Yes, the machine was an ugly thing. Yes, its only purpose was to repeatedly carry out a series of violent steps. Trace could admit that.
But the machine had grace, too. It had rhythm. It followed those steps, but it did that cleanly, precisely. As far as Trace was concerned, the machine was a ballerina. Yes, it was a huge, horrific structure made of rusting metal. It was also a ballerina.
Trace was one of the machine’s guards. He worked the graveyard shift. Late at night, he was alone: it was just him and the clattering, never-ending ballet.
Sometimes Trace left his post on the catwalk and climbed down into the machine’s dark, damp bowels. He would look up and watch the dizzying, intricate dance: cylinder slamming into piston smashing into shaft crashing into mechanized claw tearing into corpse dragging it through the disintegrator vats. Again and again. Beautiful.
Comments 3
Have you read Kafka’s In The Penal Colony? Very similar concept (taken to its logical extreme).
Posted 02 Aug 2009 at 5:06 pm ¶No; I really need to read more Kafka. I’m a little ashamed to admit that the only things of his I’ve read have been The Metamorphosis, The Trial, and like . . . half of The Castle.
Posted 02 Aug 2009 at 6:08 pm ¶That’s about a third of his life’s output (Kafka was notoriously demotivated and didn’t write much), so you aren’t doing too badly.
Still reading your writings with sympathy BTW, even if I don’t always have anything to add.
Posted 02 Aug 2009 at 6:52 pm ¶Post a comment