The Machine

Chapter 1
The Machine

Chapter Description: They said I was mad. I would show them. I would show the world!

As I push past the lonely little people that block my way, I can feel the cold bite inside my jacket. Why was it that a place like this had to be so crowded, hm? I liked it here. The streets were wide, the sidewalks extensive, and the parks beautiful, but the people. There was something about them that just clogged up life. They clogged up the world, I felt. They all needed to just go find their own little space and stay there. No more interacting unnecessarily with me or the people around them, making distracting little conversations that led to no work getting done. It was terrible.

That was why I built the Machine. It was to have been my greatest invention, a machine that would finally solve the world’s population issue once and for all. How, you ask? I reply to you with pride. I say that the Machine is there to change everyone, forever. You ask how does it change them? I say that you should be there to find out. You sit down, not asking any questions. You wait to find out what my Machine will do. I set the proper codes into place, ensuring that the Machine will do what it should to you.

When at last I activate the Machine, I feel a sense of accomplishment. You begin to shake with the force of the energy, but that is where things go wrong. The controls on the angle of the beam twist, angling the beam away from you. You complain that I must not have done something right. I yell, "Of course, I did it right. You just haven’t seen its full potential." I attempt to move to the controls, pushing the beam back over to you, but the beam catches me on its way around, and I get caught in the blast.

I feel a sudden jolt as the energy of the beam hits me. There is a vibration in my whole body, echoing all through my limbs as if the joy of the universe were occurring again and again in my heart. Then, as soon as it began, it is finished. I look down, closer to the floor than I had been before. You have stopped the controls once you noticed what the Machine was doing to me. My arms are short and pudgy. My formerly long legs and muscular torso are little more than the stubs and bulging stomach of a child. I look up at you, towering over my tiny form. You pick me up, your smile telling me that everything will be okay.

I can no longer recall where I am or what I am doing, but I get the feeling that something I have done did not go as I had planned. I think that I must have gotten separated from my mother. You lift me higher, level with your eyes. You look me in the eye and tell me that you will make it so I never have to worry about dangerous Machines like this ever again. You tell me that I am a brilliant man, inventing something that will fix the population problem once and for all. Your plan is to reduce many of the planet’s people to children, most of whom will not survive without parents. You say that I am lucky enough to have you to take care of me, and all I can do is gurgle and pout.