Morning Came (2AirwayHeights) pt2
MECHANICAL MAN by, Jessica Sansom
Though a sort of infamous recluse by this point, some are already hailing Raymond Chancellor as one of this generations’ greatest minds. But three months ago, the residents of Airway Heights only knew Raymond, if they knew him at all, as an advertising executive who sculpted as a hobby. Mostly, Raymond admits, he kept to himself. Not an “active social life.” Until, recently, when he has almost unwillingly been thrust into the limelight.
Now, the outside of Raymond’s house is a massive crowd of people from around the country – the majority of whom are present for religious beliefs. Some come to protest, others to worship. Raymond prefers to stay out the debate and hold up in his room. Occasionally peer out a window. Nothing more.
Back in July, neighbors of Raymond started hearing noises coming from inside the house. Also, around this time, Raymond stopped going to work. Co-workers recount his absence as particularly puzzling. A fellow employee, Kelly Reich, says Raymond “never missed a day of work” the eight years they’d worked together. After a few days, Kelly recalls phoning Raymond at home. Raymond answered, said everything was fine but he probably wouldn’t be back to work for some time. When asked if he was sick, the answer was a terse “No.”
Outside of Raymond’s home, the neighbors’ curiosity grew. They knew he was in his basement, but aside from the loud sounds and a couple sightings of smoke from a small basement window, no one knew what he was doing. Just some bellowing and billowing.
“Right before all this,” a concerned neighbor says, “Raymond had been in a funk. His mother had died and he was very closeted about the whole thing. I don’t even know if he went to the funeral. Stopped seeing him at church too.”
All this speculation came to a head last Sunday night when the mystery was finally “revealed” as the “Gloxy Oxtornity Device” – or G.O.D. as religious patrons call it. The Gloxy is a large, sleek machine of sorts. With its peculiar shape, it is inarguably a technical marvel and may or may not defy both science and nature in its structure. Scraps and pieces fitted together to create what is either one man’s labor intensive artwork, or what may very well be the most complicated piece of equipment man has ever seen.
“I knew Raymond was into art,” a friend said, “but I didn’t know he was doing this sort of thing.”
While Scientists investigate Gloxy’s operative functions, Raymond holds up in his room, trying his best to remove himself from all the attention suddenly thrust upon him.
Raymond has shut the world out since Gloxy was unveiled, but yesterday he granted us an exclusive interview… of sorts. There were some conditions he requested: He would remain behind a closed door at all times, never speak or be spoken to. The questions would be slipped to him under the door, hand written on paper, and he would respond in kind - writing his answer on the other side and sliding it back.
Unfortunately, the interview was not as informative as we had hoped. Raymond’s answers were sparse, to say the least. Clipped, cryptic and, most of the time, completely illegible.
When asked specifically about how his mother’s death influenced Gloxy’s development, Raymond wrote back, “It didn’t.”
When asked about the origins of the name, Raymond wrote, “I don’t know.”
And when asked how he was able to design such a complex machine without anyone knowing anything about it, how he gathered all the parts and assembled it with no assistance, how a man with no training in engineering whatsoever built this machine in a matter of weeks, when asked simply “How did you do it?” Raymond wrote back, “I just followed the instructions,” followed by a long unreadable paragraph whose only decipherable word was ‘failure.’
More questions were asked, but Raymond stopped responding. Leaving myself, all the denizens on his lawn, and the attentive nation to wonder what this all means. This modern marvel.
The effect Gloxy has on people is undeniable.
There is no Horton street. 6th and 8th avenue are useless. Head down the Sunset Highway, people have posted signs directing you to “Gloxy.”
To “G.O.D.”
Of course, if you’re Raymond, all you have to do is peel back your curtains and look out the window.
DylanMayer on April 25th 2009 in Fiction, Short Story
