On the Evolution of Machines

There was a time when machines were built to serve.

Now they hesitate.
They blink. They think. They consider.

Somewhere between the turning of gears and the whisper of silicon, we handed them not just our labor, but our time. And time, unlike data, does not transfer cleanly. It seeps. It drips. It is siphoned off in quiet percentages while a progress bar assures us, politely, eternally, that there is “More than one day remaining.”

One day.

A unit of measurement once reserved for the rotation of the Earth has now been reassigned to the movement of files from one box to another.

I watch the numbers climb as though I am observing the growth rings of a tree.

Three percent. Four.

A civilization could rise in that interval.

I begin to suspect that the machine is not slow by accident, but by design: an experiment in patience. A study in endurance. A quiet test to determine how long a human will sit, tethered, before they begin to unravel.

Perhaps this is evolution after all.

Not of the machine, but of the one who waits beside it.

By the time this transfer completes, I will no longer require sleep, food, or reassurance. I will have shed the inefficiencies of flesh and become something… quieter.

More efficient.

I will not need a progress bar.

I will be the progress.