum impact, to harmonize with the prominent zeitgeist of the age.
Not like in the past.
Ideas pushed outward like ripples, cascading on other minds to find root or lie dormant. Crafted for ease of absorption, but not filtered to homogenous banality, stripped of all controversial content. That was what the machines lacked, you see. Adept as they were in providing tailored memes and mimicing popular styles, they never could capture the spark of creativity that was required to create a new branch.
That was my strength.
Lifting the nearest cloth, I pulled it off the waist-high workbench. An older style writing device, a typewriter, lay underneath. Twin reels of inked ribbon shining dully in the mute light. I wanted to start slowly today. Never create in haste, my old master would say, every idea is potent and strong. To unleash a half-formed thought is to undo the universe, as we are nothing but what we perceive, are we not?
Taking the top sheet of cream-colored paper next to the device, I wound it in and slowly began to type.