The Remembering Machine

The last day dawned on him slowly. His gray eyes opened, and he saw it right there, then, swirling in the sunrise. He tracked the lightly-stirred motes of dust as they moved in and out of his perception. They were sparks from some celestial clash, sweeping and spinning in a dance that was all the rigorous splendor of chaos aglow. Even at that small age he knew they would slowly settle to the floor as they faded from sight. He knew that he was watching himself and everyone he knew all a-glitter, and he knew that as their song came to an end they would each find a black-painted wooden chair somewhere out in the dim off the dance floor. 1

'You won't be happy,' his mother told him, as she cradled his small weight in her arms. She wiped away his naivete with mother spit and wetnaps. That was after his father had left; that was after the rot had set in and she had lost whatever it was that made her go. He had tried to fix her, but he was no mechanic and she was no machine.2

Somewhere in it was the reason. In the end, he knew that he had made it well. It towered, a colossus of brass, copper, silver, gold, and silicon. He had been fixed upon that: it had to last, and it had to be beautiful. It had. It was. Pipes ran in fine loops and rings around the machinery; fingers spread spider-like encasing all of the little entities, comforting them and whispering encouragement. They would shine courageously, reflecting the sun like soldiers stubbornly refusing aid. They would do without. They were soldiers. They would be piping - happily, proudly, piping - piping water and oxygen and nitrogen and life: so much life that it would condense on them, collect slowly at corners; each drop a fetus falling to the floor. The little pools would smell like eggs, cucumbers, and soil. They would excite reptiles and cure infertility in lesser mammals, but that was all later. The walls made him feel like he was inside a giant blue pumpkin. They undulated as if they were waves, and he was in a bubble far beneath the ocean. They were made from his mother's skin and blue food coloring. He was staring at a styrofoam plate piled with delicious sounding but perfectly unappetizing food. The blue-raspberry jello had a wonderful jiggle to it, just as he had hoped, but the firmness was a thick, hard outer layer that resisted his efforts to pierce. He likened it to eating a nut. He was crying, soft, purple, each tear an unborn child. God spoke to him. 3

'You are not my son.'4

He had finished the machine years ago. It rested with quiet energy, breathing in Tantric rhythms, always in readiness for daylight. He had wanted to call it something, but he knew with his feet that words could never be right, and he trusted his feet. To say beginning would break its heart. The pipes would be proudly piping like voices singing. Currents of electricity would form waves of energy as storms of power surged above like a grand crescendo. It would be beautiful. It was beautiful when he saw it. It had cast a faery glamour on his laundry detergent; he smelled a woodland glen heady with poppies. The daffodils did not smell of poppies. They were everywhere, in his room, in the dining hall, in the bathroom, even, he suspected, in the omnipresent janitorial closets. He had a feeling that there were more such closets than actual dormitories, though he had never ventured out to know for sure. He wished the daffodils were lilacs. He had fallen in love under lilacs around lunchtime, but it was evening now and he supposed they were out of season. 5

'You have forgotten something,' his friends whispered in strained voices by wisdom. 6

They were wrong. It was complete. He had forgotten nothing. They had not seen it, they only knew what he told them in conspiratory tones around the card table or at dinner, when his voice would be masked by the screams of complaint and helpless sobbing of his sad companions. Tomorrow he would find the switch, and turn it on, and life would shine like the sun again. Then he would dance.7

'I lost you before this,' his wife told him as she lay in bed, dying in bed, listening to the staccato music of her hospital room. It was spring. People didn't die in spring. He had brought her daffodils, and pussy willows, but she could not smell the lilies, she could not feel the soft catkins brush her cheek, and she did not know his hand held her own. She seemed an angel already, clothed in light and a gown. He had failed her. The machine would tell him how.8

The only dust in the blue pumpkin was in the tiny glass globe which rested at its very center. There were no windows. It was too late for the sun, so he had stolen street lamps. They encircled the construct. It hummed a song he had written for his wife while it sat in their sad glow, perpetually after sunset. He had begun working on the machine early in the morning, and it had taken him all day to decide that it was finished. He wanted to know who his father was. He wanted to know when his father had shone. He opened his eyes, watched a shower of tiny meteors, and he had known. He had felt in his fingers that he could build a machine of mirrors and lost souls, and track it all back, back, back through all of the false beginnings of man. He could do it all if he could simply be free of terry cloth bonds and plastic bars. 9

'You must come with me,' the aide said. He ignored her. He was slowly escorted to his room, where the window was frosted. It barred most of the day's last light from entry, but it took little to illumine his tears.10

He found people who were searching for something, and told them what they were looking for. He took their hair from the floor of the barbershop and made them wires. He recorded falling hopes and unclean dreams and played them over and over; they echoed in the blue room until they were beautiful again. He stole tears, stole time, stole hearts, and fed them to the pipes, which happily piped - proudly piped - so wonderful in his dreams. The machine would weave a tapestry, stretching from now, far, far, far back into the past, and it would never stop. It would find them all, and know where each tiny speck of man hung one second before, and then one second before that, and further and further and faster and faster until it was clear. Over and over until his arms were translucent like his mother's. Until he had no skin and could see who he truly was. But it was still for now. He could not remember how to make it begin.11

'I cannot teach you,' he said to himself. 12

He remembered being lifted. He was small, so small, a tiny thing - he was a speck of dust, and as his father spun around he imagined that he was sparkling. His father's eyes were sunrays and he glinted in them.13

'I cannot learn,' he replied.14

Had he ever had friends? He felt that he was losing himself too quickly now. He raised his spoon and it was a welder's torch. He waved it, not in defiance, but in gratitude. He showed the gods that he was worthy of the task they had inspired in him. He would complete his journey before the day was over. He waved the torch, and in a sudden insight, he flung it from him skyward - flaming, burning, brilliant. He watched in wonder and pride as it soared through the thinly stretched walls; the flame was burning blue and the walls were lighting up. His mother's skin was crackling and shrinking and crumbling, and he saw her face in the fire. She smiled at him sadly. The torch hurtled higher, always climbing, and he gazed at it with half-open eyes that took it all in with honesty. It was still moving away from him, but the brightness was not shrinking - it was growing, and he felt drawn to it by more than desire. It was the sun. He missed the sun. A clink brought him back, as the spoon landed in the vase. He watched, waiting in smug and mischevious pleasure for the water to begin boiling. He watched, waiting for the daffodils to burst into flames. He was sure he would have seen it all, had the attendants been more understanding of his reasons for throwing silverware.15

'I'll be back in a few minutes,' his father had said. It had been hours - years - forever.16

When he turned on the machine, he would dance with his wife under lilacs like redwoods throwing purple flowers so close to the blue of the sky that they would bleed like paint. When he found the switch, and called out his name, he would never be cold. He would never worry. He would never lack a father and his mother would be whole. He would always be loved. The sun would think only of him. God would take him in once more. The machine would tell him everything. He grasped daffodils that his mind told him were pipes - that he knew in a tiny fallen heart were webs. 17

'These are the answers,' began the remembering machine, but he was falling to the ground in ashes and heard what must have been screams as quickly fading whispers singing someone else's song.18