Conveyor World (4,100 characters)

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Conveyor World

v3.4

[Note] This article/manuscript is a work of fiction and has no relation to any real persons, organizations, or rights. Even if names identical to real ones appear in the description, they are all projections of the author's inner space, events from a different timeline, or, even if they occur in this timeline, expressions of statements made by the author's exclusive guardian spirit. In other words, it is assumed that (as the author's exclusive guardian spirit says) is omitted from all sentences. Therefore, it absolutely does not infringe upon real persons, organizations, or rights, it is absolutely not intended for slander or defamation, it absolutely does not disturb the reader's peace of mind, and it absolutely does not shake the harmony of the universe. Therefore, unauthorized reproduction or reprinting of this content is strictly prohibited, and naturally, the author reserves the right to change the content freely.

1. The Embodied Logic of the Factory

In a certain place in a certain era, there was a world called Conveyor World. There, the human inner self was embodied in the outside world, and the human heart exposed its form as terrain and mechanisms. If you looked at your feet, countless conveyor belts filling the floor of a vast factory continued to rotate at a constant speed. If you went behind an old building with peeling paint, there was no wasteland as you might have expected, but a river of hundreds and thousands of giant conveyor belts running in parallel filled your field of vision.

The seasons as scenery passed by the side with indifference. Spring light illuminated the edges, autumn dead leaves fell onto the belts and were carried away into the distance. Even if the freezing wind of winter tried to freeze the oil of the giant gears, the heat of the massive engine sitting deep inside did not allow it. The events themselves that were flowing disappeared, but the operation of the power source that kept carrying them was eternal. People were just placed on top of it and carried away. The outside scenery was nothing more than a background painting, and the only true reality for them was the next event brought by the conveyor belt at their feet.

2. Laid-out Fragments of the Self

In this world, a person does not have one established personality. In reality, they were merely maintaining the outline of a single human being by barely switching between countless contradictory rails at high speed.

Each rail has a stubbornly engraved label. For example, the label of an inescapable addiction to alcohol. Those who have boarded that rail get thirsty at a set time, curse themselves at a set time, and pick up a glass again at a set time. Or, the label of an incurable personality. No matter how much one decides to become a new self, the mechanism brings the person back to the original curve. That eccentricity or cowardice was not chosen by oneself, but was laid out as a standard specification part written into the blueprint of this factory.

Even the craving for potato chips, which you cannot stop eating once you start, was there as a ready-made template. The pleasure of the first bite calls for the craving of the second, and it is automatically carried to the salty fragments at the bottom of the bag. The program called the subject is forcibly overwritten, and the person bears the duty of passing through the next station prepared by the conveyor belt. If described as a computational metaphor, a person was an existence set to complete that process. People think they are one self, but in reality, they were moving to other rails running next to them with surprising ease. That switching was as intense as multiple personalities swapping, but it occurred as a physical necessity.

3. The Physics of Contact and Verification

As the logic of the world deepens, human relationships also emerge as simple and cold phenomena. Contact with others was a physical phenomenon where two adjacent conveyor belts rubbed against each other unintentionally.

When having a heated argument, the words uttered are merely the next parts presented by the conveyor belt before one's eyes. Words that strike exactly at the other person's most painful spot, cold memories to dredge up mistakes from years ago that should have already been forgiven. These were not things thought of in that moment, but templates supplied by the rail. When a person picks them up and throws them at the other, the other person's conveyor belt also presents a corresponding counterattack template. Even if the heart is screaming, the ruthless speed of the belt forcibly carries the person to the next collision.

Also, the phenomenon of shedding tears at someone's words is not a resonance of souls. It originates from the fact that the nervous system shares an afterimage from when it once passed through the same section, the same conveyor belt. Only the physical fact of having been on the same conveyor belt causes resonance. Empathy was nothing more than an inorganic verification process between shared templates.

4. A Man's Day and Transition

If you follow a man's feet, this logic becomes clearer. In the morning, the man woke up on a heavy rail called waking resistance. His body refused to move, but the mechanism carried him mercilessly and made him switch to the rail of habit. He washed his face and brewed coffee, executing the predetermined actions without being conscious of them.

In the morning, he ran on a rail labeled social response. It was the execution of a template of exchanging standard greetings and repeating predictable replies. In the afternoon, contact with others sparked. The rail of irritation running next to him approached, and friction sounds echoed. A word from the other person became the trigger, and the prepared counterargument part was presented. Just before the man spoke it, he suddenly averted his eyes and hurriedly shifted his feet to the adjacent rail of concentration on work.

At night, what carried him home was the rail of fatigue and inertia. Meaningless scrolling of the screen, the same sigh of the template as yesterday, and alcohol. Everything was the same repetition as yesterday. Without even realizing it himself, he was crossing between countless rails by the second. His day was not a series of free choices, but a record of physical transitions crossing between embodied rails.

5. Friction and the Night of Pre-established Harmony

The harshness of this system creates the most intense friction within the smallest unit: the family. When the man returned home on the rails of fatigue and silence, his wife was waiting on the rails of irritation and verification. Two conveyor belts approached each other rapidly, producing an unpleasant screech. The trigger was the dry sound of a plate placed on the table. From that point on, it was a predictable collision sequence that had been repeated for years.

The wife's rail sequentially supplied old parts that had been thrown many times before from the storage of past memories, and the man's rail offered heavy parts named silence. They anticipated exactly what each other's words would call forth next and where sparks would fly, like engineers who knew the blueprints. It was not that either was the villain. The two were simply being carried faithfully by their respective rails, throwing the supplied parts at each other.

Toward the end of the argument, the edge of the man's vision was grazed by another conveyor belt running slightly off their rails. On it was engraved the inorganic tag of 'silver divorce.' It was not the opening of a dramatic tragedy, but an adjacent rail that existed on the extension of this very moment, one that could be switched to at any time.

The term 'multiple personality' as used here does not refer to a medical diagnosis. It was a phenomenon that should be described as an accident of placement in this world, that is, a topological problem. Right next to someone who is usually on a gentle rail, a rail of cold rejection runs parallel. The moment one unfortunately slips their foot there, that extraordinary coordinate is read by others. It is not a transformation of personality, but a mere accident of placement, a problem of switching connections.

6. A Group Portrait of the Laid-out Future

The man's eyes caught the further mechanism continuing beyond that rail of silver divorce. Once one set foot on that rail, bureaucratic and cold processes were mechanically lined up ahead.

A distorted rail tagged with 'divorce dispute.' A rail accompanied by the giant gear of the family court. Beyond that lay property division, separation, explanation to children, name changes, and moving. The conveyor belts labeled with those items were already quietly laid out as the next inescapable process. It was there as a connected, separate system, without waiting for an emotional decision.

For a moment, the man leaned his weight onto that conveyor belt. He could not deny the possibility that ten years from now, or perhaps sooner, that rail might be flowing even closer to his feet than it was now. Once you switch, you are automatically carried to the next process. He stared at that line of cold administrative procedures with a sense of déjà vu.

7. The Leap to the Neighbor and the Synchronization of Hope

However, that night, he did not move to that rail yet. In the midst of the intense collision, they could not leap in one bound to the distant rail named reconciliation. This is because the laws of physics in this world only allow movement to adjacent rails.

The man swallowed, just before speaking, the part of biting irony that the conveyor belt had supplied next. It was a momentary switch to a slightly slower rail running right next to his, where one closes their mouth just once. He drank a glass of water and shifted his gaze outside the window. Then, a change occurred on his wife's rail as well. She, too, turned her back instead of piling on words, and slowed the hand washing the dishes. The hard sound of the plates hitting each other gradually changed into a softer resonance.

The speed of the two conveyor belts began to align slightly. It was not a dramatic reconciliation. However, deviating by just one millimeter from the predictable collision, the two simultaneously moved their feet to a new rail that matched their speeds in the same direction. The rail of silver divorce and the cold processes that followed it were still running parallel right next to them. But, at this very moment, the two did not choose that one.

The moonlight streaming through the window illuminates the texture of the quietly rotating conveyor belts. Even in this world, people can indeed move to a slightly better adjacent rail. Refusing the scheduled sequence, matching speeds, and flowing together. The overlapping of that faint friction sound was the certain glow of hope lit in this clockwork world.

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