The Machine
By Tony Rauch
Utley and I are running in the fields in the morning. It is quite early. The sun is just barely peeking through the trees, stretching the shadows out long and dark. The fog twists just above the ground. Dark clouds hang low and percolate.
We’re running and running, trying to get to our fort down by the river before it starts raining. The sky is low, dark, and twisting. We’re going to meet up with Gusov, Anders, and Chase. We’re going to tunnel into the side of the riverbank to add more space to our fort. Our fort is hidden within the steep bank, behind bushes, under tall trees, dug into the ground, covered with wood planks and mud. We have a little stove inside to keep us warm, an old lantern for light, and some other things hidden away there as well.
The sky is rippling in a strange manner I have never seen before. It is low and rolling, so low it feels like I could reach up, grab it, and pull myself up to it. I turn to Utley, to see what he thinks of it, and here he is already staring up in awe as we rush through the tall grass. Suddenly a strange shape descends from the sky. It looks like a radio tower coming down and bending. It hits the ground about twenty feet from us. We both tumble out of the way as another thing appears in the distance, and then another, each about twenty feet from us.
Suddenly another tower swings around, right past me. I slide onto my back. I grip the ground. Thick soil squishes between my fingers. Looking up in fear, I notice the strange shape is long and metallic, narrowing to a point as it pierces the ground. Another swings around, up, then slides to drop down again about fifty feet from us. The other projections look like this first one - like trusses or upside down radio towers. They do the same as the first – bending in the middle like an elbow or knee, then continuing forward.
My head darts around. There are maybe six of them, moving like giant mechanical legs. My eyes follow them - up to the bottom of the clouds, where they seem to attach to the bottom of some great, long wooden ship peeking from the haze. I notice, through the low swirling clouds, the bottom of a long, zeppelin-like shape, with windows and dark figures looking down on me. The thing is right above us, looming as if to drop down on us like a million tons of granite, ready to press us deep into the ground.
Slowly it passes over, the legs swinging in the air, moving up and down, just like a giant mechanical spider, just like you’d think mechanical legs would work on a giant creeping machine-like something. And before we know it, the last leg swings over us, and dropping down from the sky is Gustov.
“Did . . . did they try to kidnap you?” Utley huffs in terror as Gustov lands with a thump and rolls over to us.
The great spider machine, the great legged sailing ship, the great balloon passes over us ominously in a slow, silent crawl. It looks like something from a distant world, maybe from another dimension and just passing through for a quick tour, a momentary visit to our strange land.
Gustov crawls to us on all fours. “Naw. I was just tryin’ ta hitch a ride with ‘em,” he watches as the last leg silently disappears over a hill and line of tall trees, back into the dark fog and swirl of gray clouds. “I was on my way over to the fort, running through the fields when wham-o!” he punches his fist into the ground, “This thing drops out of the sky like a giant spike. And not more than five feet from me. Then another right behind that. Then the first one snaps back up, into the sky, and swings ahead like the legs of a great robot spider. When the next one swung down by me, I figured I could climb aboard. So I ran over and grabbed on and just hung on for dear life. It carried me about a hundred yards until I was shaken off and fell right here by you all. . . . I just wanted to climb up that leg and see who they were. See what they were.”
“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Utley exhales in disbelief.
“Me neither,” I scan the area for more of them, still on my back in fear.
“Yeah, me neither,” Gustov looks around, “Wonder if there are more of ‘em around?”
“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Utley repeats, still staring ahead, watching in the direction the large mechanical thing disappeared in. “Who were they?”
Slowly we pull ourselves off the ground, scanning all around and listening in the wind and smoky fog. But we don’t see any more of the mechanical contraptions. In fact we never see any ever again. Just that once. Just that one time in the fog in the morning in the field.
Later, we sit at the table in our secret fort and tell Anders and Chase all about it. But neither of them believes us. We even draw pictures of what we saw, the lantern flickering a warm yellow glow. But they just shake their heads, as if they don’t believe us at all. And so we go about digging into the earth, carving out an even larger space for ourselves, creating more and more room for ourselves where there previously was none, as rain pours down on our hidden world from above.
- - -
Tony Rauch has three books of short stories published – “I’m right here” (spout press), “Laredo” (Eraserhead Press), “Eyeballs growing all over me . . . again” (Eraserhead Press). He has additional titles forthcoming in the next few months.
By Tony Rauch
Utley and I are running in the fields in the morning. It is quite early. The sun is just barely peeking through the trees, stretching the shadows out long and dark. The fog twists just above the ground. Dark clouds hang low and percolate.
We’re running and running, trying to get to our fort down by the river before it starts raining. The sky is low, dark, and twisting. We’re going to meet up with Gusov, Anders, and Chase. We’re going to tunnel into the side of the riverbank to add more space to our fort. Our fort is hidden within the steep bank, behind bushes, under tall trees, dug into the ground, covered with wood planks and mud. We have a little stove inside to keep us warm, an old lantern for light, and some other things hidden away there as well.
The sky is rippling in a strange manner I have never seen before. It is low and rolling, so low it feels like I could reach up, grab it, and pull myself up to it. I turn to Utley, to see what he thinks of it, and here he is already staring up in awe as we rush through the tall grass. Suddenly a strange shape descends from the sky. It looks like a radio tower coming down and bending. It hits the ground about twenty feet from us. We both tumble out of the way as another thing appears in the distance, and then another, each about twenty feet from us.
Suddenly another tower swings around, right past me. I slide onto my back. I grip the ground. Thick soil squishes between my fingers. Looking up in fear, I notice the strange shape is long and metallic, narrowing to a point as it pierces the ground. Another swings around, up, then slides to drop down again about fifty feet from us. The other projections look like this first one - like trusses or upside down radio towers. They do the same as the first – bending in the middle like an elbow or knee, then continuing forward.
My head darts around. There are maybe six of them, moving like giant mechanical legs. My eyes follow them - up to the bottom of the clouds, where they seem to attach to the bottom of some great, long wooden ship peeking from the haze. I notice, through the low swirling clouds, the bottom of a long, zeppelin-like shape, with windows and dark figures looking down on me. The thing is right above us, looming as if to drop down on us like a million tons of granite, ready to press us deep into the ground.
Slowly it passes over, the legs swinging in the air, moving up and down, just like a giant mechanical spider, just like you’d think mechanical legs would work on a giant creeping machine-like something. And before we know it, the last leg swings over us, and dropping down from the sky is Gustov.
“Did . . . did they try to kidnap you?” Utley huffs in terror as Gustov lands with a thump and rolls over to us.
The great spider machine, the great legged sailing ship, the great balloon passes over us ominously in a slow, silent crawl. It looks like something from a distant world, maybe from another dimension and just passing through for a quick tour, a momentary visit to our strange land.
Gustov crawls to us on all fours. “Naw. I was just tryin’ ta hitch a ride with ‘em,” he watches as the last leg silently disappears over a hill and line of tall trees, back into the dark fog and swirl of gray clouds. “I was on my way over to the fort, running through the fields when wham-o!” he punches his fist into the ground, “This thing drops out of the sky like a giant spike. And not more than five feet from me. Then another right behind that. Then the first one snaps back up, into the sky, and swings ahead like the legs of a great robot spider. When the next one swung down by me, I figured I could climb aboard. So I ran over and grabbed on and just hung on for dear life. It carried me about a hundred yards until I was shaken off and fell right here by you all. . . . I just wanted to climb up that leg and see who they were. See what they were.”
“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Utley exhales in disbelief.
“Me neither,” I scan the area for more of them, still on my back in fear.
“Yeah, me neither,” Gustov looks around, “Wonder if there are more of ‘em around?”
“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Utley repeats, still staring ahead, watching in the direction the large mechanical thing disappeared in. “Who were they?”
Slowly we pull ourselves off the ground, scanning all around and listening in the wind and smoky fog. But we don’t see any more of the mechanical contraptions. In fact we never see any ever again. Just that once. Just that one time in the fog in the morning in the field.
Later, we sit at the table in our secret fort and tell Anders and Chase all about it. But neither of them believes us. We even draw pictures of what we saw, the lantern flickering a warm yellow glow. But they just shake their heads, as if they don’t believe us at all. And so we go about digging into the earth, carving out an even larger space for ourselves, creating more and more room for ourselves where there previously was none, as rain pours down on our hidden world from above.
- - -
Tony Rauch has three books of short stories published – “I’m right here” (spout press), “Laredo” (Eraserhead Press), “Eyeballs growing all over me . . . again” (Eraserhead Press). He has additional titles forthcoming in the next few months.
0 Responses
Post a Comment
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
