This came out of a picture prompt of an incredibly complex machine. When I thought about the picture there was a small human figure staring up at the machine, dwarfed by it; but when I went back and looked at the picture the figure wasn't there. Funny thing, the mind.
Thomas and the Machine (992 words)
Thomas frowned. There was a smudge on a pipe he was sure he had already cleaned. He sighed. Once, he had been able to keep up. It seemed that the older he got, the bigger the machine got.
This was, of course, true. When he first began to work on it, it only covered one wall of this underground room…at least, so he thought.
He stretched, to ease his aching back, and looked around.
The machine now covered three of the walls; a great intricate mass of pipes, joints, valves, and dials. It crept up into the echoing darkness of the roof. The ladder Thomas used to clean the upper reaches stood, in narrowing perspective, ready for use. When had he got the ladder? Who had brought it?
Thomas shrugged. The same people who left his food, and his clothes. It wasn’t his concern. He could see no more smudges, so he could go to bed, now. “Respect the machine,” he said, and went to the bathroom cubicle. He always shut the door, even though there had been no-one else there for as long as he could remember. To do otherwise would be disrespectful.
He folded himself neatly onto the bed in the corner of the room. The machine hissed and creaked, thudded and roared. It had grown louder at the same pace as it had grown larger, so Thomas barely noticed, and usually slept easily amid the cacophony.
Tonight, though, he found thoughts chasing themselves around his mind. He was getting stiff in the joints, at the end of a busy day the small of his back had started to develop a hot, low ache. How long would he be able to keep up with his duties? And what happened when he couldn’t? He knew, of course, what should happen; the machine would take care of him, as he took care of it. But sometimes, other, treacherous thoughts crept in.
The new boy appeared one morning; he had messy hair, hazel eyes so bright they almost seemed to glow, and a dazed look. Thomas was pleased; obviously someone had realised he was getting on, needed help.
“Right then,” he said. The boy only looked puzzled. He raised his voice. “Over here!” He showed him the cloths, polish, wrenches, all neatly laid out. He took pride in his tools.
The boy nodded, but didn’t actually do anything until Thomas put the cloth in his hand, showed him a smudge, and set him at it.
Another bed had, of course, been provided; but the constant presence of another being took some getting used to. And the boy, James… the boy was sloppy. Thomas caught him more than once sitting on his bed, staring at the walls, running his hands through his messy hair, when he should have been working.
And he asked questions. “Where does this pipe go? What’s this dial mean?”
Thomas didn’t like these questions. They weren’t respectful.
The machine, however, seemed to like the boy’s presence. It roared louder, the windows into its raging heart glowed hotter, it thudded and steamed with enthusiasm. And it grew faster; whole new sections appeared overnight.
James quieted, eventually. His hair settled down, he started to comb it neatly. The light in his eyes dimmed to something more appropriate. He stopped asking so many questions.
Thomas was pleased to note the way James began to copy his own methods; the way he laid out his tools, the way he folded his cloths. Sometimes he heard the boy scream, in the middle of the night, but he would settle down. Thomas had done, after all.
Thomas felt himself slowing. Not only his back, but his hands ached; his knees weren’t up to the ladder any more, and though he didn’t yet quite trust James to do it properly, he had to let him do the climbing.
One morning Thomas was carefully polishing the face of one of the big dials, the one with a needle as long as his forearm; the dial was glossy with health. Thomas’s hand looked ancient; the knuckles swollen, blue veins standing out under the fragile skin.
He looked up to see James swarming down the ladder with dangerous speed. Thomas felt his heart speed up. “What is it?” He shouted. “Is something wrong?” He imagined a leak, a break, steam from a joint, water dripping…rust, decay…
James shook his head, and pulled Thomas towards the bathroom cubicle. Thomas went, protesting, his polishing cloth still clutched in his hand.
James shut the door and leaned against it. His hair was on end again, his eyes furiously bright. He beckoned Thomas close.
“What is this nonsense?” Thomas said, carefully folding his cloth.
James beckoned harder. Thomas, sighing, went closer. James bent and whispered, “There’s a window. Up in the roof. I reckon we could get out.”
Thomas gaped. There was a strange feeling in his chest, pain, like something cracking open.
He pushed past James, without a word, and went back to his polishing, concentrating on the face of the dial, on its mysterious numbers. What did they mean? It wasn’t his business to ask. He went on polishing, until his arm hurt, until the dial gleamed like teeth.
James pulled at his sleeve, but Thomas ignored him. The machine got louder; all around them, there were roars and thuds and gushes of steam. James pulled at him one last time, and then ran for the ladder.
The floor shook. Up in the roof, things clanged. Thomas kept polishing. In the corner of his eye James’ thin legs were scrabbling higher, higher.
He kept polishing.
The dial glowed for a moment with a strange new light that stung Thomas’s eyes; a light from outside, an errant beam, finding its way all the way down to the depths of the machine.
Then the light was gone. Thomas kept polishing. His tears soaked his collar, but he ignored them.
They’d send someone else, eventually.
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