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September 19, 2005
Neovox Article Of Mine
Soem of the indentations are off.
Mother Maker Destroyer
By Morgan Dunn
Allen just wanted his mother to leave him alone. She had been nagging him to clean up his room for a while now. “It’s my house and you do what I say when it comes to the cleaning,” she’d tell him.
Fuck that. Allen had to step out when she got like that, sometimes she’d curse and he didn’t like that one bit.
He walked down to the house of the Scientist. This man knew everything there was to know. Allen liked to hang around him for this reason; he felt smarter than his mother while watching the Scientist built his contraptions.
On that day, he seemed particularly excited. “What are you so happy about?” Allen asked, slumping down on the couch in front of the Scientist’s machine.
“Last night I built the most ingenious invention known to man!” the Scientist proclaimed. He turned to the boy after tweaking a few details of the machine on a screen. “This machine before you will control the weather. We’ll never need to worry about weather-related catastrophes ruining lives and homes again! I am a genius, of course you already knew that,” the Scientist said proudly.
Allen was intrigued. “Can I see it work?” he asked, leaning forward to get a better look. Electric lights and computer screens flashed on and off all over the contraption, a round mass with a satellite-receiver-like apparatus at the top pointing towards the sky.
“Of course! You’re just in time to see the first test run,” said the Scientist. He ran to one of the screens and input some information. “Let’s see...rain.”
The thing shook, beeped, and hummed, and the appendage at the top spun around. A few seconds later, they both looked and outside. Sure enough, rain was falling, a light drizzle.
The Scientist clapped, applauding himself. “Yes! Now, something more extreme…” he said, turning some knobs.
The rain quickly turned to snow, with wind blowing it in all directions outside the barn they occupied. Allen was delighted; maybe they’d cancel school the next day. But the Scientist turned it off completely, making all of the movement, noise and bad weather disappear.
“The world must know, I have advertising to do,” the Scientist said. “Go run home. And, um, tell everyone.”
Allen walked home, disappointed that the Scientist didn’t want him around. His mother, of course, was waiting, yelling at him for not cleaning up his room. He shut himself in there, ignoring her, surrounded by piles of trash and old useless things he had collected.
That night Allen snuck out, initiating a plan he had come up with when he was unable to sleep.
He quietly broke into the barn of the Scientist.
The machine was waiting, and he was not in the mood to go to school the next day. The boy tried to remember what the Scientist had pressed for snow.
Through trial and error he got it, though it took some accidental rainstorms and waves of humidity to get it right. Finally a light snow began to fall.
Allen turned the knob to increase the power. The snow soon became a blizzard, and the blizzard quickly became unstoppable! He couldn’t turn the knob back, the machine wouldn’t let him!
The snow came down so thick he couldn’t see anything outside. He finally just left the machine and ran through the blizzard towards home.
The world had become frozen. Several trees had fallen down from the weight of the ice coving their branches, he had to step over many of them and often tripped due to the bad visibility.
Allen finally reached his front door and walked inside. He didn’t even feel like going in his room, he passed out on the couch in the cold of his home.
The next morning Allen was woken up by his mother’s yelling. “Come look Allen! Snowed in the middle of summer! Worst storm I’ve ever seen!”
The boy walked into the kitchen where his mother stood, dumbfounded by the several feet if white snow outside.
“You’re lucky you decided to sleep on the couch! Look at your room!” she said.
Allen ran to his room and gasped in horror at what he saw. A tree had crashed through, destroying everything inside.
“Oh well,” said his mother, “Looks like you have a lot of work to do!”
“What do you mean?” asked Allen, afraid that he knew the answer.
“Rebuilding! I don’t have any other rooms for you. You’re going to have to fix it up. Guess it never mattered go messy it was,” she said, chuckling.
“But, I’m just a kid! That could take all of my time and energy, my whole life…”
Just then, from the sky, the Scientist floated down on his jetpack and landed in the destroyed room. “Hey Allen! The machine must’ve kicked on while I was sleeping! No matter though, I’ll just turn up the heat out here and it will all melt in no time. Well, just seeing if you folks are ok,” he said.
Allen just stared.
The Scientist looked around the room. “Looks like you’ve got a lot of work! Ah well, see you around.”
With that he flew off.
The next night, Allen found himself trudging towards the barn again. This time, he had much different plans in mind.
Before him the machine waited to be destroyed. He pulled out the hammer from his pocket and swung. The thing shook and whirred, as if dying. Good, he thought. Die. He hit it again; it beeped and parts inside crunched.
Suddenly it retaliated. Bolts of electricity flew everywhere and the sky filled with clouds. Allen repeated smashed the thing, and the sky echoed with thunder and lighting.
Finally one of the bolts from the crippled and dilapidated machine struck him. He flew back and fell on his back. The world became a blur.
Allen wasn’t sure if he was alive or dead, but saw above him his mother and the Scientist looking down at him. They seemed to be disappointed in him, though both were half indifferent about it.
“Look at the mess you’ve made! Blood everywhere! And not to mention you hurt me and all your family members, you know, by dying and all. Tsk, tsk,” his mother said, waving a finger and chuckling,
“I know. My barn is a mess! You make a mess of everything Allen. Sheesh!” said the Scientist, smiling.
The boy closed his eyes and sighed. I should’ve just cleaned my room.
Posted by Morgan Dunn at September 19, 2005 3:12 PM
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