The Inventor

A genius of engineering tries to build his way into a woman's heart.

            He first saw it in a kind of waking-dream. A chorus of whizzing rods and whirring gears gave a harsh kind of soundtrack to the dazzling show of blinking lights. An apparatus near the top of the device spun wildly, as a wind gauge caught in a wild hurricane. After a few moments, broad arcs of blue-light began to cradle the device and then, all at once, it vanished and he woke up.

            “Honey?” she asked. He blinked at her. “Are you ignoring me again? I swear, you never can focus on a thing for more than a minute.”

            “I’m sorry,” he whispered back.

            “Then show it,” she cooed back. “Now did you hear even a word I said?” He shook his head. She laughed and leaned close to look him in the eyes. “I said that Candice and William want to have us for dinner next week. Does Tuesday or Wednesday work better for you?”

            “Either. Either is fine.”

            “Okay, I’ll let her know that we will be there Tuesday at seven.” She stopped and looked at him again. “What time?”

            “Seven.”

            “Good.”

 

           *                      *                      *

 

            Monday morning he saw the device in his dreams just before waking. Though he tried to commit it to memory, the sunlight pulled him away and dropped him squarely in his bed. He groaned and crawled out slowly.

            After dressing he found her downstairs in the kitchen, with a plate of toast and eggs in her hand. “For you, sweetheart. To let you know how much I care.”

            He smiled softly at her and accepted the breakfast gift. “I hardly deserve this. Nor a girl so fine as you.”

            “Perhaps not. But then it is my choice who I love, is it not?”

            He supposed that it was, but still he wondered why a girl like her would ever choose him. Even more, recent days cast that question in a stronger light as he wondered more and more about the machine in his dreams.

           

           *                      *                      *

 

            Shortly after lunch on Tuesday, he left his deskwork to sit for the following morning and opted instead to work in the labs tucked in to the attic. The machine appeared clear in his mind now. He worked with vigor while the image remained, gleaning all he could from that mental blueprint long past sunset. Truly he never decided to stop working. Rather he dozed off while taking a moment to sleep and only awoke when the morning shift arrived.

            He worked through the day without mentioning his project to anyone. Hardly anyone used the attic labs any more, ever since the basement opened with more modern facilities. Perhaps it was just as well. They would call him crazy if they saw his work.

            She left him before the inventor ever made it home. The house still looked largely the same as it did the morning before, save for a few of the more feminine touches that had disappeared. It took him almost an hour to fully understand that she left at all. When it came to him, he dropped to his knees in tears. When he found a scarf on the floor to wipe away his tears it only renewed them with greater force, for the scarf was hers.

 

           *                      *                      *

 

            Four months passed after she left him and he drowned himself in work. He remembered hearing that all great men enjoy the company of a great woman, and it seemed he lost his. If indeed that were true, all this work may yet come to naught. The thought occurred to him, but he buried it deep and worked ever harder.

            His invention now had form, a copper ribcage that stood as tall as a man, with the snaky black veins of electrical wire coiled tightly throughout. His coworkers began to speak of it in whispers, and the rumors put him in the role of the forlorn lover gone mad. He cared little what they thought of him.

 

           *                      *                      *

 

            News came in late Autumn that she planned to be married in the  following February. He hardly noticed the news as anything out of the ordinary, save for the picture of her beside the announcement. She looked tired, worn out, beaten down. She never looked that way when she lived with him.

            He almost went to see her, but the machine took precedence. He could complete it by March, barring any setbacks, and that made any other duties secondary in nature. Even his work began to take the backseat.

 

           *                      *                      *

 

            Threats towards his employment came around the fifteenth of January. Management demanded better results and fewer hours in the labs. He complied in a way, focusing on his work long enough to finish each day’s tasks, then retreating to the lab where he worked late into the nights, and often through them. Shortly he became ill and his boss encouraged the man to rest. He refused the assistance and worked on.

            By March his frame had wasted away to nearly nothing and his cheeks and jaw hollowed out in a ghastly, skeletal mockery of his once youthful face. He never even noticed, he spent so much time in the lab now that he forget even about the mirror in his bedroom, which he had not seen in days. Only the machine mattered. And tonight, he finally turned it on.

               For reasons he did not understand, he chose to use the machine to look back on a rather insignificant event, the night she left him. He punched the date in calmly, coolly, though in his mind panic lurked. A flip of the switch and the whole process of whirring and whizzing began, just as he saw it the first time. Electrical arcs crackled around him and filled the air with energy, heating up the inventor’s arms and chest. Something in the back of his mind warmed him to stop, a more primal piece of his brain.

            He ignored it and the thing sputtered to life. A faint image came on to the monitor at the from of it that intensified in color and detail with each moment. The smell of sulphur tinged the air.

            In the monitor he saw her, speaking to Candice and William at their house. She apologized for his absence and told them of her decision to break off their relationship. “He cannot focus,” she mumbled. “I know he can be a great man, a man that changes the world. But I think he cannot.” She sighed. “I cannot bear to see him go on like that.”

            The inventor stopped cold. A single tear ran down his cheek and he realized at once the blasphemy of his creation. This was something he should never have known. It filled his heart with sorrow to know the truth, and other men would find the same reality in true stories.

            Without a word, he slid a canvas sheet over the machine, removed enough pieces to render it inert and left the room forever, and never invented again.

Author's Note

First revision of an old story. I'd love some feedback on how to improve it while still keeping it short.

Reviews

[Gabi V.]

pretty neat :) its nice to read a story and not another angsty poem. Not much i would change though, I wish there was some more imagery in some places , especially when it came to the machine, something more then just whizzing and tinkering. I know next to nothing about science but since this is a made up invention i think adding real mechanical and scientific principals to your fictional machine would help add some believable detail and make it a tad more interesting...but maybe it doesn't make a difference.

[A.D. Wilson]

Excellent story! I'm a science nerd and love intelligent men, so this really struck a chord with me. That poor man tried so hard, but in all the wrong ways. Sometimes people truly can't see the forest for the trees.

[Ecko]

A good lesson for all. Pretty solid story to the end. Kept me reading to see what the invention was. I would change the ending up a bit, idk how though lol. And it's nice to see a fellow story-writer....so many poems ha