Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-6192846-20150304021219/@comment-4698889-20150328131328

In order:
 * "The gear was removed" seems to imply that Irregular was somehow "removed" from the rest of the people (possibly killed?). Since gears are supposed to represent individual wills, then it's possible the gear represents Irregular. Ma also likens individuals to gears, since I remember her saying "what's important is that he's not one of the gears" somewhere.
 * "The outcome is in the dark" possibly means that the effect of "removing" Irregular is something unknown/obscured.
 * I think the whole "black box buried in the sand" is an allusion to Twiright Prank. This may be a red herring, or a possible Allen parallel if it is indeed talking about Irregular.
 * "The days of atonement" seem to imply that Irregular has sins, although how this plays out doesn't make sense since he's supposedly without an ego/personality.
 * Ma's uncertainty of whether it's the end of the beginning may be chalked up as just another artistic nonsensical line, although it may have something to do with transcending time, since Irregular hears the Clockwork Lullaby inside the box.
 * Why Irregular was even put in the box in the first place still remains mysterious. Could it be that Black Boxes have a variety of uses, and Sickle just happened to use its information and teleportation functions with Allen? If it's Second Period technology used by the gods, it's likely quite versatile.