the Machine

SHORT PART 1 (a Broken lightbulb)

The walls in the room seemed to glow. Maybe because the September sun that shone through a dirty window glass lit whole place with its blinding flashes of yellow. But even the September sun couldn’t make this room cozy or home-like. It was nearly completely stripped of furniture. The lonely, old coach was standing in the center and in front of it the gigantic window was letting the gleam in. Light beige walls were bare besides the ticking clock that hung above the doors. Tick, tick, tick were the only words that this thing knew. Tick, tick, tick were the only thoughts that this piece of plastic will ever have. When you think about it, it wasn’t different from many people. A lot of them were similar to the ticking clock. With monotonous ideas that reminded me of a smooth surface of the lake. Bloody sound of this cursed thing was starting to fuck with my mind. I couldn’t focus. Maybe because it resembled my thoughts, as well?... Never mind the damned clock. I was sitting on the old coach and my friend was next to me. I’ve always considered him a little eccentric. Maybe because of his looks? Now, for example he wore a black coat, that hung from his lanky figure (although there was like 32C outside). Black shades covered his eyes, which would be understandable if we were strolling around the city, not sitting inside of the empty room. Currently, he was waving his hands and shaking his head. You need to know, that my dear friend was also constantly moving. Shifting, twitching, shaking and so on and so on. Poor restless soul. He was turned in the opposite direction to me, facing the naked wall.

‘An y’know, dude. Y’know how it is?! Y’know me. And ya need to understand why I lost it a lil’ when this other dude had said that I was a madman. Like, y’know... I?’- he produced a high-pitched sound, that I had no idea, he had had an ability to create. Then he made a weird motion with his palms, that looked unnaturally and was (in my opinion) disgusting. Really, human bones weren’t create to do this kind of... things.

‘I?! I?! A madman, I’ain’t no madman. Y’know me, my man. I ain’t no madman! I ain’t no madman!’- the last phrase was nearly shouted and the man scratched his head, messing up his unwashed, black hair.

’I ain’t no madman!’- He continued to gesture aggressively. My friend still haven’t realized that he was turned in the wrong direction and in consequence he was talking to the stack of bricks.

’Hey, man. ’M sorry to interrupt your story, but eh. ‘M here. You’re talking to the wall. Maybe you should take off these sunglasses’- I said resting my head on the coach’s backrest and taking my cheap pipe from the pocket of my jeans. I filled it with shitty tobacco, while looking at my dear friend. He turned to me, shocked expression painted on his face.

‘Yeah’- he laughed nervously and scratched the back of his head.

‘Y-yeah I knew this, cuz y’know... I ain’t no madman’- and yet again my dear companion made this motion with his palms that made me sick. I lit my pipe. The room bacame hazy. Thick fog didn’t make it seems less empty... but definitely more cozy. And this stupid clock. Goddamit this twisted machine! The ticks were so unbearable. I closed my eyes... yeah it was time to leave.

~

So basically, besides my dearest friend my life was filled with normality. To give you an example: all of the faces on the streets that you see everyday on your way to work. You look at them for the first time and probably for the last. I was one of them. Transparent and easily forgot by others. And y’know what? I was completely okay with this. I was okay with my thoughts resembling the ticking of the clock. It was fine, the normality, stability and being a part of the always-working machine. I found peace in the face of this heavily breathing, iron monster filled with workers and driving through the same path every day. The machine was my oasis on the desert of life. I had work, which i truly disliked, but which made it possible for me to earn money. For the money I was buying food and paying rent for my apartment. And everything in this simple chain was... plain. My apartment- just like 1 000 others, my job- not different from the rest of dull jobs, my life- filled with routine, just like lives of milliards of people. It was the chain that made a lot of us happy and... it sadly took something away from us, but it was not my place to think about this "something". So I went from my home to my job, from my job to my home not thinking about the thing, that was ripped away from me by the machine. Each day I was going through the same routine, that involved working, sleeping, being. Well, yeah... sometimes i also visited my friends, although they weren’t like ‘I ain’t no madman’ man. They had routines and apartments, and they didn’t sit with dark shades on their noses inside of the empty rooms. They pretended to care about me- trying to perfectly fill their positions as my allies, as well as they tried to perfectly fill their positions as workers, husbands, wives, children. If the new person or situation came to their dull lives, they would instantly try to play fresh role as good as they could. Although I wasn’t a type to get attached, I visited them. From time to time I would knock on their doors and talk for a while. For example: today I went to one of my companions’ place. It was in the west part of the city. I climbed a few stairs and rang the bell. My pal opened the door with surprised expression.

‘My friend? I haven’t seen you in such a long time! So long! Why haven’t you called?! I was worried sick!’- Now you could see what I meant. New situation- new role, like clicking on different buttons, changing channels on your shitty TV. He let me in. The apartment looked just like I remembered. There was an old, beaten up guitar propped on the white wall. The scrawny, old, black cat poked its head from behind of the instrument, hissing at me and showing off his claws. A clock (one of the most important things in this kind of apartments) was hanging above it. The man had apparently been in the middle of washing the dishes, when I came in, because he carried a sponge in one of his hands, and the plate in the other. Everything here screamed routine, routine, routine. We went to the kitchen and the man continued doing his chores.

‘Why didn’t you call?’- The kitchen was connected with the living room, so I moved to the other part and sat in the worn-out armchair.

‘Job’- I shrugged. We went with the well-known script that every routine-man knew. “Why couldn’t you meet earlier? Job”. It satisfied him, we were on familiar grounds.

‘Oh, right. Work.. e? This shit isn’t making life easy?’- My friend laughed. The second part of the script- make an obvious observation about the work and pretend it was a good joke.

‘No, man’- I took the pipe out of my pocket. The man turned to me and leaned on the sink.

‘How can you smoke this scheisse? Don’t ya prefer ciggies? I can give you some, if you want. It’s nothing fancy, but... still’- Part three- see something odd in your opinion? So look weirdly and ask questions.

’Nah- ‘M not a big fan of ciggies. I guess I will stick with what I have’- I answered.

‘You sure?’- part four- more questions. I call this a routine alert.

‘Yup’- the man shrugged. Part five- pretend. And the rest of the script is just a copy of this. At least in most cases, because sometimes there s a part six- peace offer: a beer.

‘You want a beer?’- my friend asked. I nodded.