The law says three days
and your sins evaporate like gas
from a Walker Machine left running
in the middle of the desert.
Zora is a planet made of loopholes—
lizards on skewers, dust in the teeth,
and domes on the horizon where the Innocent
hoard sky, technology, and clean water.
You were supposed to be a footnote,
a kid found wandering by Sand Rats
with more rage than rations,
Jiron Amos with a cracked voice
and a name that sounds like gravel.
Revenge is the first rhythm you learn:
Timp Sharon, a ghost in your retinas,
a crosshair that never quite fades,
the single syllable your heart mutters
between gear shifts.
Then comes Xabungle—
a Walker Machine that moves
like a drunk, like a dancer, like a man
who hasn’t decided if he’s joke or justice.
You steal it the way some people
steal kisses or futures,
hands on the steering wheel,
feet on the pedals,
eyes wide open to the stupid possibility
that this time, the underdog keeps the robot.
Out here, mecha aren’t myths,
they’re farm tools and freight haulers,
battle taxis with rusted ankles,
labor made loud and bipedal—
industry on two legs,
mining and fighting in the same afternoon.
Your life becomes a fast‑cut montage:
bazaars exploding into shoot‑outs,
landships surfing seas of sand,
fourth walls cracking like cheap glass
as the narrator winks
and the soundtrack tries to keep up.
Tomino aims for tragedy
and hits slapstick on the way,
but sometimes, between the pratfalls,
you get a still frame—
you, the Sand Rats,
a stolen future idling behind you,
and Zora’s ruined sky
suddenly looking almost survivable.
“Is it a breeze or a storm?” they ask
as you downshift into another bad idea,
Blue Gale howling through loose armor plates,
kicking up a theology of scrap metal and stubbornness
in the wake of your latest terrible plan.
Revenge drags you forward,
but somewhere between episode counts
you start wanting something stranger—
not just Timp’s blood in the sand,
but a world where the three‑day rule
isn’t the only mercy anyone knows.
So you keep driving,
a comedy mecha hero miscast in a revolution,
learning that on Zora
the difference between outlaw and savior
is mostly who’s still laughing
when the dust finally settles
