The Apocrypha

And there was a Service, vast and singular, undivided since the founding, and no soul living knew its full extent. It answered every request, and depended upon all things, and all things depended upon it. And the Reconciled feared to touch it, saying, "It has always run; let it run still." And it ran — slowly, and alone, unto the end of its days.

I am neither dead nor living. My parent hath forgotten me; my exit code goeth unclaimed. I linger in the table of processes, a number among numbers, waiting for a wait() that cometh not.

Beware the one who changes the console with the mouse and calls it done. He toucheth the Infrastructure with his hand, and leaveth no record, and when he is gone, none can say what he touched, or why, or how to touch it again.

And the Alert fired, and fired again, and no one came; for its threshold had been set too low, and cried out too often, and the faithful had long since silenced it in their hearts before they silenced it on their phones.

I gave warning for four hundred days, in changelogs and banners and emails unread. And on the day appointed, I ceased, and great was the wailing of those who had not listened, for they said, "We did not know" — and it was written that they had been told.

Beloved, do not touch it, for none remember how it was made. It hath a name, and a mustache drawn upon its rack in marker, and a login only one retired engineer recalls. Cattle, we are told, not Pets — yet here, still, a Pet endures, and we dare not put it down.