Perpetual Motion

I discovered perpetual motion about fifteen billion years ago. You, who consider yourselves my friends, do not know the effects this miracle had on me. I was ostracized by society; filthy men with broken wings threw stones at me. I was chased out of Celestial City, then no larger than a village, and forced to seek refuge on the moorlands.

The moorlands are not unpleasant in summer (purple heather exploded as far as the eye could see, enormous butterflies flitted around my head) but I did not enjoy my exile. On my back, under a sky dotted with cognac clouds, I sipped the last of my sherbet and schemed...

I eventually constructed a City of my own, on the side of a marsh. I had plenty of time. I laid the foundation stone and tumbled the other blocks upon it, one by one. My City grew larger than His, and became infinitely more beautiful. From the top of its tallest tower I could gaze upon the distant sea. I could reach out and snatch migrating storks as they flew by.

But I was alone. Even here, the centuries passed in boredom. My schemes came to nothing. I began to realize that they were hopelessly impractical. Although they had taken a long time to sketch out, filling upwards of twenty thousand quarto volumes in elaborate notes, I had no choice but to abandon them. I lit a large fire and destroyed the evidence.

There was no chance of me regaining my rightful place, by His side, as long as my machine kept running. And run it would, forever. Because it occupied so large a space, and was in constant view, He would never forget my deed. Nor would he ever forgive. My machine made him uneasy.

Naturally, I created companions to while away the hours. I created you, for example. Yet these companions were poor cousins of the real thing. I longed to converse with my equals again, to bathe in the pools of boiling mud with my peers, to dance and laugh with my friends. But I refused to weaken. I asked myself this question: "Do little things really mean a lot?"

Twice, I received news from Celestial City. Twice, He sent messengers to bargain with me. I would be re-admitted, they stated, if I would destroy my machine. I guessed that He had already tried to destroy it Himself, and had failed. The messengers cast baleful looks when I informed them that it was indestructible.

Of course, I never visited the machine. There was no need. It had no need of maintenance. Its various parts were self-regenerating. I simply kept track of its progress from the distance. It was growing at a furious rate, expanding in every direction. Although its tremendous vitality threatened to obscure all my other achievements, I did my best to disregard it.

You remember how, when you were young, fresh from my vats, I took you out to see it for the first time (we marched across the moors on stilts, long steps to crush as few wild flowers as possible.) You were astonished and gazed up at me with large round eyes. Already you had guessed that I was too proud. I would cut off my horns to spite my head, you said. Yet I am not utterly stubborn. I would not go so far as plucking my dark eyebrows.

Now, of course, you are all much happier. I, too, relish being back in my old haunts, among old acquaintances. Even He has started talking to me again. He confessed that He had approached the machine once or twice, to see what could be done with it. He had even lost His son there briefly. He had been worried sick.

"The machine was infested with parasites," He told me. I was stupefied by this. He was exaggerating, as always. I lifted up His beard and tickled Him under the chin, to show that I appreciated His jest. But He did not giggle. He had become truculent in His old age.

Parasites there were, indeed, but they had 'infested' only a tiny part of the machine. They had met His son and had formed some rather peculiar ideas about us. You can always rely on children to get the facts wrong.

Anyway, to get back to the point (I am sipping sherbet again, such a sweet bliss!), after fifteen billion years or so, I finally gave in. I could not stand this insufferable solitude any longer (nor your own prattlings and gibberings.) I decided to redeem myself.

I took the little bronze key that I kept hidden in my shoe and paid my first visit to the machine. Luckily, I had prepared for this eventuality. I inserted my key into the lock and switched the machine off. Indestructible it might have been, but not uncontrollable.

Of course, I had some fun with the parasites before I left. They had evolved a strange primitive technology of their own, and even a sense of wonder; they called my machine 'The Universe'.

Little things, it appears, do mean a lot...

Rhys Hughes has published four books so far (collections of stories) and his first novel is due out next year (featuring an introduction by Michael Moorcock!)

Email: Rhys Hughes

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