The machine

Day dream in 1200 words. A story that's far to common but never spoken

                   

It was the gracefulness of the machine that first brought our man up to the shop window. With its sleek black curves, shining brass keys, black and red ribbon spool and chrome return lever, it called out to him until it caught his eye and snagged his heart. The sight of it from the corner of his eye as he passed the window was enough to strike him still and reel him like fish helplessly floundering across the pavement to have his nose pressed against the breath tinted glass like a child. He supposed this is how a piano player must look and feel like when finding his perfect handmade piano for the very first time and to be fair he thought to himself, the actions required to make both machines sing as the manufacture desired were rather similar. Not being a musician himself he could only imagine what it must be like to play a piano in such a way as to bring the soul the artisan so lovingly crafted into the very fibre of machine. To make it come to life and sing and dance and astound those who have the pleasure of allowing its sound to reverberate from one's ear drums.

He stared at this machine in front of him and imagined himself sat behind it with his fingers flowing like a pianist hitting each key with a strike of accuracy of a blacksmiths hammer. Each strike removing chips from a marble slab to expose beautiful statue underneath. He could feel the warm summer heat hitting the back of his neck which turned in to warmth of stage lights, he could hear the rumbling of traffic from the cars and buses around him transform into the joyous applause from a loving and grateful crowd. He basked in the atmosphere around him, he could see the people in the crowd staring in wonderment at an artist in action. His fingers brutally hitting the keys like raindrops onto a window but moving onto the next word with the fluidity of the droplets racing each other down the pane. Even in front of an entire audience, the mechanics of what made those fingers move in such a way, was a secret, completely concealed inside the artist's head but the fallout from such talent that these fingers could produce, could be enjoyed, treasured and even encapsulate everyone around him.

He had always wanted to be able to write like his heroes, those men and woman who spend their lives sitting idle on his shelves or their nights sat beside him while he slept on his bed side table, all their lives just waiting to be picked up and loved and read, front to back to front again. They would keep him company when he was lonesome. They would take away the hate of waiting or uncomfortableness of small talk in a doctor's waiting room. They have travelled the world close to his side. They have been there through the best and worst times of his life. They've stayed loyal when others had not. They have been the only people to speak to him when no one else in this world would even look in his direction. They could spur and inspire him to do the incredible and they could deliver a bollock crushing kick of reality when others words would not scratch his tough exterior. They have brought him home from places he never thought he would return and taken him to places he could never have imagined existed. They have done all this for nothing in return other than the safety and the possibility of being truly, deeply loved and cherished. These men and woman, who toiled and struggled and spent countless hours violently hacking their imaginations to pieces and raking the unwanted memories back from the depths of their minds, memories that most people spend lives trying to forget, bringing them forward all in the name of being able to write something that may or may not be read but to have it there in black and white, to sit undesired on dusty shelves, developing the stale musty smell of the unloved and uncared for until one day be picked up by the right person and for their soul to be complete. To be read just once by that one person and whose future may be impacted by the words contained inside its covers.

He dreamed of being able to write like these people, to one day proudly walk into his room and stride towards his overcrowded bookshelf, which is his mind looked like a multitier bench at bus station at rush hour, where all the commuters are his literality heroes, all elbowing each other for more room on the bench. He dreamed of the day he could walk up to these people with a book in his hand, a book that had his name on the spine. At first he would choose carefully where, then he would respectfully but confidently push two of these people apart and with a deep breath sit down with pride and slide in-between, in his rightful place on the bench. He would look to his right then left and nod his acknowledgment to his peers, then just sit back and relax knowing he had earnt his place on that shelf.

This machine in front of him could be that vessel that could deliver him to shore of his dreams. It could be the true inspiration to park his posterior in a chair and allow those fingers to sculpt and manipulate the thoughts and ideas that coursed through his head with the regularity of a heartbeat. This machine could be the fly paper that would catch these manic little pests and tame them to conform and create. It could be the pied piper of promises or the butterfly net that would capture those lose and delicate little productions of everyday inspirations. This could be it; this could be his time to change everything. To leave behind what he knew and climb aboard this black Bakelite chariot to ride into the battle of creation. To fight unarmed combat with his own mind, to rain in the troops of concentration and defeat the endless hordes of procrastination that would undoubtable come, wave after wave like the Zulu's or mounted cavalry. Afterwards he would stand tall on a mountain of pages filled with his story, like battle honours and victories against his enemy that tried to stop him along the way, each recorded and documented.

This machine could change his life; this machine could give him life. This machine will...

BEEP BEEP. Taking his nose from the moist condensation on window, our man looks down at the little machine on his wrist that tells him his lunch break is over, the machine that's telling him his job is calling his return. He takes one last look through the window of what could have been, as the warmth of the stage lights dissipates and the applause of the crowd returns to the rumble of traffic, our man turns from the window with a small pathetic exhale and drop of shoulders and disappears back into the obscurity of the crowded city street, another lost hope, another victim of expectation.



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