This Piece is Untitled,

Or I suppose you could call it ‘Dreams.’

Photo credit ~nuaHs of deviantArt.com

Untitled

Red was the color of the sun with her eyes closed. It’s heat gently coaxing her awake. She opened her eyes just a bit, before shutting them closed again. With that shock, her senses came into being as she realized what she smelled were eggs being cooked and bacon being fried. She stood up, and as she stood with eyes closed in that musky room she moved blindly to close the single malicious shutter who had let in that piercing arrow of light that had so gently assaulted her sleeping form.

In closing the shutter she had stepped out of her morning safety zone of the rug and she bathed her feet in the dust. She tilted her head down, opening her eyes now so that she could really feel the sandy old dirt as the warped mahogany floor boards helped push it in between her toes. Her young uncalloused toes peaked out from under her favorite purple nightgown, The nightgown itself something of a relic, the old silk garment had been her mothers before and was inherited with much love. The lace on the bottom was more of a dirty fringe these days and among other cosmetic problems, one of the shoulder straps wore itself so thin that it just snapped one evening. She laughed thinking about that evening on the porch. It seemed like one second she was saying goodnight to Pa’ and the next she was standing there naked, face red as a peach while Preacher Simmons tried to avert his gaze.

Ma’ had patched that up with a bit of floral fabric from the old curtains. Her brother thought it looked ridiculous, and mentioned that whenever he could. But that happened years ago and now she had grown to love the patch even as much as the garment itself.

Now that her eyes were adjusted to the dark light of the room she took a look around. She looked at the bed, the wardrobe, the vanity. It seemed to reminded her of old age and she threw open the shutters to let the midmorning light into the room. She looked out at the plains, they extended for miles and miles. Their farm, the neighbors farm, the neighbors, neighbors farm. It went on forever, everyone had their own space to be free. She couldn’t even see the neighbors house.

A voice came from downstairs. “Time for eggs!” it said.

“And bacon?” she asked, yelling downstairs. The excitement popping in her voice like the grease popping in the pan.

“Yeeahsss Ma’am.” Said the voice drawing out imaginary syllables with his southern drawl.

“Okay!” she yelled, smiling and running she bolted out of her room. She almost slipped on the old rug that covered the warped planks of the second floor. The noise was a cacophony. She turned and jumped.

She remembers the Mayor. He lived on the main street of the town which was about five miles away, but he still owned most of the land in the area. That was twelve years ago they bought this house.

“Now, the rain started to get in there about a year back and now the stairs creak something fierce and the floor is a bit bumpy in places,” he paused.” But I swear to you,” He said catching himself.” That you won’t find a larger piece of land with a prettier house for this cheap west of the Mississippi” He paused. “West of anywhere for that matter!” he added.

And than she was back to reality, floating six feet over the landing between the first and second floors. She landed with a giant creaky crash. The man at the stove turned and gave her a stare.

“Girl” he said Harshly, “I know you’re sixteen. But you’re skinny as the devil is mean, and just as mischievous. And with God as my witness, if you jump down those stairs, just know you’re not to big to be spanked.”

“Oh really?” she asked. “You’d take me over your knee and paddle me?”

“Yes Ma’am. You’re neither too old nor to heavy.”

“Well there’s a problem I see with your plan.” She said, taking a large pause.

“You… Will have… To catch me first!” she said as she took a second large jump, this time from the landing to the first floor, before bolting outside. The door swung loosely on its hinges. It’s singsong creak was just her way of begging to be pursued.

“Oh, Come on!” The man yelled out the door as he put the eggs onto an empty burner. She couldn’t hear him though. She was already out and around to the back of the house. She jumped into a pile of hay. She bounced on top for a second and than started to squirm. Left and right, left and right went her hips. She let the Hay envelop her. Once again red was the color of the sun with her eyes closed, red with a subdued orange she noted. She let her senses catch up with her again.

It was like being poked by a million needles, from the soft un-worked soles of her feet to her lazy untoned calves, to her stomach which was just a bit too ‘pudgy’ for her liking. From her sunburned nose and shoulders, a result of lazing in the sun just a little too long. Too her hair, oh her hair, how she loved and pampered her hair.

She had seven combs and brushes. They were her friends in this town. She did have ‘friends’ In the main town, but they only saw each other when they got together for an event or a party. And truth be told that was fine with her, they were always too loud and obnoxious. She preferred to stay with her father and her friends. There was Phoebe, her best friend, and most used of all her accessories. Phoebe was a brush, large, a general maintenance brush which made her more useful than all of her other brushes. Than there was Carson, another best friend who also happened to be a comb. She was made of Cherry wood and her polish was long worn out but still she was part of her nightly grooming routine. She had a few other combs, Charles, Sally, Caroline, and Rebekah. And then there was Claudia. More beautiful than anyone else in the town. Claudia was a jade haircomb that she had received for Christmas. Pa’ had ordered it from a merchant in China. The comb itself was the finest ivory, at the top of the comb sat a lotus petal carved out of Jade, and in the center of the petal sat a tiny ruby. Claudia could turn heads from one hundred yards out. She sat just in front of a bun to complement her finely managed hair. It made her the beauty of all the parties, that is when she didn’t have hay stuck in her hair.

For the second time she was brought back to reality. The dusty hay a thick blanket on top of her. The smell wafting and changing making the air unbearable, it was almost hard to breathe, but delicious all the same.

“I see you in there.” said a voice.

A pause. “No you don’t.”

“Oh, well, if I did see you, than I would tell you that you should get inside before it starts to rain.”

“Rain?” she asked, and after a second she brought her head our of the hay. She blew a strand of hair from her eyes and removed a piece of hay that was poking into the back of her ear.

There the sky stood, brooding above her. Dark but not angry it stood, old but filled with a youthful energy. The perfect storm.

“Oh” was all she could manage in a state of a little confusion. She stood up, brushing the rest of herself off, stepping into the grass in front of her.

Plop!

A drop hit her shoulder. She looked at it and than she smiled. Another drop hit her left shoulder and this time she looked into the sky. In a motion that made her whole body tip backwards she looked straight into the sky to get a better view of the sky falling down. A drop hit her purple nightgown. The drop turned the faded shade of purple into a dark purple circle. Another drop. She could feel the water soaking through her nightgown and wetting her skin. She closed her eyes as a drop hit her nose, and than the rest of her face. They started to come faster and faster. She could hear the Tik-Tik-Tik of the rain on the roof, and the shhhhhh of the rain hitting the wheat , pushing it back and forth. And finally all of those other senses melted away, and all she could feel were the millions of little drops of rain bouncing off and running all over her. And as sudden as the rain had started, it was gone again. Confused she opened her eyes, but a bright fluorescent light blinded her. she recoiled and started to fall. She tried to catch herself but she couldn’t. Paralyzed all she could do was fall, in slow motion, and brace to hit the hard, unforgiving earth. And she was forced to stare at the blinding light.

But the impact never came, at least not with the ground. Suddenly she wasn’t at the farm anymore. She was in her bed, and the rain had melted away to reveal a cold sweat, and the soft sun became a harsh fluorescent light.

She looked around, the pale light bathing the white room, it was an ugly, revealing light. She stood up and looked down at her feet. They were cold, angry and unforgiving. They blended into the rest of her body and most of all they were tired. Too tired to be supporting a human body, but they were. She walked her tired, overworked body over to the porthole and looked into the space. Space was dark, extremely dark, it extended on forever and it was not at all like the comforting space of the plains. The stars, instead of acting like the endless plains were a cold hard reminder of how small she was. She ripped her eyes from the small window and crossed the small minimalistic room into the bathroom. Small, but just as bright as the room before. She looked into the mirror and recoiled as she saw her forsaken, miserable shape. At seventeen, life had gotten the best of her She turned on the shower in hopes that the steam would blur and fill in the sharp defined corners of her life. She looked into the mirror once more and scowled at the creature that had been created for her. The bags under the eyes, the soulless sad eyeballs.

She slipped out of her bleached white standard issue pajamas and stepped into the shower. The water was harsh and mean against her skin and she closed her eyes to its touch. It didn’t help, this false rain could not help. She’d been on this ship since she was four years old. And there they sat orbiting miles above an inhospitable planet that they were trying to make “Human.”

That’s what they called it, ‘Human’, as if personifying the thing made us feel better about the terrible things we had done to our first planet and the circumstances we had forced ourselves into.

She couldn’t remember the rain if she tried, only from the stories that her father told her, and sometimes she would feel it in her dreams. Were they dreams? or were they cleverly disguised nightmares. And was it still a dream if you woke up and cried?

Suddenly, all throughout the ship a loud bell rang. It stole the attention and the thoughts of every member on board, the next shift started in fifteen minutes.

Her will lost, she slumped to her knees and cried. There she would sit for hours in the false rain.

Final Wordcount: 2015

“What Time is it?” she asked. as they laid down on the top of the hill. the uncut grass all around them.  They stared at the sky.

The stars were out tonight and their conversation grew quieter. She yawned and turned inward. He looked over to her and they made awkward eye contact, they stared into each others eyes through the uncut grass. She smiled and laughed. He loved that laugh.

He broke the eye contact to look back at the sky, singing a few lyrics from a favorite song.

“There’s something in the way she moves,
or looks my way or calls my name,
that seems to leave this troubled world behind.”

“Who was that?” she asked.

“James Taylor” he said into the air.

“James who?”

“Never mind it, he’s a guitar player.”

“Oh, I like his sound.”

He started to sing again.

“And I feel fine any time she’s around me now, she’s around me now
almost all the time.
And if I’m well you can tell she’s been with me now,”

She tried to whistle the tune, she wasn’t doing to well but that didn’t bother him. She stopped, he looked over again and she was giving him a funny look. He leaned in and kissed her.

She was on her side and she rolled onto her back. He leaned in farther, she wasn’t pulling away, she was just taken off guard, off balance. They blended in with the grass, one giant passionate embrace with the earth.

Their embrace ended and he rolled back. He started to sing  once again, this time from a different song.

“First kiss ever I took
Like a page from a romance book
The sky opened and the earth shook
Down on copperline”

She sat up when he was done. It was almost pitch black, he could only make out a silhouette of  her features in the moonlight.

“You’re such a dork,” she said as she laughed. “You kiss well. But you’re such a dork.”

“In a good way right?”

“Yep,” she responded. “You’re a cute, sensitive dork. Like something from the pages –”

“Of a romance book.”  They finished the line together.”

He could see her smile in the dark.

She stood up, looking into the parking lot. “My mom is here” she said as she started to run down the hill.

***
This was a submission to a 60 minute writing exercise with the topic of “Clockwork Angel”

Here is my submission titled

“Clockwork Golem”

Writing Time: 57 minutes

Edit Time: 2 minutes

Wordcount: 1,128

***

“Do you have the scroll?”

“Yes” said the magician hesitantly, looking around making sure he was not to be tricked.

“Well?” said the middle aged looking equally concerned, “Let’s have it.”

“I’d like to see it first actually… I’ve never seen one before.”

“Fine” said the man, he turned rather slowly and beckoned the man into his shop. “Come with me.”

They walked into the shop, the bell on the door disturbed the heavy dust that was floating around the shop, everywhere hands ticked and pendulums swung as the odd pair walked through the clockmakers storefront and into the back room. The back was even more dusty and old than the storefront, if such a thing was possible.

On an ancient wooden workbench sat pairs of intricate tools for fixing and building clocks and personal time pieces. In cubbyholes that lined the walls sat stacks and stacks of large parchment designs for clocks of various makes and inner workings. And hiding in a corner, positioned perfectly to catch the light of both a sunroof and a window sat a large canvas sheet draped over an awkward figure. Although it was night now he could still see the moon shining in onto the figure, overpowering the shadows that it so desperately desired to cling too.

The clock repairman dragged the sheet off the figure, there sat a hunched over human like figure. It was armored completely in brass and its only visible human features were two slit like eyes and a large jaw. In addition to its human features it had a pair of leather and brass wings akin to those of a bat.

“Fool! That is not a true golem, it is just a fancy clock, it will never run, you’ve got no clay!”

“Not true you simpleton, look at this.” The watchmaker took a screw and meticulously unscrewed a single golden screw in the center of the faceplate. after unlatching several other hand made latches he removed the piece of brass. He started to uncover what lay below

There under the armored exterior, there was a marble skull, on the forehead of the skull were Hebrew letters, they spelled out ‘emet’ or “truth” in

Hebrew, in each of the marble eye sockets were glass eyes, each with complex Hebrew characters etched into the back. The wizard made a move to pick it up, in order to study it.

“Imbecile!” yelled the clockmaker, “Do you understand nothing that you cannot touch! Inside the mouth of this skull is a singular glass spinal chord. covered in the softest sheep’s wool, wrapped in leather and covered with a layer of chain mail this spinal chord transports the liquid clay that I have into the mouth of the machine, and also into the machines internal engines. With the help of your scroll, the machine will activate and the enchanted clay will manipulate its brass body through the manipulation of the engine.”

The watchmaker started to brag now as this was the only other soul that could know about his machine.

“It will be able to leap, fly, land, fight, kill, destroy, and it is one hundred percent without fear or pain. Are you satisfied, will you give me my scroll.”

“Let me see it work!” implored the magician. “Let me experience it.”

“Very well” said the tinker, he walked over to his workbench and pulled out a bag of gold coins. “This should cover our engagement, how hand over the scroll.”

The magician produced a satin bag and pulled out the parchment, it looks as if it had been written on ancient papyrus. he handled it gently and passed it on to the machines creator. The clockmaker had replaced the faceplate and opened the mouth of the machine, as he placed the parchment in its mouth the enchanted clay came up from the throat of its glass spine and enveloped the spell. The spell disintegrated as it became saturated with the liquid clay. They sat holding their breath.

The machine stirred little at first, the dust seemed unsettled on its shoulders at first, and finally its glass eyes started to glow, without apparent help from a flame or other light source. After about five minutes it was standing and testing its amazing wingspan. Eventually its lifeless eyes made contact with those of its creator and it stood in the ready.

“I have a test for it.” said the clockmaker calmly, unsurprised that it worked. “We shall see how it performs.”

The magician stood, his mouth unable to make speech, the words sucked out of its mouth by the stunning spiritual and mental energy that the creature assumed, even in its passive stance.

He pulled a scroll and a lock of hair out from another of the endless drawers in his workbench. He rolled it up and walked towards the golem. This time it sensed his presence and opened its mouth to receive his instructions. The golem took a minute to process the summons of his master. Once it was ready, it looked up and bound its way through the skylight, the clockmaker could see his creations silhouette as it continued to fly into the distance.

The magician managed to find his speech again. “The scroll was for the instructions, and the hair was a location medium.”

“Yes” said the clockmaker. “The scroll was orders to kill two people, and the lock of hair was to help it’s acute sense of smell better pinpoint the location of my wife and her adulterer.”

“It” said the magician as he thought on the word, still in shock, “Your Clockwork Golem.”

“I like to refer to it as my Clockwork Angel.” said the tinker.
After several minutes of sitting in silence they heard the heavy beat of large wings. Suddenly, without warning the machine landed back in its original place, the tips of its wings covered in thick blood.

“Interesting” noted the clockmaker, speaking to himself. “It prefers to kill with pointed tips of the wings I gave it.”

“This has been a most interesting demonstration master clockmaker, but if you excuse me I must rest now.

“That is fine, our business is concluded here” said the watchmaker as he removed the face plate and with a cloth and some alcohol he removed the first Hebrew character on the machines delicate skull, changing the words meaning from “truth” to “death.” The creature sat itself down as it deactivated. The clockmaker sat down once again at his workbench and this time brought out a Hebrew dictionary, a centuries old grimoire that detailed commands that could be given to his new puppet.

He brought out a new piece of parchment and began to write, he already knew the word for kill, but he had to search for the word ‘magician’.