Three Words

The Invention

She lived in a faraway tower. At first she recorded random sequences that seemed to provide a way out of feeling lost and vulnerable. Then she used the codes and numbers to invent a complicated machine made of steel, iron and glass. It was covered in screens, levers and glass. The machine was at one and the same time fragile and powerful.

After building the machine she sighed with exhaustion. At night the machine had emerald and jade lights that blinked like dawn stars.

Scattering lights shone from deep within the complex machine.

Steadily a new sound emanated from the machine. It was a distorted purring sound that gradually grew filling the room.

Then the sound faded into total silence.

She looked silently at the machine and the machine soundlessly returned her gaze.

After a long period of quiet the machine spoke

“I invented you” it said to the women.

Chris Bird

Summer

The summer was not a season or period of time. The summer was in reality a young person of either gender.

The Summer was a hopeful, temporary moment like a brief glance.

Hemmed in between Spring and Autumn the Summer faced long working hours including weekends and Bank Holidays. The Summer sadly suffered from soft coloured bullying and intimidation.

Thus the Summer wept.

Weeping so continuously the Summer caused tearful rivers streaming from the bright core in moving channels.

Sunshine blinded the aged, decrepit plants and trees.

London was indifferent.

Made of skyscrapers, bridges of shadow, castles and spires, supermarkets, offices, graveyards, hospitals and schools what did London care either way.

Thus the Summer wept feeding the dark world in everyday streets.

From shopping centres, alleyways, markets, churches and stadiums, motorways and canals, cliffs and hills the Summer broke down weeping, weeping inconsolably with glittering endless tears.

The Summer cried at night, in the dawn, at dusk and even in the day. The Summer prayed between tears for Autumn to arrive.

But it never did. It never did.

 Chris Bird

Admission

The strange machine was hard to detect.

It sat above the complex city in complete silence.

The smoke of chimneys and the mist of summer hid the complicated mass of cogs, pipes, tubes, levers, screens and wheels.

The machine produced endless codes and symbols relentlessly controlling the ebb and flow of the huge, bustling city.

Commuters like ants swarmed hopelessly around the smoky bus and train stations.

They didn’t understand that their lives were not authentic, meaningful or real. The pulse of the day throbbed steadily from deep inside the structure.

The streets were just a map, a shifting outline planned deliberately by the machine.

The city dwellers could barely guess that the shining machine controlled everything however trivial.

The machine in the clouds was all seeing , all knowing.

One day a girl in a psychiatric hospital looked up into the sky and saw the machine.

“You are delusional” it whispered to her.

Chris Bird