{"id":2684,"date":"2026-08-13T06:47:36","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T10:47:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/?p=2684"},"modified":"2026-08-13T06:47:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T10:47:36","slug":"shes-not-gears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/shes-not-gears\/","title":{"rendered":"She\u2019s Not Gears"},"content":{"rendered":"

The glass shattered, powerless against the magnitude of the storm. I raised my face to\u00a0 the sky, watching lightning strike as the rain met the . . . <\/em>
\nMet the . . .<\/em>
\nHer pencil screeched to a halt. It was a good run, comparatively \u2014 she\u2019d thrown in a\u00a0 metaphor or two, maybe even felt an ounce of emotion \u2014 but, inevitably, her mind iced\u00a0 over. She needed coffee. Or perhaps to commune with the forest.
\nCoffee,<\/em> she managed to think over the methodic click, click<\/em> growing in her mind. 3:48,\u00a0 according to the glowing numbers on the oven. Past lunchtime, but no time for that. How,<\/em> she wondered, did I . . . use to write . . . so much?<\/em> Dirty dishes appeared in the sink\u00a0 before she could answer. It was 3:51 now, and she reminded her arm to reach for a mug. The gears in her mind spun faster, almost dizzying, but she clutched the handle until they slowed, one or two popping out of place. They might reproduce like a hydra, but she\u00a0 carried the mug to the coffeepot. Her feet stuck to the unmopped floor. Click, click, click. Done.
\n<\/em>As she took a sip, a window cracked open in her mind \u2014 just enough to let a wry smile\u00a0 onto her face. The things writer\u2019s block does to a person.<\/em> She opened the kitchen\u00a0 window slightly, trying to think. Before, she could\u2019ve scraped hundreds of words into a\u00a0 dungeon wall. Now, it was always too cold, too warm, too long since she\u2019d slept. At least\u00a0 this story was more marketable. Her mind strayed to a deleted scene as a cool breeze\u00a0 momentarily returned color to her cheeks; the window slammed shut. Writer\u2019s block.<\/em>\u00a0 She was tired. She needed a nap.
\nOf course, she stayed up late that night, scrolling on her phone. She didn\u2019t remember\u00a0 how she dealt with writer\u2019s block before she had access to the internet. She didn\u2019t\u00a0 remember much at all, but her attention turned back to the carousel of videos, the only\u00a0 thing that could match the frantic spinning of the gears. What gears?<\/em> she wondered\u00a0 briefly. No more energy to think about that. She couldn\u2019t help clinging to the\u00a0 manufactured kinship between her and the woman on the screen, laughing about her lost\u00a0 brain capacity.
\nSo relatable.
\nYou still need to do your dishes, don\u2019t you?
\nClick.<\/em>
\nIt\u2019s like a parasite\u2019s taken over my brain. *laughs*<\/em>
\nThis smart mop works wonders for people like us. You don\u2019t need to worry about\u00a0 cleaning.<\/em>
\nClick, click.<\/em>
\n*gears spinning*<\/em>
\nClick, click, click.<\/em>
\nYou don\u2019t have to worry.<\/em>
\n*gears*<\/em>
\ng e a r s . . .<\/em>
\nShe was peaceful now, breaths clicking in time. It was time to go to sleep so she could\u00a0 get to work tomorrow.
\nShe must have been dreaming as her friend smiled at her conspiratorially. \u201cYour algorithm really knows you.\u201d
\nThen why am I seeing all these gears?<\/em> Surely her friend would understand. They always fit together.
\nThe smile froze. \u201cThey are you.\u201d Piece by piece, the friend disappeared with each click, click, click . . .<\/em>
\nAlarm clock. Time to wake up.
\nShe got ready, drove, and arrived at the office like clockwork. She used to dictate story\u00a0 ideas during her commute, didn\u2019t she?
\nShe entered the office and said hello to her boss, who smiled mechanically. The lack of\u00a0 windows used to bother her. The smile also used to bother her, the one she returned now.\u00a0 The day passed like clockwork. Her company valued her now that she fit in. She was a\u00a0 cog in a well-oiled machine.
\nIt was too cold to go outside on her break, so she told herself to pick up her notebook.\u00a0 Her mind was blank, and all she could write was gears.
\nThis wasn\u2019t . . . my story,<\/em> she thought vaguely. I\u2019m not . . .
\n<\/em>Break was over. She plugged her veins back into her laptop. Cog,<\/em> her boss whispered.\u00a0 Click, click, click. Her work booted up in her mind, growing to 89%, 97%, 99% of her\u00a0 capacity. Delete all other storage?
\n<\/em>Smart mops. You don\u2019t have to worry.
\n\u201cWait,\u201d she hissed, gears screeching. She had a life, didn\u2019t she? She opened her notebook\u00a0 (now on company time). She wasn\u2019t gears, was she? She dragged an X through the\u00a0 precise, repetitive lines, a drop of blood falling on the page. And she prayed, somewhere,\u00a0 for a window to open. To feel the rain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The glass shattered, powerless against the magnitude of the storm. I raised my face to\u00a0 the sky, watching lightning strike as the rain met the . . . Met the . . . Her pencil screeched to a halt. It was a good run, comparatively \u2014 she\u2019d thrown in a\u00a0 metaphor or two, maybe even … Continue reading She\u2019s Not Gears<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4227,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6854],"tags":[],"issue":[6885],"class_list":["post-2684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","issue-6885"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-22 12:16:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4227"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2684"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2689,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2684\/revisions\/2689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2684"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/plum\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=2684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}