acrid14lilac

[acrid14lilac]

I BUILT MYSELF A METAL BIRD - CHAPTER Ⅰ

"I Built Myself that metal bird; I fed my metal bird the wings of other metal birds, plundered from the sky and caught in traps. Behold how I have taken nature and fed it into mechanics; watch how it flies downward with the confidence of an eagle but with all the seeing of Yahweh! It worked, dense mother fucker, so watch: it comes!"

   In, down from the heavens, I saw the great work fly down. I could not see too well as the unblocked sun half-blinded me, but its imposing form was unmistakable. No other mechanical bird, natural or otherwise, quite matched its wingspan, and its fierce nature was so apparent that my assistant, Vraizumikhin, seemed to take a step back and down as to make his already frail frame smaller. As the bird swept down, seemingly seized by unmistakable confidence, the teeth of the thing came into my focus.

   "Tzipora," my mouth fell into saying, "it's grand, truly. The scale of the thing — the cold mechanism inside on which it must rely — is so contrived as to make me believe is it the work of our God." My words, spoken in shock of what she had accomplished, stood almost separate from each other in their delayed delivery. After, I just stood and watched, while Tzipora babbled on about technicalities far above me.

   The mouth was the most striking part, filled to the brim with scored serrated teeth, curved inward toward the mouth. I knew they had been designed to tear through wood and metal, but Vraizumikhin didn't, and was all the more terrified by that. "What on earth is that thing, so shaped and built as any other mechanical bird, but possessing the teeth of sharks? Ziporaah, be that your name, I charge you speak! What is this contraption?"

   Vraizumikhin's address to me pulled me back into the business at hand and away from my admiration of the bird. We were here on business, not to an art gallery, and it was not my place to admire Tzipora's work. I turned to address her:-

   "You've done it Tzo. You may be rude to exhaustion, tired beyond comprehension with the bags under your eyes growing by the second even in waking; but that vision, my God, is complete. Vraizumikhin," I turned to him, noticing his tense shoulders through his concealing suit. "Tzipora here is an engineer, and one of my oldest friends. You would do well to address her with simple courtesy." The look in his eyes betrayed him before he even offered up his muttered apology. He did not put his head down, however, and observed the bird as Tzipora began again.

   "See the body? Those hard, unforgiving sheets of steel? The lengths I had to go to to get them into shape! O, they fought against me at every quarter of leniency I left, and so my hand was forced into being double-tough against those blasted sheets. I tell you, I hardly fit everything inside it! But under all accounts... Vraizumikhin," (as he prompted her with his name) "Don't believe it was only my own labour. My workers had to work double shifts just to hold all the little springs and pistons together. I am not a woman of theory, but of action! Rather, you remind me — rightly — that each hammer-dent, each rivet, was not a solitary accomplishment."

   She was right; from the form of it, up close I could see plain evidence of how many hands had touched the body. The most apparent was a lack of finer symmetry, but Tzipora seemed uninterested in that. My attention was drawn back to the bird, as Tzipora went on to explain how "The wings are far finer, laboured over by myself and few trusted others." The legs were waved away as some trivial part, "like the cardboard tube of a bog roll;" the tail, formed of colossal metal springs, was an after-thought and disposal of spare parts; it was the teeth she spent the longest on.

   Excuse me if I'm projecting in retrospect, eventual reader. I can't help but think she felt like how I did when, once, I saw my eldest playing with a child they would never see again: that the latter's first and only impression of my child is founded on how I brought up that child, built them up to take on the world. Tzo was a strange character, and a little overbearing; I can't help but imagine she would be the kind to show off a little, live a bit through her kid. Tzipora looked as though she could talk for hours in the wings, their beauty and imitations of the mechanical birds of nature. "I have pioneered a new branch of fluid dynamics just to account for the size of the material, all of its inconsistencies. They are perhaps the most complex design of mine. Go ahead, Engeru; touch them.

   I did as she commanded. The iron feathers had some smoothness to them, but I knew Tzo, and it was the shape of all the feathers, collectively; their angle, and how the air travelled through them, so I humoured her, and blew through the right wing. Its quiet whistle put a slight smile on Tzipora's face, as she knew exactly my train of thought. I stepped back and returned the smile.

   During this exchange, Vraizumikhin adjusted his balance away from his prosthetic leg, as he often had to when standing for long periods. Evidently, he was becoming impatient, and wished to close precedings, since he made an effort to wait for me to come back to see him.

   "I'm sorry, ma'am; the wings look wonderful, and are truly a testament to your craftsmanship, but are they armoured? The enemy shall take whatever chance they get, so we must reinforce ourselves against their conniving nature." He turned to me and, in a hushed tone, continued: "Engeru, can I talk to you please? I don't know what the general was thinking, hiring this... I suppose, scheming con-artist, to build a war machine; I don't aspire to be a critic, but think of your men! To bet their lives on a 'trusted friend'."

   "Vraizumikhin," I returned, "your leg seems to be putting you in pain, and that is driving you to rash decisions. Leave me with Tzipora, and I'll sort everything out."

Tzipora was looking down during this conversation, not wanting to make any eye-contact, but met mine in a look of "Thank you, you understand." I hardly registered the look as I gave Vraizumikhin a pat on the back to ease him and saw him off.

   Five minutes later, Tzipora thanked me verbally, but caught me off guard with her thoughts.

   "That Vraizumikhin? He's a pile of anti-Semitic shite. I know what you're going to say, that 'you just couldn't see that in him,' but trust me; upon hearing my name, a certain hidden aggression manifested and fell upon his polite façade. Keep an eye on him, will ya?"

   I couldn't think she was right; "Vraizumikhin was just in a grumpy mood today, or something of the sort," I told myself. I only wish that time had proved me right.