The Love Machine & Other Contraptions

by Nir Yaniv

  I told him that at least he could bring the real record and not some cheap fake, and he started blabbering out all sorts of technobabble and tried a silly story on me about how for this place and this time this record is the right one.

  I sent him to sell it to someone else. I can’t be fooled anymore, and I’ve already got the right record, thank you very much.

  ~

  January 1, 2001, 00:10

  The last year has arrived, the light at the end of the tunnel. I don’t have to restrain myself much longer. The damned kid drives me crazy, but if I’ve been able to restrain myself till now...

  Sometimes I ask myself just how I’ve managed to do that, but that’s a dangerous line of thought. Very dangerous. I’ve killed enough people already.

  ~

  August 29, 2001, 22:30

  This is it. Today is the day. I took the record out of the attic, cleaned it, put a nice wrapping on it and added a silly greeting card. That’s it. The waiting is over. The little parasite will go, and Hanna and I will be left alone, to spend the rest of our lives together. Hanna complained that she has no money for a reasonable present, after the bloodsucker made her buy him that expensive computer last year. I wonder who gave him that idea. I gave her an idea of my own—this electronic journal. I won’t need it anyway, after the Nudnik is gone.

  That’s it. We’re going to give him the presents. Goodbye, dear journal, and we shall never meet again.

  ~

  — ??, ??:??

  I refuse to try to understand this universe, whichever one it may be. I want to die. Or maybe I’m already dead without knowing it. Or maybe it’s the universe that’s dead without knowing it.

  We gave the Nudnik his presents. He tried to hide his satisfaction but couldn’t. We both know him too well. He took them back to his room without a word of thanks. For several minutes there was silence, and then he listened to some songs, at a disturbingly high volume. Hanna shouted at him to turn it down and he didn’t answer, though he did turn it down a bit, and I tried distracting her by talking about other things. Or maybe she was also was waiting for something, I don’t know what. Anyway, the brat reached track number five, that horrible, abominable, endlessly repeating song, and then after that it got quiet. Total silence.

  “That’s it,” I said. “He’s gone.”

  “Gone?” Hanna said. “What are you talking about, Haim?”

  “I’m not Haim,” I said, and removed, for the first time in two years, the silly glasses. “Don’t you know me?”

  “Of course I know you,” she said. “For two years I’ve been trying to figure out what you’re trying to achieve by playing this silly game. Not to mention the moustache.”

  “It’s a long story,” I said.

  “We’ve got all the time in the world,” she said. “The kid’s asleep.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “we’ve got time. And he’s gone at last. He won’t bother us anymore.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Here, look for yourself,” I said, and led her to the parasite’s room. I opened the door—the key has been in my pocket for all these years—and entered.

  The room was empty—except for the little fool, who was right there, sound asleep in his bed.

  I looked at him for a long time.

  And I understood.

  All that time, all those years, I was organizing the history of the wrong fool. Of two fools, more alike than I feel comfortable admitting, but still different. I looked at Hanna who wasn’t my mother and at my son who wasn’t myself, and started to break the rules for the last and final time.

  “I beg your pardon,” I told Hanna. “I guess I’ve reached the wrong universe.”

  I got up, took the journal and the record, and went out.

  Contraption: Non-Machine

  Every living thing is a machine, and thus it doesn’t live. Every growing thing is a machine, and thus it doesn’t grow. Everything that dies is a machine, and thus it’ll never cease to exist. Everything that exists is a machine, and thus it cannot be.

  I’m Not as Old as I Used to Be

  I am no longer old, and will never be young. I’m... different. Once, you might have said “augmented.” It’s an ugly word, “augmented,” but ugliness, I must admit, is a large part of what is happening to me. A large part of what I am. Soon it will blow through me, pass by me, pass me by, and only I will remain, and I will be him, and he me.

  ~

  It is said that there are moments when a man can feel his life changing. I last felt that way over seventy years ago, and I still remember it. I remember almost nothing, actually—but that day, a little before sunset, she ran into me in the street and we both stopped and looked at each other and smiled. Two total strangers. I would have liked to remember what she wore. We were married for many years, after that. I would have liked to remember her name.

  There was no point to my life without her, before her and after.

  I would have liked to remember her smile.

  ~

  I am no longer sick, and will never be healthy. I feel my brain moving to and fro while its different parts, from within and without, fight against each other, complete with each other, merge one into the other. I understand this with a clarity that hasn’t been my lot in recent years. I feel it like an intense light shining through the grayness in which have I spent all of my days until now. In one respect, after years of dimness all understanding is a blessing, after years of dullness every sensation is a world in itself. As short-lived as they may be, as terrible as they may be, I take pleasure in them.

  ~

  I had a full life, I think. Few memories make it though the barriers, the rest are blocked by the parts of my mind that still stand on barricades. I had a job I liked, I had a woman I loved. There were... there were other people I loved. I remember love, if not its subjects. I remember that I did great things, but nothing beyond that. And maybe they were not so great, but only seemed so to me? I do not know, and in a short while I will know nothing more.

  ~

  I do something I haven’t done in years. I open my eyes.

  ~

  A blinding light. Everything is a blur. A white figure leans over me. Someone speaks, but I do not understand. It’s been years since I’ve listened. The figure returns to its place by the bed on which I lie. Tubes and wires, wires and tubes. I let go, tell my eyes to rest, but they remain open. They look to and fro—and it is not me who directs them. The picture sharpens. The figure smiles at me. Its face wakes in me a kind of sleeping memory. Inside me another barricade falls, quietly, comfortably. In the corner of my eye I see a row of trees, reflected at me through the window. I would have liked to look straight at them, but I can’t.

  ~

  A radio plays in the background—maybe in one of the adjacent rooms—a cheerful backdrop to the grating sounds rising in my brain. It’s been playing for many years, but only now do I notice.

  Adjacent rooms.

  I remember where I am.

  “Soon,” the figure says. “Soon, Grandpa.”

  And I remember the conversations that took place beside my bed. The medical issue, the moral issue, the monetary issue... the money was paid, I know now, out of my grandson’s small savings. My grandson who stands here now, smiling, by the bed, and waits for me to return from the world of the dead, brave and new.

  “It’s working!” he says. “It’s really working!”

  Of course it’s working. I feel the invading swarm settling in my brain, expanding blood vessels, changing neural pathways, improving performance, removing barriers. I feel it, or know about it from those conversations which I didn’t hear but which suddenly emerge from the depths of my memory, and the feeling and the knowledge are the same. I feel it, and I know that it is the last thing I’ll ever feel.

  I remember the injection that, only a few hours ago, I refused to be aware of. I remember the cold of the liquid swimming in my blood. I remember who I am, and know that soon I
will cease to be, because this new, improved, augmented mind will not be mine. Soon I will pass some sort of threshold, and then I will know. Or know no more. And the thousands of others, those who received the same treatment before me, they too are no more—but no one knows this, and will never know. My grandson paid for it and he is a good boy, I remember that now, and he deserves a whole and healthy grandfather. I hope that’s what he will get, but I don’t know. The change is sharp. Too sharp.

  ~

  It is said that there are moments when a man can feel his life changing.

  I feel my mind change. I don’t fight it. I have lived my life. As if speeding toward a final destination, the memories rush in: I am suffused by the smell of the street where we met, by the last rays of sunlight on white hair, by a hospital different from this one, by the cry of a newborn, by despair, by joy, by meaning.

  My brain says, it’s closing time.

  And in its swan song, in mine, I remember her smile.

  Contraption: Fear Machine

  Fear is contraction, the shrinking of hope, the sucking in of light and life and joy and everything that is good, and everything that is bad but may one day give rise to some good.

  Fear is generated by fear machines, planted throughout the universe by some long-dead, long-forgotten civilization. Or maybe they’re just a natural phenomenon—assuming that there is such a thing as “natural” in this obviously artificial universe of ours.

  Your scientists have already discovered some of these fear machines but, naturally, they can observe them only from a great, great distance. They see only the plain physicality, never guessing the machines’ true function. They have given those machines a proper name, however. They call them Black Holes.

  A Painter, a Sheep and a Boa Constrictor

  “Please, draw me a sheep,” he said—he looked just like you—and I thought Oh my, the kid makes demands. I would have liked to be in the desert, beside the broken remains of my airplane, or anywhere else for that matter. But no—we were both in the space port, I who was thrown like a discarded tool from the bowels of a trading ship, and he, who seemed to have arrived from nowhere.

  “I don’t know how to draw,” I said.

  He handed me a box. For a moment I thought he was asking for a donation.

  “I don’t have any money, kid.”

  He didn’t answer. I looked at the box again and saw that it was sealed. And then I understood. And was amazed.

  “Dear God, where did you get a Maker machine?”

  That’s what they called Creators at that time, and they were expensive. Not the kind of toy you would expect to find in the hands of a six year old kid; one like you, for instance.

  It gave the request a different, new meaning.

  “Please,” he said and put the box in my lap, “Draw me a sheep.”

  “I don’t know how to use this thing,” I lied. “Where are your parents?”

  He looked at me with a sad, tender look in his eyes. I wanted to help him. Maybe, I said to myself, I’m getting softer with age. Weird kid. In some strange way he looked like he had never had parents. I look that way too, and indeed I never had any. That’s why you don’t have a Granddad and a Grandma, kid.

  At that time, programming a Maker machine wasn’t such a simple process. Certainly not when attempting to create a living thing. Only a very few were both able and allowed to do it by themselves—while for me and my kind, as if in response to the very evidence of our ability, it was forbidden. The punishment: death.

  Even touching the box could put me at risk, but in the service corridor where I lived there were no security Eyes. That’s why I chose it.

  The kid continued to look at me.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go find your parents.”

  I began to walk away but he didn’t move. I didn’t want to leave him there, and if I got caught using force on a child...

  “Do you want me to buy you a toy? Or something to eat?”

  “Draw me a sheep.”

  He was too strange, and I was too tired. And without security Eyes, without witnesses, I began to draw—to create. But not a sheep. I wanted to scare him. I’m not scaring you, am I?

  The snake crawled slowly out of the box. Its head was gigantic, out of proportion to its thick black body. It hissed.

  The kid smiled.

  You like snakes, right?

  Yeah, even then no one was scared of Boa Constrictors any more.

  The kid’s smile didn’t change when the snake twisted and began to die loudly, the result of my hurried, messy drawing. It might have been an indication of what was to follow. I pointed the Creator and erased the snake, separating it into a pile of ash on the floor.

  “A sheep,” the kid said. “Please.”

  Too strange, too tired. Too kind. I began to draw. Not a real sheep, but the ideal of a sheep. A sheep from legend. A creature soft and woolly and gentle. And there she was, white curls of silky wool, and a quiet baa, and a light hint of musk.

  The child’s smile grew, and he turned his head away from me. One movement, a fraction of a second, but I, still absorbed in the act of creation, noticed the movement of the muscles, the slight bump under the skin, the exact tint of the eyes, and knew.

  I knew he was no different from me. That he had no parents. And I knew that he didn’t find me by accident. That bump is a transmitter, and those eyes... and the punishment for unauthorized creation, for me and mine, is death.

  There are many who would claim that me and mine deserve death, and who would be happy to settle the claim with no accusations of murder. How can you catch someone like me, if not by using someone like me? A Drone? Drawn?

  I would have liked to ask the child what he thought but time was of the essence, and in any case I was unsure he could have replied. It’s easier to manufacture them that way. Maybe I will ask you, one day. Time was pressing, and I pointed the box at him. Erase.

  His body sank in silence while the sheep looked on. Soon only a pile of ash remained.

  After a while I erased the sheep, too. I cleaned the floor, collected the ash into the box.

  And then, alone, I sat down on the floor and drew you.

  Shall I draw you a sheep?

  Cinderers

  They say you should always start with a little thing. Burn a tree, perhaps; a parked car, some road signs, a traffic light. Not us. We, for starters, burned Mr. Kalmanson’s flat—including two fine leather chairs, forks and knives (two dozen pairs), a life-sized (ugly) wooden horse, and Kalmanson himself, of course.

  “Oy,” said Huey, “add a little six kilohertz, I can’t hear the bedroom.” I heard the bedroom just fine, and also the kitchen, the living-room and the toilets. Mikes and earphones of the highest quality, and an SLR camera, black and white real film, as it should be. Louie gave it more six K, and just then Kalmanson’s stupid wife chose to take her leave of this world with a deafening cry.

  “Shit!” roared Huey and tore away the earphones.

  “I thought she’d scream higher,” said Louie. “It sounded like, I don’t know, B Flat?”

  “About a K and a half, with annoying overtones. I hope we can take it out in the editing.”

  “We’ll see,” said Louie, and Huey put on the earphones again. In the flat, the shuddering bodies fell still, as did one of the mikes in the kitchen, burned to a crisp despite its thermal casing. Annoying, but what can you do. The fire began to die as the gas filling the house was consumed. One kilometer to the north I saw the lights of the fire-engine whirling in desperation. Nails on the road. The firemen are our brothers, but the siren would ruin our recording.

  Later, equipped with backpacks, sleeping-bags, a grenade-launcher and much good will, we lay in wait under cover of a giant Sony billboard by the highway announcing that “This Is Not Television – This Is Reality.”

  It was like a school math problem: Drexler’s tanker leaves Ashdod at one hundred kilometers per hour towards Haifa. Half an hour later Schwartz’s tru
ck exits Chedera towards Tel Aviv at ninety kilometers per hour. Drexler carries cooking gas, and Schwartz – detergents. When and where will they meet? And how?

  Boom.

  Huey didn’t let me film in 8mm. Noise. In my opinion there is nothing like the grainy look of real film, but sometimes you have to make allowances. I used an 8K professional vidcam, and Dewey had to take care of the sound equipment by himself. A clean recording, aside from the part where the burning Schwartz, flying out of the truck’s window, landed on one of the mikes and smashed it. Well, nobody’s perfect.

  ~

  Louie disappeared in the middle of dinner. One moment he was there, absent-mindedly playing with his broccoli while examining the flame-thrower for tomorrow’s job—and the next his plate was orphaned.

  “Do you think he’d mind if I ate it?” asked Dewey.

  “Eat,” I said. “It’s good for you.” I never understood those vegetarians. I passed him the plate.

  “Say,” said Dewey with his mouth full. “Doesn’t it strike you as odd...”

  “What?”

  “That he, like, disappeared?”

  “Who?”

  “What do you mean who? Where’s your brain?”

  “Listen,” I said, “Let’s not play games. If you want to ask me something, be specific.”

  Dewey knows me and knows there is no point arguing.

  “Louie. He disappeared. Don’t you think something here doesn’t add up?”

  I thought about it. “No,” I said. “He probably took a break. He’ll be back soon.”

  “Look,” said Dewey. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he had disappeared at any other time, but in the middle of dinner?”

  You can say that much for Dewey—occasionally there is something to his twisted logic.