SANDIA
THIS PLACE IS A MESSAGE…AND PART OF A SYSTEM OF MESSAGES…PAY ATTENTION TO IT
Study departure Again departure
and often Creation
and often Trust us
*
SENDING THIS MESSAGE WAS IMPORTANT TO US WE CONSIDERED OURSELVES TO BE A POWERFUL CULTURE
Our departures Autoglyph
Thoughtfully Desperately
Touch our lost letter
Stay and learn about leaving
*
THIS PLACE IS NOT A PLACE OF HONOR…NO HIGHLY ESTEEMED DEED IS COMMEMORATED HERE…NOTHING VALUED IS HERE
What the opposite What the wonder
Form And take
I deprive you Inheritor
Heart rate
The chamber and pipe model that determines the throat
Determine sleep Cunning Advantage
Determine escape hatch
*
WHAT IS HERE IS DANGEROUS AND REPULSIVE TO US THIS MESSAGE IS A WARNING ABOUT DANGER
Pin
Pin
Fear
Departure
Pin Author
*
THE DANGER IS IN A PARTICULAR LOCATION…IT INCREASES TOWARD A CENTER…THE CENTER OF DANGER IS HERE…OF A PARTICULAR SIZE AND SHAPE, AND BELOW US
Polysemous burials Changing acts
Our core Harm Valley
Quest GrailPromises
Museum is an old word, too
It means house of dilemmas
*
THE DANGER IS STILL PRESENT, IN YOUR TIME, AS IT WAS IN OURS
Fool’s plutonoium
There is only one time
If you have broken the (roughly)
Barrier Barrier
Perhaps you have
We meant magic lamp
We meant touch
Perish
*
THE DANGER IS TO THE BODY, AND IT CAN KILL
Neat catalog
In what you discover
was once called usage
No use for that now
No use for depiction
No use for body
*
THE FORM OF THE DANGER IS AN EMANATION OF ENERGY
Nature
Our folk technology
Our terragram
Runs
It runs with the fountain
*
THE DANGER IS UNLEASHED ONLY IF YOU SUBSTANTIALLY DISTURB THIS PLACE PHYSICALLY. THIS PLACE IS BEST SHUNNED AND LEFT UNINHABITED
What is here
Came from what
Oblique distance
Assume you
Hope you
Irrelevant commandment
Save the opening of this one
Save it
Until the last second
Until the absolute last
Reasonably possible hope for hope is lost
I will teach you an art
Of surrender along the way
Text in caps in “SANDIA” is lifted from a report by Sandia National Laboratories entitled “Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant,” created by Kathleen M. Trauth, Stephen C. Hora, and Robert V. Guzowski. A PDF of the full report can be accessed at http://prod.sandia.gov/techlib/access-control.cgi/1992/921382.pdf.
**
PETER MILNE GREINER is the author of Executive Producer Chris Carter (The Operating System 2014). His poetry, science fiction, and other writings have appeared in Motherboard, Fence, SciArt In America, Coldfront, Dark Mountain, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn, and blogs at kurremkarmerruk.tumblr.com.
