Mr. Mackintosh’s Delightful Machine

I am a rat. One of those notorious sewer rats but like all of God’s creatures more than capable of daydreaming and heartbreak. I long tired of the darkness and dampness of my habitat and desired for something more inspirational. My opening to a new world of possibility was through a gutter. I struggled to crawl out as the rain water flowing along the cobbles made such an undertaking rather difficult. Once I had made it I experienced even more trauma for an ambitious rat to witness. The streets were full of hansom cabs with their admirably strong horses and badly fixed wooden wheels charging down at full speed. I managed to avoid being struck by any of them but only barely.

I saw a bright patch of colour in the near distance. It was a colour that I’d never seen before in all my rodent life. Its beauty transfixed me and I had to walk towards it. On the way I noticed that almost everybody was headed in that direction. Were they dreamers like myself and could it be possible for dreams to be achieved if so many people are doing just that? My rodent brain pulsated so I decided it was best for me not to philosophise. I arrived at the source of the colour, all the muscles within my body aching and twitching. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever saw. It covered a wide open area and was decorated with long brown vertical things with thick hair the same colour as the new colour that contained creatures that took to the air. I thought the flies and the gnats in the labyrinthine sewers were a joyous miracle but these creatures were really something. God is truly wondrous. I couldn’t contain myself and took liberty by running onto the bright new colour itself. Oh what joy! What sensation! What delightful poetry that I felt as I ran in all directions. I felt a sense of vigour and an appreciation of what it means to be alive. My eyes began to water and I wept with joy. If only my mother lived long enough to see this. I discovered there were other living things secreted within the colour and reader I feasted on a few.

I was surprised that I never experienced any hostility. For in the sewers I heard tales of hatred and fear of rats from the men and women that walked above us. That ingrained fear was why so many of my kith and kin tended to remain where they were save for a few necessary nocturnal outings. Some never came back which made all of us rats exceedingly nervous. One of my friends came back in shock but when asked he replied that he could never say, to tell would be an act of cruelty itself. Perhaps I had found an ingenious way for a sewer rat to survive out of its immediate environment. I doubted that as it was clear that all walked in the same direction evidently transfixed by something or other. I took it upon myself to follow the crowd. After all they must all be doing something right and they must all know what they are doing.

Where the crowd was gathered was near a peculiar looking figure next to an even more peculiar looking thing, both being higher up than the crowd. The peculiar looking thing seemed to be pieced together from any old thing, it made an unlikely rhythmic noise, produced white stuff billowing from the top and from the side clear spheres emerged that would suddenly pop out of existence. What manner of thing was this? Clearly the crowd was as intrigued as I. The peculiar figure introduced himself as Mr. Heinrich Pierre Mackintosh an amateur metaphysicist, mathematician and William Morris cultist. Whatever those were I did not know and judging by the body language of many members of the crowd neither did they. He also declared to be many other things in which he was “amateur” but he spoke so fast that they went in one rattus rattus ear and out of the other rattus rattus ear. I or rather we continued taking in what Mr. Mackintosh had to say. After what seemed an inordinate length of period the peculiar man focussed his attention to the peculiar looking thing. He called it a machine but said it was not a machine of the functional but rather it was a machine of the marvellous and when it is in operation then they too would find it marvellous, that they would declare it to be a delightful machine. All looked at one another. I wished I had another rat to exchange a glance with so I made do with a crawling spider. The spider’s indifference was very telling.

Nothing. Nothing happened at all. Nothing worth reporting. Nothing doing. Nothing saying. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I scurried away and attempted to bury myself under one of the hairy vertical things to escape from the ear piercing guttural chattering sounds the crowd made as they collapsed onto the colour. As I was digging I looked up at Mr. Heinrich Pierre Mackintosh who had a crestfallen appearance. I paused for a moment. I felt my heart crumble as his was surely crumbling. He shuffled off his stage leaving his machine. When the crowd dispersed the place didn’t seem what it once was. A suffocating misery engulfed me and the darkness filling my new surroundings made the sewers and their excremental perfume seem the more preferable option. At least there is a kind certainty as regards the familiar. More attractive than disappointment rewarded with cruel mockery. Later I walked slowly towards the abandoned peculiar thing. It looked delightful and I wondered. As I wondered I recognised something. I recognised the essence of my mother and a solitary tear emerged from my eyes. My mother was nowhere, she did not exist in any sense at all but there I was recognising her. Was this the machine in operation? What is a machine anyway? I crept a little closer. Then I actually saw my mother and I froze. Such suffering, she could barely live but there she was punished to live. I sobbed causing my whiskers to glisten with tears. What I wished for was an act of cruelty on the beautiful female that bore me. Perhaps I should forcibly cease her existence. O would that I could but I could not. I must. I’ll just leap and bite into her.

I did not know how I ended up at the far side of the universe but end up there I did. I did not feel a sense of oneness (whatever that is) but rather cold bleak despair.

Tempis fugit and I learnt that there was an abstract crystalline beauty in such bleakness. My eyes were opened to the very essence of myself. It was not a reflection that I saw but my own self. In fact I saw many varieties of my self. My self with different parents and myself as different creatures each one in turn with different parents. It was hard to tell where I began and where I did not begin. Then I heard some loud sounds.

In the park at about three o’clock in the morning Mr. Mackintosh destroyed his machine in a fit of regret and rage and I returned to my labyrinth home a rat with a different perspective. A changed rat.

© 2009 Clinton Morgan