We were travelling through space, I know not how;
watching a metaphorical map of the solar system,
Mars and Earth and Venus,
but Saturn was our destination.
At the base whereon we landed, a strange machine stood;
a kind of strange impression on the ground,
with four identical controls on each side,
whose function no one could understand.
But I discerned the nature of the controls, how to power the machine;
I ran through the steps on all four sides,
and although all had been worked properly,
no effect was produced.
Then I saw what I had forgotten, the one step I had missed;
and gathered amounts of sand and clay and dirt,
and filled the impression in the ground,
as though it were a mold to be casted.
I activated the controls again, and an effect was visible;
the work was half done now and another half remained,
our team setting aside the energized compound,
and filling the mold again to be powered.
Little material remained to do so, but what we had was enough;
when the two halves had been assembled they took shape,
and we had ourselves a kind of golem,
an alien's mind animating our dust.
He could reform himself at will, and his first shape was as a walking grass;
he had a human head like ours but cast in green,
and from our matter somehow learned our culture,
speaking to us as an equal and a friend.
In the time that he was with us, I knew him to have many names;
only the last one remains with me now,
and I will call him by that name throughout:
he was Oceanus.
We all spoke to him of many things, but I know that I was more his friend than the others. I wish I could remember what we said... One time, when we were walking along, I asked him if he could take the shape of Maxim Westman, one of my favorite characters. I don't think he ever got to try, because I never got to show him what he looked like.
Somewhere in the middle of this, the setting changed again to Collegedale or something very similar. We walked through stores and saw many things, and through the dorm where I also saw Jake and spoke to him about I forget what.
The leader of our team, for some reason, never liked Oceanus, or at least felt too responsible for him, and not being able to supervise him. And he made Oceanus
leave--I don't know why for certain, perhaps it was something he did--and I ... don't remember anything else.
I would have gone with him, though..