The Automaton ( Part 2)

Dianne studied the red and green toy carefully; it was made of metal and obviously had a very intricate mechanism somewhere inside the man’s body. It was around fifteen inches long and nine inches high. The key at the back wound the toy up which made the man’s legs start to peddle, this in turn made the wheels go round and made the bike go forward, somehow in perfect balance. She smiled as she looked at it, thinking what a wonderful toy for a young child, probably a boy.

She gently put it down onto the kitchen table.

For some strange reason she felt a wave of nostalgia flow through her mind and thought back to when she and Tom first met, they had been together since they were nineteen. She met him on a blind date arranged by Tom’s best friend Simon and his girlfriend. That was almost twenty five years ago. They had no children, not because they couldn’t have them, they were just content with each other.

She had worked for an Insurance company, but after eleven years was made redundant. She hadn’t worked since. Tom made good money and convinced her to stay at home; he said he didn’t like her working as he could see it made her stressed. He didn’t like seeing his Dianne stressed.

Both sets of parents were now gone and as they were both only children; they had both inherited a good sum of money. They were now what she called “comfortable.”

Three years ago they bought Ben as a twelve week old pup. They both adored him. The family unit now felt somehow complete.

Tom’s plan was to retire in six years’ time, when he reached fifty. If the new depot worked efficiently and became profitable under his guidance he was convinced he would be in line for the position of Operations Director, complete with a salary in excess of six figures. He kept telling her he would then be able to keep her in style, like a princess. She always kept telling herself how lucky she was to have him.

She stopped daydreaming and yawned, the lack of sleep from the previous night had caught up with her.

It was still early so she decided to catch up on some sleep; she sat down on the sofa in the lounge, closed her eyes and was soon in a deep sleep. Her dreams were confusing, it was as though someone was trying to tell her something, but something that she didn’t understand, it was all letters and numbers that made no sense but still she was sure that it meant something. She woke up shivering.

She stood up and looked out of the window, it was a lovely crisp sunny day probably nineteen degrees outside, so why was the house so bloody cold?

She put her hands on the radiator, it was on, not scalding hot, just warm. She went into the hallway, found the thermostat and turned it up by five degrees. She felt better for the sleep but still disturbed by the dream.

Time now to have a good look through the house.

She decided to start at the bottom and work her way up to the top. There was an underground room, the agent had described it as a basement, but really it was a small cellar room where years ago they would have stored the coal. It was empty, cold and damp. There was no electric down there either so the only light that came in was through the flap that was used to shunt the coal into the cellar. She forced the flap open and light flooded in. It was still empty cold and damp. She shut the flap, walked up the stone steps and shut the door.

Apart from the kitchen the ground floor had two reception rooms and a small toilet. The largest of the rooms was where she and Tom had decided to make their lounge, mainly because it was the biggest and most importantly, had a television in it. She would save this room for last.

The second reception room was much smaller by comparison and sparcely furnished. An open fireplace, two fireside chairs, a sideboard and an old upright piano. She searched through the sideboard; all she found was a small set of silver keys, not door keys, but keys similar to the one on the wind-up toy. They were tied together by a piece of string and attached was a brown paper tag that had the word “Bingo” written on it. She lifted the lid of the piano and gently touched down on the keys; the notes sounded perfect and seemed to echo throughout the house.

Next she went into the much bigger lounge, it was furnished with a sofa, armchair, television, sixties style coffee table and a bookcase. The bookcase was quite grand and she guessed made of Mahogany, it had a rich deep brown colour with three large drawers at the bottom and two massive glass doors at the top behind which were five shelves with a variety of books on. The books were old and seemed to be mainly reference books.

She glanced through the titles; they all seemed to have an engineering theme. There were titles such as “Mechanics of Memory”, “Imitate life By Mechanics”, “Science, Engineering and Life”.

Dianne took out “Imitate Life By Mechanics” sat down and started to flick through the pages. It was first published in 1876 in Switzerland and translated into the English language in 1926. There were pages and pages of drawings, lots of diagrams with numbers attached; they seemed to be mathematical equations. She noticed one at the top of page six, it read “2X-3C/2C+^6.

These numbers and symbols seemed familiar to her and she didn’t know why. She reached up to return the book to the shelf, as she did so the sound of Ben’s bark made her jump and the book fell to the floor. She shouted out in anger.

“What now Ben, for god’s sake!”

She turned round expecting to see Ben come running in, but instead there was a silence, no more barking, in fact no sounds at all. It felt as though the world had stopped somehow, the room seemed colder than before and then she heard the ringing again, but this time it was getting louder, every second it seemed to be coming closer. She stood still, mesmerised by the sound, her eyes transfixed on the doorway, expecting the impossible, she gasped as she saw it. The small mechanical toy was coming towards her, ringing his bell as the wheels turned.