Malignant: Copying Machine
- Nicholas Linke
- Apr 30
- 4 min read
Context: Although it is the end, this is an excerpt of the first chapter in the new adult novel Malignant by Nicholas Linke.
An excerpt from CHAPTER 47: COPYING MACHINE
Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy…
The original purpose of making lists was to make the last several years exciting—unpredictable even. However, this approach failed to keep my mind focused on the means instead of the ends. The lists have produced habituation, each note being disturbingly similar. Every day with the same objectives and priorities, every day with the same routine, every day structured is just another day of mind-numbing tedium.
Repeat. Reset. Flip the egg timer.
Hourglass counts down.
Ego Pomodoro.
So, I visit the post office again… but today, the objectives have changed.
I’ve been waiting a while to receive this Post-It that ends everything. Strange to think my salvation comes on a simple 3½ inch square–that a yellow piece of adhesive paper releases me from harboring, cultivating, culturing these viral verses.
There is a single key on a red plastic keychain in P.O. Box 518. The key opens a box ten times the size of a regular post office box. Manila envelopes are packed inside like DNA around histones. I can’t remember the number of times I’ve sent each individual collection of papers only to get it back with a comforting: Address Nonexistent. Return to Sender.
Today I am giving it all away. And I want nothing in return: no reply, no thank you card, nothing… just an empty post office box.
4. Copy Everything
Page after page, I’m copying every journal entry, every scribbled-on napkin, every piece of college ruled notebook paper that became my canvas. I’m copying every academic paper, every article that I edited, every page of every book I removed from its binding and highlighted. I’m copying every sentence, every word, and every letter. But most importantly, I’m copying the 46 hand-selected entries and stuffing each pile of ink-drenched cellulose into manila envelopes. After dropping this last entry into each envelope of the 46, I stamp them “Read First.” Then, sliding each set of envelopes into seven different shipping boxes, I finally mark different previously chosen addresses on each box.
5. Address Boxes
Senility allows the theist office clerk to grin as I slide each of the boxes over the countertop. A faint final glimmer of recognition escapes through those bifocal lenses. Her wrinkled cheeks crease as they collide with the bottom of her glasses. I suppose I'll miss her affection. She’s become the closest thing I’ve had to a grandmother.
Detachment will be difficult since death will soon separate her from me. Objectivity is always more easily approached in associations with mere acquaintances and strangers. I seem to remember something about always burdening the people one leaves behind with the things one leaves behind. I can’t place the quote and supply the direct citation… shame, really – it would have made a fine eulogy.
I’ve come to persist through this absence of reference by simply disregarding the source as an irrelevant distraction from the point. An abandoned quote file. However, there seems to be something so remarkably familiar about this moment that it demands acknowledgement.
This sorrow coupled with guilt makes me almost empathize with the philosophical and religious leaders of history. Martyrdom abandons. Dying for a cause leaves followers of the martyred without anyone to follow. Left to interpretation and reduced to a mere inspiration, the shepherd subjects his life’s work to the perversions and corruptions of sheep.
Socrates. Siddhārtha Gautama. Muhammad. Jesus Christ.
The greatest harm a martyr endures is the product endorsements he gives posthumously.
Repeat. Reset. Flip the egg timer.
Hourglass counts down.
I can still taste Sand in my mouth.
It begins when still young, gullible, and in the early stages of innocent decay. You believe in Santa Claus—an old, fat, white-bearded man that rewards good behavior. Including the disappointment that occurs when you find out he doesn’t exist, Santa really is the perfect precursor to God.
The first step in the twelve step program toward true selflessness. The first lie you believe in a series of lies before you LIE to children about your self. The first snow is barely settled on the ground and you’re already asking your mother if she knows what the extended family will be getting you for Christmas.
Your mom stares down into the wide little eyes gazing up at her, like she’d really give away the secret, and says, “You know___(your whole name)____…”
Mothers use every painful syllable of your name when stating something as valuable as a life lesson. “Giving is better than receiving. So what did you get your family this year?”
In response, as if it will make a difference in her decision, you spit out every piece of clutter you bought from your grade school organized “Santa’s Workshop.” The little green plastic turtle that sits in a gold rocking chair holding a newspaper that reads “World’s Greatest Grandpa” as the headline; a mug with the same slogan for dad; the pen with a flashlight built into the handle for your uncle; and for the grandmas, little white ceramic ring boxes with lopsided flowers painted on top by some third-world child who would be in grade school but for happenstance.
Proudly you proclaim you did it all by yourself—you chose these individual presents out of tables of this junk... mini screwdriver sets, tacky porcelain owl figurines, and, of course, winter-scene snow globes of all sorts and sizes.
These are the things they will never throw away. These are the useless pieces of cute shit that represent some memory that should have died long ago. These are the things they set on shelves to collect dust because they can’t let go of the past.
These are the things you burden your family with. But it can stop with me. Theory won’t even try to explain Santa or God or Ceiling Cat. Faith won’t even try to claim this will last forever.
Repeat. Reset. Flip the egg timer.
Hourglass counts down.
These are the things that mean everything to them, but to you it’s just another give in order to receive.
Life is a give-take relationship, a battle between giving up and giving in, a battle between taking apart and taking for granted.
A battle between selfishness and selflessness.
Hourglass counts down.
Emptyfull.
Learn more about the new adult novel by Nicholas Linke: Malignant.
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