Link to article: A Letter, Taped to a Pipe Bomb, Found in the Site-19 Break Room.
component:preview
:scp-wiki:component:license-box
:scp-wiki:component:license-box-end
blockquote
[[>]] [[module Rate]] [[/>]] ===== [[include component:preview text= Kaboom? ]] ===== [[div class="blockquote"]] Mountains are beautiful for their permanence. When I stand before their slopes, I can picture a hundred generations of my forebears standing in the same spot, awed by the same monolithic crags and bluffs as I. The moon, the pyramids, Michelangelo's David, all things fixed and monolithic share this quality. By contrast, the sunset is beautiful for its ephemerality. While certainly there will be another tomorrow, as I stare up at the fading hues and rippling clouds I am struck by the knowledge that none before and none after have stood in this spot and seen precisely what I see before me. It is this quality, this fleeting moment of beauty that draws me to ephemera. A portrait etched in sand, a poem on a burning page, even live music or a stage play share in this. Certainly, they could be performed again, recreated with great attention to accuracy, but Theseus has disembarked. While the act is temporary, that same ephemerality lends to a longevity of impression. The art may be gone but the response lives forever. But in that fact lies the seed that may kill the artist. Whether it is cultural or psychological I cannot say, but we privilege the permanent, or at least the enduring. Thus, that same beauty that makes ephemera so captivating risks making the art subordinate to the response. In creating this piece I found myself already focusing on the reaction it might provoke, the discussions internal and interpersonal, forcing the work itself to the margins, an ancillary aspect of its own existence. That is why I leave the choice here in your hands. Should you attempt to move this piece in any way, the bomb will detonate. I trust that you have read this far before making your decision, although if you have not I suppose that is a point unto itself, but I digress. I surrender the decision to you: allow this piece to conclude in conflagration, to become ephemera that exists only in memory; or deny it that purpose, seal it in one of your titanium boxes, freeze it in time and form. It is not my place to say what either choice will mean, to you or to the piece. Nor will I know which you have decided. This piece should not have the power to cause any true, structural damage, and I will see nothing of it from the outside. You will know, and you will decide what that means should you wish to do so. I am content merely to have posed that question, how, and even whether, you answer is not of my concern. Signed, Allegedly, An Artist [[/div]] [[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box]] [[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box-end]]