11:5
Ever since he had returned to his room, the machine had been constantly demanding his attention. What had once been a mysterious and quite device had transformed into a veritable dragon: steaming and roaring at all hours and forever in need of attention and repair. It had stared with little leaks of steam from the major joins; little geysers hissing and spurting leaving his fine woven rugs forever damp and in danger of rotting.

In the blink of an eye the incessant demand of the oh so infernal device had begun to overwhelm him. If he was not attending to one tiny disaster or another,he had taken to trying to absorb the tattered manuals that he had discovered in the base of the main engine. He’d opened the access hatch trying to sop up the steady flow of alcohol that had erupted from glass sediment filter below the auxiliary pressure feed. Not that he had any idea at the time that was what he was doing. He just need to clean up the flammable fluid before it got into the carpet and became a danger. There were too many candles for him to leave such a dangerous leak for long.

And as such things happened, he had used the precious knowledge contained in the pages to put things to rights so he could once again attain a level of sanity, and, inevitably, instead of bringing about peace and security, his fumbling attempts to repair the issues had lead to a sever increase in leaks, sub sonic groans, and ear splitting shrieks as steam seemingly forced its way out of every joint, join and weld of this monstrosity.

Very quickly, the machine had become the central focus of his days and nights. So much so that he had not had a drink in weeks. Ah a drink… the lovely bouquets of malbecs and merlot, the sacred burn of the armangnac slowly flowing down the back of his throat… Instead he had the stink of machine oils and raw alcohol and the scalding of overheated fittings. But the machine still functioned; it demanded all of his attention and left him nothing but it had not yet failed and he still had hope.

He had hope that this series of breakdowns and failures would be noted by some other authority. He had hope that his improving skills would be sufficient unto the task. He had hope that it all meant something and that somewhere, someone appreciated his efforts, or at the vey least, was enjoying the fruits of his labor.

If not, then it would seem that entropy might win, and eventually, inevitably, the machine might fall silent for a final time.