"I think art is important." Shim proffered as they explored the next day. It was around noon, and they hadn't been out for very long.

He gave Rust and Quilt a moment to argue, but when they didn't take it, he carried on.

"Not just to us, you know. Although it is important to us. But I think it's also important to whatever is making this place?"

He gestured around at the grey buildings, "Like, okay whatever's up there, it's made all these stupid buildings. But that's only the blank canvas! It also made that weird art gallery the other day, and I feel like sometimes the buildings with no floors, or the way the Store shifts about, or just the buildings that're a little different, that's somebody trying to create something, you know?"

The other two took a moment to digest this.

"I wasn't an artist," said Quilt, "I never got much out of it. I liked my books and fabrics, but I never had, like, that awe for that you seem to have?"

"They seem pretty bad at it," said Rust, at the same time.

"So I'm not sure I'm getting it?" continued Quilt, "I mean, I get the art being important to us. It's human nature. But for all we know, this whole world is just some process. Perhaps we weren't meant to wake up, and-"

She bit her lip and ground to a halt, struck by a sudden, dangerous thought. "Hey. What if, and hear me out on this…"

She had stopped walking, biting her lip until it hurt, and the other two stared at her.

"Are you ok?" Offered Rust, and Shim turned around, heading back from where he'd been walking ahead.

"Mm." She kept biting her lip, "Give me a moment, this is bad."

"Alright." Rust resisted the urge to reach out, glancing worriedly at Shim.

Quilt took a deep breath in, bracing herself mentally, before speaking the terrible thought aloud.

"What if, like, we were in heaven, hear me out, hear me out. What if we were in heaven and I dunno, what if we broke free of it."

Shim squinted at her, "I think I've read this book, a lotta people in pods right, but it was too good for them so they rebelled and woke up?"

"What?" Quilt blinked, thrown off, "No, no I mean like proper biblical heaven, not… Not whatever it is you're referring to. What if we straight up died, and after we died, our souls or whatever, those went to heaven. We got to live out our best day, for eternity. What if this is like, outside of heaven, and we've fallen into the guts of the machine and now we're bouncing around in here, until eventually we'll get jammed between some gears and we'll break everything, for everyone?"

Rust drew a deep breath in through her nose, but Shim looked sceptical. "Ok, assuming that there is a heaven, and it's that shoddily built, how does that explain me? Both you and Rust, fine, you had a good time. Fed your birds, read your books, I get that. But I never had a good day. I don't even remember if there /was/ a good day. All I know is I woke up and now I'm here and I remember some things, but it's all piecemeal, it's nothin'."

They started walking again, Quilt still anxiously biting her lip and Rust silent, thinking.

"But what if…" Quilt's voice was almost a whine, and Shim huffed at her.

"I don't know if I used to believe all that," Rust butted in, preventing the argument before it could start, "but I used to go and listen to all the… The sermons? Is that the word? I used to go to church once a week and listen to the woman talk about God, about a higher power, and what happens after you die."

She swallowed thickly, adjusting her basket over her arm and looking at the surrounding buildings without actually seeing them. "I don't know if I ever believed in it, but sure, let's go with this. A philosophical debate. What if we're dead. Turns out we were good in life, we went to heaven, and then something happened and we accidentally fell out of our pods. Now we're, what, literal ghosts in the machine?

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"What does that mean for us?" Rust gestured around, "Why would this exist, what is this, and does it matter either way? We're here and that's all we can say about it."

Quilt shrugged, "maybe they're other peoples heavens? Maybe each apartment has somebody in it, somebody we can't perceive, who's each livin' their best day. The hotel, somebody behind the counter who truly loved being there. The art gallery, an artist who's finally gaining some recognition, having the best day of their life."

Shim huffed again, and Rust glanced at him, before looking back to Quilt. "Did you believe in all that, when you were alive?"

She shook her head, "fuck no, bugger that shit. But that shouldn't matter, right? Long as I did my best to be good or whatever?"

Rust frowned, trying to remember things she hadn't even bothered holding onto back when they might've mattered.

"I think, I think depending on what you believed in, it did? Non-believers, or people who believe the wrong thing couldn't go to heaven."

"That's a loada shit." Shim interjected, and Rust shrugged.

"I didn't make the rules, son."

"Ok." Said Quilt, dragging the conch shell back. "So I didn' believe in any gods or whatever, which would have excluded me from your… Your whatever, big building, loud woman, loada shit. But what if there is a belief system out there, a correct one, which says anyone can get into heaven, as long as they live a moral life?"

Shim took his chance to step in. "Then, what counts as a moral life?" he paused, "cause you know," he waggled his eyebrows, "I was considered very good looking, back in highschool. I'm pretty sure that one discounts you."

"Rust, punch him for me." Quilt intoned, and Rust did her best, sighing melodramatically as he dodged out of the way.

Giving up on trying to hit him, Rust spoke. "Okay, so you are a disguting child, and that one's out. I don't know, did either of you give to charity?"

A "never had the cash for that," from Quilt and a "same" from Shim put that one to rest.

"Helped out at your local church?"

"Nope" and "My what?"

She scrunched up her forehead, "I don't know, helped an elderly person across the road?"

"Why would they need help?" Shim asked, and Quilt frowned, moving her mouth as she thought.

"Nope." She came up with eventually, "I also thought about killing my boss at least twice, I think, and I once slept with a married neighbour. Nobody tell her husband!"

Rust stuck her tongue out, and Quilt sighed. "Ok so that one's out too. Sex before marriage, big check, converting your neighbours wife, check, being a charitable person," she made a noise like some sort of siren, which apparently indicated a 'not that one either'.

"So with that, we've determined that out of all of us, only you might have actually got into heaven. Which kinda makes sense? You were the one who woke us both up, after all."

Rust thought about this, and they walked together quietly for almost an hour, the world around them unchanging, the snow slowly coming down.

She started to speak several times, but never quite managed to get the words out.

Finally, it was Shim who broke the silence.

"It might be bunk, it might not, I guess it doesn't matter. Like you said, ghosts in the machine, bits of sand in the gears. Minds without bodies, or somethin'."

He stared upwards for a moment, blinking as snow landed in his eyes.

"So the question becomes, not how'd we get here, but how do we, I dunno, get in touch with the manager? If heaven is a machine, and we're trapped in the machine, how do we find the engineer?"

"Do we even want to?" Quilt, "What if they try and brush us out?"

Rust frowned, "I'm not sure I want to go back to this 'heaven' either, I didn't like it.

She paused.

"I mean, I liked it, it was a perfect day, but I was trapped. I knew I was trapped, it was like I was dreaming and every time I woke up, I was still in the dream."

She pinched herself on the wrist, before giving a full-body shrug.

"I'm not sorry for waking you two up."

Quilt looked away, but Shim leaned over and nudged her. "I'm glad you did."

-

"Maybe you had regrets?" Quilt asked Shim. "If this is uh, the machine of heaven, maybe we're how we wanted to be, not how we were in life?"

"I was older, when I was, um, in the before." Rust added, and Quilt nodded.

"Me too, I think. Maybe you were older also. Maybe you regretted your choices, in life, and you wanted to be sixteen again, so now you are."

Shim looked unimpressed at this. "If that's true, then the least my older self coulda done is leave me some memories, to know exactly /what/ I regretted."

Quilt shrugged and ran a hand through her hair, wincing at how unkempt it felt. "Yeah, but then it wouldn't be a clean start, would it."

She wiped her hand off on her trousers and made a note that she would have to wash them later. Maybe Rust had an old tin bath somewhere? Her place was old-fashioned enough.

"Speaking of clean starts, hey, Rust!"

Rust looked over at her.

"Did your place ever have running water, and like… The other thing that places had, uh… Sparks, you know?"

She stalled out, screwing her face and rubbing her hands against her legs.

Rust stared at her, confused at the sudden change of subject. "I guess? My kids had a pump put in some years back, said it was a health hazard for me to not have running water… Uh, it ran off the other thing so I must've had it, but I otherwise didn't use it much? The house was never properly set up for it, so it was easier not to bother."

She hesitated, "oh, yeah I see what you're getting at. Maybe we should stop by the store on the way home, pick up some soap?"

There were furious nods from both Quilt and Shim, and together they rapidly made their way back home.