Ticking Hearts – Part 2
This week is something else.
I lost a day to horrible mental health issues, found out that one of my heroes suffers even worse than I, and this morning woke to the news that Tony Bourdain fought demons even mightier than ours.
Those demons killed him in the end. To say that I am worried is a gross misstatement of fact.
I. Am. Terrified.
Tony’s loss is so completely out of the blue. In everything I have ever read or seen of the man, he seemed stable. Healthy. Not perfect, not a choir boy who knew no wrong, but he just seemed like he’d gotten his shit together and was riding out what appeared to be a great life. That he suffered as I do, that he died from his condition, is just… just…
Tony is why I know that chicken korma and dal mahkani are two of the most delicious foods on the planet. Knowing that even as he broadened my horizons, his mind chewed away at itself fills me with sadness.
This week has been a roller-coaster of epic proportions, I’m telling you.
Story time. Expect nothing grand, for I’ve no idea how I’ve managed to write the above with my mind in such turmoil.
Ticking Hearts – Part 2
The words, articulate and precise, issuing forth from the tiny bronze beak she had painstakingly hammered out startled Jehanne. She had expected animation akin to life, but even her fathers automatons couldn’t speak. They only stared forward, eyeless faces never acknowledging what was told to them, simply performing as demanded.
A huge smile split Hanne’s face, and she looked down at the tiny brass bird, whose gears whirred softly as it shuffled from one brass foot to the other. It… Archimedes, she furiously corrected herself, never broke eye contact. It… He… just stared up at her, expectantly.
Hanne blushed furiously for the second time in as many minutes, her skin darkening past the deep honey hues she had inherited from her mother. She’d been so lost in thought, correcting her thinking as she marveled at the little bird, that she hadn’t even said anything yet! She always got so absorbed with any line of thinking that she forgot her manners or even where she was. Her not-father, the Fishmonger, loved to point out whenever she was doing it and chuckle good-naturedly. She blushed again and stammered out a greeting.
“H-h… hello little Archimedes. My name is Jehanne Le Paris, but you can call me Hanne. Everyone else does.”
The bird hopped from one foot to the next, bending and flexing the opposite wing with each hop. The eyes, as red as her blood and bright as the candle-light, never left her face as it repeated the hopping dance several times. Then, it nodded a single time in acknowledgement.
“Very well Master, I shall refer to you as Hanne if that is your wish. What is your command, Mistress Hanne?”
Hanne grinned, at first a sheepish expression but slowly gaining a wolfish cast.
“How strong are you little Archimedes?”
The bird bent its head left and right as it studied her. The gears, mostly covered underneath beaten brass plates, shuffled and whirred as he regarded her. They didn’t appear to bend as Archimedes moved, yet each sideways bob of the head should have dislodged a gear, or forced him to stop moving in that direction to allow them to continue functioning. Yet they operated as smoothly as any sedentary clock, no matter how Archimedes moved.
Another ruffle of non-existent wings, then Archimedes hopped over to one of the modest book towers which were strewn about the work bench which dominated half of Hanne’s room.
Then Archimedes grabbed the bottom book with his beak, and as swiftly as Hanne had ever seen anything move, pulled it smoothly from the bottom of the stack. The stack wobbled in mid-air, startled at being caught in such an indecent pose, then thumped down to the desk in roughly the same configuration it had been, minus the bottom book.
Archimedes held the book aloft in its mouth, easily out-weighed by the book several times over. Yet he showed no signs of strain. The gears whirred gently, never ceasing in the quiet humming tick of metal against metal.
Hanne’s grin brightened, becoming a second sun in the darkened candle light.
“Archimedes, I’ve got a job for you.”
To be continued…
Birdfully,
Justin
