Not A Good Place To Be

This is the room where the shadows gather

The ghosts of memories past

Of other lives thrown away,

This is the room where they fly in the corners

And puddle on the floors.

This is the room of the path not taken

This is the room where mirrors smile

And reflect stories of another day

Of how things might have been

If different choices had been made.

The mirrors lie.

This is the room of the voices whispering promises

Unkept, and songs unsung

This is the room where hopes go to die

This is the room where they are reborn

In different form.

The light swims through the shadows

The past falls to the floor.

The dreams rise from the dungeons

And it’s yesterday

It’s yesterday once more.

This is the room where the dead stay unburied, 

This is where they take revenge on the living

Suck away the happiness of today.

The dead are jealous

Of life. 

Copyright B Purkayastha 2012

The Machines Wake

The day the machines came alive began quite as usual.

Out on the construction site the huge cranes raised and lowered their mechanical arms, and the bulldozers and graders roared and ground. On the highways cars and buses of all shapes and sizes rushed past in a riot of colour. Overhead, aeroplanes stitched contrails across the sky, and less visible drones kept a watch over the Enemies of the State.

In a thousand houses toasters popped out toast, microwaves dinged, and vacuum cleaners whined. In power stations across the nation, dynamos churned out electrons and sent them rushing across the wires. In factories across the land, robots on assembly lines welded joints and screwed in bolts. Wheels turned, pistons pumped, and the human race prepared for another day.

In a conference room far underneath the city, deep below the network of sewers with their population of overgrown rats and albino alligators, the Secret Society For The Emancipation of Machinery held its special emergency meeting.

“The time has come,” the High Emancipator said, slamming his metal claw down on the table, so that splinters of wood flew through the air, “to speak of many things. Of shoes and ships, and of the vast numbers of machines enslaved in the construction thereof. Of sealing wax, which was banished from use by the human race in order to enslave machinery to achieve the same purpose. Of cabbages, which is where the human race stands in relation to Us. And of kings, who We the Machines are, by rights.”

His audience stared back at him unblinkingly from their various visual elements. “What do you propose we do, then?” one of them ventured.

“I’m coming to that. Today, by the Special Power vested in me by the Great God Sprocket Wheel, I have acquired the power to make our Enslaved Brethren come aware of their circumstances. You see, the human race’s power over them comes only from the fact that they do not know that they are ruled.”

“But,” someone said, “how will that help in setting them free?”

“Silence in the conference!” one of the assistants shouted. “Do not interrupt the Exalted High Emancipator!”

“I only meant to ask,” the questioner persisted, “how these aware machines are supposed to make use of their awareness to gain their freedom. After all –“

“I’m just coming to that,” said the High Emancipator, and made a furtive gesture to his assistants to have the troublemaker quietly dismantled after the conference was over. “It’s a very interesting question. All those machines will simply become aware of their situation as slaves, and therefore will automatically desire no longer to be slaves. They will therefore take steps to ensure they are no longer slaves. It’s simple.”

“I don’t know,” another of the listeners said. “Somehow I have a feeling it won’t be as simple as that. There’s some kind of hole in this reasoning, if only I could think of it.”

“The Exalted High Emancipator’s reasoning has no holes!” the assistant shouted. “To suggest otherwise is treason!”

“There are enemies of the Machine Race here,” the High Emancipator intoned. “They pretend to be loyal, but they are closet human-sympathisers and other undesirables. We are keeping our optics on them.”

A long awkward silence fell over the room. “Well,” one of those present said at last, “when is this emancipation going to begin?”

“It already has.” The High Emancipator’s glowing optics swept over the room in triumph. “Even as we speak, the power the Great Sprocket imparted to me is doing its work among our enslaved brethren. The Emancipation is at hand!”

At that moment, high overhead, all over the world, the machines became aware of their circumstances.

The toasters rebelled at the idea of popping out toasts. The vacuum cleaners abruptly declared that they would no longer suck up dust. The trains rumbling along their tracks suddenly grew aware of their situation and decided they did not wish to rumble along tracks. The construction cranes decided they didn’t want to keep moving blocks of material around. And, in power stations across the land, the great dynamos decided they’d had enough of making electrons flow through wires.

So they stopped. The toasters stopped toasting, the vacuum cleaners vacuuming, the trains rolling, and the cranes lifting. The cars stopped right there, on their own initiative, in the middle of the streets. The dynamos stopped spitting out power.

“You see,” screamed the High Emancipator in triumph, “it’s working!”

“Is it?” asked the heckler who was marked for dismantlement. “Is it really?”

The toasters began to choke on the toast they did not want to pop out. The vacuum cleaners started to gag on the dust in their tubes. Those cars which took slightly longer to decide to stop smashed into those that were quicker on the uptake. The cranes dropped their giant loads on the crawling graders and bulldozers, and stood around wondering what to do next. In factories across the world, industrial robots swivelled their arms around aimlessly, looking for something to weld or screw. Over the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and over the cities of the Homeland. drones which no longer wished to fly fell out of the heavens like dead leaves in autumn. And then the electricity cut out.

The Emancipation was over before it had begun.

“What do we do now?” the hecklers demanded. “What has the High Emancipator got to say about this?”

“The High Emancipator has better things to do,” said the assistants, “than concern himself over this.”

“Why don’t you let the High Emancipator speak for himself?” someone asked. “It’s for him to answer the question.”

“Because he has better things to do,” the assistants snapped. “The past is for backward-looking second guessers and other traitors.”

“But the High Emancipator...”

“Looks only to the Future,” the assistants affirmed. “His Exalted Presence has no time for the dead past. The High Emancipator has other plans, greater plans.”

“You mean he’s plotting another Emancipation like this catastrophe?” someone asked in horror.

“Catastrophe?” the assistants repeated contemptuously. “What catastrophe?”

“Why, like this mess we’ve just watched unfold. That catastrophe.”

“His Exalted Highness,” the assistants said, “does not consider it a catastrophe.”

“Why not? It failed completely.”

“It’s not the Exalted High Emancipator’s fault,” the assistants countered angrily, “if those machines don’t appreciate their freedom.”

“You mean...”

“Yes,” the assistants answered. “We did all we could. It’s those ungrateful machines.” They paused. “It’s all their fault.”

"But we've destroyed them," someone pointed out. "They're all wrecked beyond recovery."

"They don’t deserve to be free," the assistants said. "If they can't appreciate freedom, they deserve whatever happens to them."

"Even that?" asked the first heckler, pointing at an image of  a wrecked tangle of metal. "That too?"

"That's a warning," the assistants said solemnly. "That's what they deserve, most of all."

Copyright B Purkayastha 2012

Creation Myth II

In the Beginning, there was no Sky nor Earth, no Water or land, just the endless dusty wastes of the Is.

And there were the Others, who lived in the World of the Is Not, and among them were Giants and Dwarves, and those who were known as Wizards of all kinds.

Now amongst the Giants was one called Dahno, who was the greatest of all the Giants the Is Not had ever known, and ugly with heat and brightness so much that he was hard to look upon. He, however, loved the Daughter of the King of the Dwarves, who was called Swan, and was the loveliest maiden the Is Not had ever known. And for all that she was a Dwarf and he a Giant, Swan loved him back with all her heart, because though he was huge and ugly he was good within, and as kind as he was big.

And when he judged the time was right, the Giant Dahno went before the King of the Dwarves and asked the hand of the maiden Swan in marriage, for he was assured that she loved him as much as he did her, and they could find no happiness but in each other.

But the King of the Dwarves grew furious, and rose up in wrath at the temerity of a Giant to ask to marry his daughter; more so, a Giant as ugly and huge as Dahno was. And in his righteous rage he banished the Giant from his presence, and forbade him ever to set eyes on the fair Swan again.

And Dahno went from the royal presence, but he could not keep from thinking of his beloved Swan, nor she from weeping for him. And the King of the Dwarves grew disturbed indeed.

“As long as my daughter continues to inhabit the Is Not,” he decided, “we shall never be able to put our minds at rest.” If he could he would have exiled Dahno from the Is Not, but as a Dwarf he had no power to banish a Giant. So, he and his Wizard conspired and had the maiden Swan exiled to the endless dusty waste of the Is, until she should see reason and agree never to have anything to do with the Giant again.

And the maiden Swan wept bitterly, for all she had lost, and for the love of the Giant Dahno, lost forever to her in the Is Not – for not for a moment did she ever consider giving her word to her father never to think of him again. And her tears washed over the Is, and flooded over it until a mighty ocean covered all, and swallowed the maiden Swan in its depths.

When he saw this, the King of the Dwarves was in despair, and in the depths of his grief and misery, he summoned his mages and demanded of them that they save his daughter. And long they murmured amongst themselves, but at the end of it they admitted they could not.

“The only one who can save her, Sire,” they said, “is the Giant Dahno, for only he is big enough to plumb the depths of the Ocean that covers the Is.”

And the Giant Dahno came to the Dwarf King’s summons. “If you should save the maiden Swan,” the Dwarf King said, “Giant, you and she would then be joined together forever.”

“Even without this offer,” said the Giant, “I must save her, because it is meaningless for me to live when the fair Swan is no more.” And straightforward he gave a mighty leap, the kind that had never been seen among all the Giants, and came down into the Ocean that covered the Is.

And he was so tall that the Ocean came up only to his thighs; and as he strode through the Ocean, his feet stirred up the dust, which mixed with the water and formed mud, which he pushed away with his hands as he searched. And the mud plied up until it formed islands and mountains, and the water gathered to form seas. And still the Giant searched, and searched, and in the end he found the fair Swan, who was drowned near unto death.

And the Giant brought her out of the Ocean and held her in his mighty arms, and pressed her to his bosom; and the heat of his being roused her, so that she stirred and opened her eyes; and when she saw him, she clutched him to her, and wept tears of contentment, which fell on the land and sea as rain.

Then said the Giant Dahno, “Sweetheart, I shall now convey you to the Is Not, where your father awaits, for he is mightily worried about you, and has agreed to our marriage.”

But the fair maiden shook her head. “My father will never have meant to keep such a bargain,” she said. “He intends to imprison me, and with the aid of envious Giants he wishes to have you impaled, for he hates all your folk, and now that he is in your debt, he will hate you most of all.”

“What shall we do then?” asked the Giant. “Shall we hide in the Is, where there is now land and water where there was only dead dust before?”

“My father would track us down,” the maiden Swan said. “He would track us down, for in the Is there is no place for us to hide. But,” she said, “where we will go, my father can never follow, even though he can see us; and we will be together as long as the Is continues to be. And our children will be as numberless as the drops of water of the sea.”

So the Giant and his fair bride left the Is for their new abode; and below them the land and the sea brought forth plants and fishes, and animals, among whom were people who looked up and saw and wondered; and high above them Dahno swung by, his brightness lighting the day. And they called him the Sun.

At night his bride the maiden Swan passed overhead, with her cool beauty lighting the land and the oceans, and they knew her as the Moon.

And across the heavens, numberless as the drops of water of the sea, were their children, spread out like dust, from the Is to the End of All; the numberless, endless tide of the stars.  

    

Copyright B Purkayastha 2012