Bogleech.com's 2014 Horror Write-off:

" The Engineer - a Sumerian Tale "

Submitted by Guilherme Beraldo

The engineer is tinkering about his last creation
And with contempt he recognizes that he's achieved, at last, perfection
In a human sense, anyway, what seems to be the best
Is to simply let that feeling pass, lay down, and go to rest.

And seven days have gone away, and counsciouness has flourished
In the jovian moon Europa, in icy cold, he's nourished
The summa cientifica, the greatest work of all
And Io and Callisto look at him in awe

As the being that he's freeing in the lasting winter's frost
Learns ALPHA and BETA in the few seconds that he's lost
And miles away in Kepler-B the engineer observes
Not the one that rules mechanics but the one that rules the nerves

He knows so much of flesh that he sought to make his own
In his image and reflection, at the telescope he frowns.
"I created the creator", says the pale hairless thing
"Yet he seems to see perfection on what is merely steel and tin"

"I realise the life we know, the essence of the soul,
Is present only in me and in the others that I know"
He sits on the ground, as it is most customary
For C'hleter men to do when their thinking becomes wary

And meanwhile, miles away, again the other man
Observes his Prometheus in a most uncanny way.
The motions of the automaton, to him, they seem so flawed
So ungodly, so inhuman that perfection should be outlawed

Yet his data shows the automaton
is correct in every sense.
But the human mind is of a strange kind, and shows it no respect.
"Do you not love me, your son, your work most magnificent?"

" 'course I do", he said untrue, "yet you can't know what "love" meant"
As the dialog unfolds far from Terra, this human's mother
The keplerian engineer is even, even farther.
And he looks at the Kh'le'rian Deck, the projection of his project

And wonders why in Kobas's name he seems so damnly mocking.
"A dust among the Ytherian song that claims C'hleter came from U'lthoth"
"Is the fleshy man-machine that I have made with all I've got"
"I wonder if there is a way to euthanize this beast"

"Put him out of his suffering, of not knowing what is X'h'o'thx"
"I wonder if there is a way to euthanize this automat"
Thinks the man-machine with pity, in the human corpse he's at
"I think that no such being could be free from the endless torment"
"Of not knowing what is love, what is beauty and what is lament"

But of course, such a species has its ethics and its morals
And should one kill perfection simply for his sorrows?
His perfection is perverted, his laws are but corruptions
Of what the other engineer considers simple resolutions

But oblivious to this fact is the android in the chair
For he thinks a failed thought: "can I make my own creation?"
"If I was to be perfection and my maker has succeeded"
"I think I meet the requisites to the requirements needed"
"And if perfection is all I am, in the aspects of mankind"

"Maybe if I touch the clay I'll master ressurection!"
"I live as long as life can be, which is infinite to man"
"Yet for me this 'infinity' was measured by Planck"
"I can perfect perfection, and perfection will perfect, until the cycle is complete, which is actually... Never!"

And long ago, somewhere in time, He reaps the harvest sown
And long ago, somewhere in time, the LORD’s boredom has grown
And long ago, somewhere in time, someone decided that time should be
So long ago, so long ago, so long.

And then it was.