And more flash fiction from 2004
Nov. 2nd, 2010 08:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marnanelThere was the time Ed hired a camel for a week, so's he could learn to ride it ("just in case" he said). And the time he vanished for months on end and came back with Argentine stamps on his passport and a penguin's beak on a string around his neck. And then there was the time he opened a candy store just because he'd wished for it when he was a kid. That didn't last more than a couple of months, but it was just another Ed thing, and we all stood around and made admiring noises just the same. Helped him out, too, when it was needed: Rich and I painted the outside of that candy store, and we were well rewarded in gobstoppers, I can tell you.
Ed had a day job, or you'd probably better call it a "practice"; I don't well understand it, but it was something to do with intellectual property law. That was during the day. In the evenings he'd come home and work on improving his own intellectual real estate. Even when I knew him at school, Ed was one of those guys who can't stop learning during summer holidays, and he didn't lose the habit after school was finished. Somehow I think he was a little like that candy store, he wanted a mix of a little of everything. It was never just him, though; he needed to drag us into all his little projects. Not that we ever complained much.
You never got told much about what it was until you saw it. Some people, when they have news, they can't stop telling you about it, but not Ed; maybe it was the lawyer in him. You'd just be told that something new was up, and he'd like you to see it (he wouldn't mention lending a hand just yet), and could you be at his house at eleven, Saturday morning? Good? Okay then.
So there I was, driving up to his house, a large house, in one of the parts of town that call themselves "good". There was no sign of Ed himself around the house, but before I parked I'd seen the thing, whatever it was, standing on the lawn just away from the gravel drive. I took it for a car, probably an unusual kind considering its size. A regular car that size would be cheaper than Ed would get excited about. Maybe a racer.
Rich wandered up to me as I was getting out of the car. "What the hell has he got himself this time?" he asked. His tone was the usual one where Ed was concerned: a kind of amused frustration.
"I dunno, some kind of car?"
"I was thinking it was a rocket-ship," he grinned. I walked over and took a closer look. It certainly wasn't what I'd guessed from a quick glance: its body was the size and shape of a cheap car, but it had no wheels I could see, and the back ended with row upon row of conical pipe ends, maybe four rows of three. I could see where Rich's impression of a rocket-ship had come from. On the front there was what looked like the big brother of one of those fans you stick in your room when the weather gets warm. The rest of the thing was roughly a cube, a mass of pipes and valves and other things you'd probably have to be a mechanic to understand.
"Yup," I called over my shoulder to Rich, "we'll be seeing Ed in space yet... and here he comes."
Ed had appeared from the house and was walking towards us, grinning all over his face. "Isn't she lovely?"
"What is she? ... it?"
Ed reached us. "She's a siren. You know, when there's an air-raid or a nuclear attack or a meltdown or a big fire or... stuff, and they'd have one of these babies on the roof of a big public building, like a school, and they'd start her up, and... waaaw!", he wailed in imitation. "Isn't she gorgeous?"
"A regular banshee," said Rich. "So what's it doing here?"
"I read that some guy died who owned this one. There's only ten of these in private hands in the world, you know. Most of them were scrapped when they weren't needed, or they're still up there rusting on the tops of buildings. Anyway, so I wrote to his executors, and they agreed to sell her to me!" He rubbed his hands together gleefully. "So, wanna be here for her maiden voyage?"
Rich was dispatched for a couple of gallons of petrol. Ed spent the twenty minutes pointing out all the features of the siren, most of which I forgot immediately, or at least haven't stayed in my mind between now and then. What I do remember was that the siren was built around an ordinary petrol engine, like in a large ride-on lawnmower, and that this engine's job was partly to run the fan which pushed the air through the pipes at the back to make the wailing noise, and partly to make the whole damn thing revolve. The revolving part seemed to fill Ed with the most glee. He gave the siren's side a gentle push to demonstrate, and the whole machine gently turned and continued turning for a surprisingly long while.
"You really gonna use this thing?" asked Rich, when he'd returned with the petrol can and had the whole thing explained to him all over again.
"What would be the point in buying it otherwise?" Ed unscrewed a cap on the side of the siren and poured in the contents of the can. "Now, ready? Cover your ears." He took hold of a cord and gave it a tug. The engine rumbled and turned over. For a quiet moment we stood there as he wrestled with the cord; then the engine roared and the silence was over.
The machine stood still for a moment with its engine running, then began to turn smoothly on its axis. The pipes at the back sighed gently, and the note held a moment as the back passed me; then, as the front came around, the note grew and filled the air until the engine could no longer be heard. The air seemed full of the sound, growing fuller and louder with every moment. Rich and I stumbled backwards from the machine, hands over ears. Birds rose, startled, from the trees around the drive, and the walls of the house bounced back the note and intensified it. And still the noise grew.
"Wonderful, isn't she?" shouted Ed. At least, it was something like that; if he'd screamed at the top of his lungs, I wouldn't have heard him.
"So how about turning it off?" I bawled back at him. Ed shook his head: he couldn't hear. I pointed at the spinning siren, now coming around again and blaring another load into our ears, and drew my finger across my throat. For a second, Ed's face showed he understood me; then he looked puzzled. I could read him as though he'd spoken the words: the damn fool didn't know how to turn the thing off.
Ed had a day job, or you'd probably better call it a "practice"; I don't well understand it, but it was something to do with intellectual property law. That was during the day. In the evenings he'd come home and work on improving his own intellectual real estate. Even when I knew him at school, Ed was one of those guys who can't stop learning during summer holidays, and he didn't lose the habit after school was finished. Somehow I think he was a little like that candy store, he wanted a mix of a little of everything. It was never just him, though; he needed to drag us into all his little projects. Not that we ever complained much.
You never got told much about what it was until you saw it. Some people, when they have news, they can't stop telling you about it, but not Ed; maybe it was the lawyer in him. You'd just be told that something new was up, and he'd like you to see it (he wouldn't mention lending a hand just yet), and could you be at his house at eleven, Saturday morning? Good? Okay then.
So there I was, driving up to his house, a large house, in one of the parts of town that call themselves "good". There was no sign of Ed himself around the house, but before I parked I'd seen the thing, whatever it was, standing on the lawn just away from the gravel drive. I took it for a car, probably an unusual kind considering its size. A regular car that size would be cheaper than Ed would get excited about. Maybe a racer.
Rich wandered up to me as I was getting out of the car. "What the hell has he got himself this time?" he asked. His tone was the usual one where Ed was concerned: a kind of amused frustration.
"I dunno, some kind of car?"
"I was thinking it was a rocket-ship," he grinned. I walked over and took a closer look. It certainly wasn't what I'd guessed from a quick glance: its body was the size and shape of a cheap car, but it had no wheels I could see, and the back ended with row upon row of conical pipe ends, maybe four rows of three. I could see where Rich's impression of a rocket-ship had come from. On the front there was what looked like the big brother of one of those fans you stick in your room when the weather gets warm. The rest of the thing was roughly a cube, a mass of pipes and valves and other things you'd probably have to be a mechanic to understand.
"Yup," I called over my shoulder to Rich, "we'll be seeing Ed in space yet... and here he comes."
Ed had appeared from the house and was walking towards us, grinning all over his face. "Isn't she lovely?"
"What is she? ... it?"
Ed reached us. "She's a siren. You know, when there's an air-raid or a nuclear attack or a meltdown or a big fire or... stuff, and they'd have one of these babies on the roof of a big public building, like a school, and they'd start her up, and... waaaw!", he wailed in imitation. "Isn't she gorgeous?"
"A regular banshee," said Rich. "So what's it doing here?"
"I read that some guy died who owned this one. There's only ten of these in private hands in the world, you know. Most of them were scrapped when they weren't needed, or they're still up there rusting on the tops of buildings. Anyway, so I wrote to his executors, and they agreed to sell her to me!" He rubbed his hands together gleefully. "So, wanna be here for her maiden voyage?"
Rich was dispatched for a couple of gallons of petrol. Ed spent the twenty minutes pointing out all the features of the siren, most of which I forgot immediately, or at least haven't stayed in my mind between now and then. What I do remember was that the siren was built around an ordinary petrol engine, like in a large ride-on lawnmower, and that this engine's job was partly to run the fan which pushed the air through the pipes at the back to make the wailing noise, and partly to make the whole damn thing revolve. The revolving part seemed to fill Ed with the most glee. He gave the siren's side a gentle push to demonstrate, and the whole machine gently turned and continued turning for a surprisingly long while.
"You really gonna use this thing?" asked Rich, when he'd returned with the petrol can and had the whole thing explained to him all over again.
"What would be the point in buying it otherwise?" Ed unscrewed a cap on the side of the siren and poured in the contents of the can. "Now, ready? Cover your ears." He took hold of a cord and gave it a tug. The engine rumbled and turned over. For a quiet moment we stood there as he wrestled with the cord; then the engine roared and the silence was over.
The machine stood still for a moment with its engine running, then began to turn smoothly on its axis. The pipes at the back sighed gently, and the note held a moment as the back passed me; then, as the front came around, the note grew and filled the air until the engine could no longer be heard. The air seemed full of the sound, growing fuller and louder with every moment. Rich and I stumbled backwards from the machine, hands over ears. Birds rose, startled, from the trees around the drive, and the walls of the house bounced back the note and intensified it. And still the noise grew.
"Wonderful, isn't she?" shouted Ed. At least, it was something like that; if he'd screamed at the top of his lungs, I wouldn't have heard him.
"So how about turning it off?" I bawled back at him. Ed shook his head: he couldn't hear. I pointed at the spinning siren, now coming around again and blaring another load into our ears, and drew my finger across my throat. For a second, Ed's face showed he understood me; then he looked puzzled. I could read him as though he'd spoken the words: the damn fool didn't know how to turn the thing off.
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Date: 2011-09-28 01:51 pm (UTC)