IT was New Year’s Eve on this world, much to the delight of The Tavern’s patrons. Though the name of the world itself was lost to them, the celebratory mood permeated the air like the sweet aroma of good hearty stew and everyone felt eager to join in the partying.
Everyone except a small man who wished to not be named.
He was a busy man, working day in, day out on whatever project that came his way. He was a machinist, an inventor, also known as an artificer, and to him there was no greater feeling of success then to see a child of his wake up from its metallic slumber to bask in the world of the living. He was employed by The Tavern part-time, spending the other hours of the day working for people that decided to employ him for some minor project of this or that. It was both a stressful life and a fulfilling life, at least to someone like himself.
An hour before the stroke of midnight, the revellers were already filling the larger areas of the town like the central square and the parks and community fields. The machinist, standing beside his desk in his room in The Tavern, looked at his watch.
“Soon,” he said to himself.
The watch was returned to a pocket and the machinist picket up a welder before setting to work on what device lay half-assembled on the desk.
Before he could finish his duties there came a sequence of knocking on the door, a rapid kind of knocking in what may be a musical rhythm. The machinist turned off his welder before putting it back on its stand, after which the door was opened at the two people stared at each other.
The person visiting his room was a woman, dressed in attire that befitted an inventor. There were oil stains and burn marks on her thick durable apron and some blackish grime had infiltrated her hair. She wore an eyepiece over her left eye, giving her additional abilities to her vision. The machinist took all of this in in the first five seconds that they made visual contact.
Then they both tried to speak at the same time, and stopped immediately. This happened again, and again their quieted themselves as embarrassment began to colour their cheeks. The man motioned for the lady to speak, and so she did.
“I have a delivery of machine parts for you.”
“Nuts and bolts?” the man asked.
“Feels like it.” She held up a package sealed in heavy paper.
“May I?” the man said, holding out a hand and hoping the woman would give him the parts he needed for his inventions.
The woman apologised and obliged, after which the man said his thanks and closed the door. It was at that time that the woman mustered enough courage to ask the machinist something, but she heard the door lock itself and that shattered her spirit.
Men were always like that, weren’t they? she thought to herself.
As she stepped away from the door, heading back to where she came with disappointment and dejection, she heard the locks undo themselves and then she turned just as the door into the machinist’s room opened.
The man poked his head out and said, “If you don’t mind, we can… you know… spend New Year together. If you don’t mind.”
He saw that his words had stunned the woman, so he held up a machine part in the shape of a heart. The woman slowly smiled and, rather sheepishly, she invited herself into his room.
>Continued in part 2
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