The Nebuchadnezzar magazine

THE MIRACLE MACHINE

by E.K. Anderson

The man donned uncannily neat attire and bore the likeness of the Bourgeois. He wore a cravat and  ornate cuffs, reminiscent of seventeenth century Parisian bankers and businessmen. Trimmed and flush with his jaw line was a graying beard, with patches of black like ground pepper. Pants perfectly tailored about his legs, his slim countenance implied one of guile, authoritative and classy measures. In his left hand was a pocket watch, one in which he concerned himself with constantly, as if by some way his gaze could hinder time. In his other he carried a half-full glass of moonshine He was a rebellious man by nature, free of the shackles of faux pas, unspoken nuances and taboos of society.

“Punctuality is a virtue Dr. Mayson,” He looked again at the pocket watch, facial expression as crude as a stone etching, “As it seems that you are the only interviewee, I’m willing to overlook the minute fact of your tardiness. I recommend an atomic clock. They’re the best,” said Arthur Morgan.

In the doorway, surgeon Richard Mayson Ph.D, stood somewhat confounded and uneasy, believing that he had in all truth reached the premises a minute early. In his hand was a jumbled collection of papers: his polished medical resume, the papers he had written for Cambridge academia and any spare credentials he could manage to gather about his second-story London studio. Clumping them together in his left prosthetic, he shook hands with the man.

“I’m honored,” he said in a stunted manner, “I apologize. I’ll take up that recommendation.” He lied, knowing quite well he would not.

Through his bifocals Mr. Morgan peered at him hauntingly, the moonlight refracting in the lenses, “Come in.”

Richard stepped over the threshold. Already like some irritant or foreign matter, he began to reject his notions that the man was in any way sane. The mansion, had little in it, which surprised him. A myriad of corridors, ran perpendicular to each other; both upstairs and downstairs, leading into grey and dusty rooms. Tapestries both as large as his head and the size of a man lined the walls. Green velvet draperies hung lankly from the Venetian windows. The room spacious he felt small, the rotunda wavering above him like a sky about to fall. He saw what looked like a replica of Creation of Adam, the fresco from the Sisteen Chapel (which he had always wished to see in person). A brick hearth, burned steadily, hardly crackling.

All about, in tandem, he heard the tintinnabulation of clocks like miniature glockenspiels. It irritated him, a throbbing nuisance at the back of his head.

“I’m a bit of an antiquary. My associates regard my house as noisy and mad labyrinth, unusual really. Yet I enjoy the ruckus. Hearing the seconds, the milliseconds of the day as they pass tend to inspire me. Do you find it quaint Dr. Mayson?”  

“Fine. It reminds me of Mister Gepetto,” he said mistrustfully, “Pinnochio.”

Mr. Morgan clicked his tongue and raised his brow, “Fair enough. Moonshine or Scotch?”

“Scotch,” He preferred no alcohol but felt obliged to be courteous, “Just a little though.”

They sat in the middle of the rotunda, adjacent to the stairwell and juxtapose to a small table with an unusual colorful fish centerpiece. The room still, tension affixed in a single state like dry ice.

“Chinese fighting fish are my favorite,” said Mr. Morgan, “They are not a dog or feline, but they are ever enduring, quite resilient to change—the aquatic equivalent of a cockroach.”

“Don’t they fight? I mean if they’re put together?”

“Yes. This one lasted longer than the others. Battle of the fittest.” In the aquarium, he now saw two fish, their bloated bodies inflated twice their normal size. They bobbed up and down, their eyes glazed over, dead.

“You do this for sheer entertainment?”

“Not for sport, my good doctor. Science.”

It was then that he remembered the three indications of a sociopath in the discipline of Psychology: Bed-wetting, arson, and animal cruelty. So far the man had already gotten one.

“Before we begin, I can assure you Mr. Mayson that what I do is completely legal. Pristine and free of swindling. A monetary interchange, for a service. There is nothing shady about that. No loopholes, no thrifty advances, just an equal exchange,” Mr. Morgan smiled.

Richard Mayson did not like the sound of the man, his inflection had a conniving aura to it; he had the air of a mortician or a crafty door to door solicitor.

“And the expense is?”

“A penny will do.” The ‘service’ for a little loose change that might have easily tumbled out of his pocket unbeknownst to him was all he needed? Surely there was a twist.

“Why so cheap?”

Mr. Morgan took a sip of the liquor from his glass, sampled the moonshine and grinned politely. “I won’t be a financial burden to you Mr. Mayson. After all this is an interview.  A penny saved is a penny earned. It truly is a small price to pay. Yet on my behalf why not capitalize?”

Richard felt his tailored pockets; the only thing that came up was nothing more than the cold copper coin, the last remnant of the suit he had bought. Reluctantly he paid the man the remaining sum.

“One thing I must tell you is that there is a contract, just as with any job. Here,” said the employer, handing him a thick wad of paper,s the size of a manuscript, “a pen to sign.” He ruffled through the rest of _.

He took it reluctantly.

He could have read the minuscule writing; he could have mentally underlined and scanned all areas, all unclear ambiguous statements—the impurities.

But he didn’t.

He signed his name in careful orthography in the blank. “What’s the—”

“Date? The ides of March. The fifteenth to be exact,” the man smiled taking the pen and stuffing it in his suit coat pocket, “the day corpses lie in the streets.”

“Can you tell me anymore of the position?” said Richard tentatively.

“Unfortunately that cannot be done. Not yet anyway. All I have been instructed to tell you is that you are about to enter a machine.  The subject of which can be described as a test.  Of what sort? I cannot say.” He poured himself some more moonshine from the flask, deliberately letting several drops fall into the miniature aquarium. Immediately, the fish with tattered fins breathed the alcohol through its gills. The result was a feral creature, attacking its own reflection.

“Where exactly is this test?” Richard said, choosing to ignore the fish.

“This way.”

Richard carried his scotch with him. The man led him down the ivory stairwell, into a far more grandiose room than he had seen, thus far. It possessed the sterility of a hospital ER, yet spanned farther back than a quarter section of a football field. Oddments, Petri dishes, chemical tubes, DNA jelly, Bunsen burners, neon containers of solute. But what took his attention away was not the sheer quantity of equipment but a generator unit, stashed in the center as the main cornerstone of the laboratory. He still heard the clocks, the sounds followed him wherever they went.

“I believe this has been the reason for your intrigue, Mr. Morgan and inversely my life’s work in the making. It can be perfected but the premise and overall objective works.” They walked closer; the machine looked very much like a titanium box with a series of hoses and cogs about its central interface. A spring-like contraption, antennae-like sat atop it.

“Tesla coil?”

“Yes. It’s far more efficient. Eighty-five percent electrical transfer. I prefer to use that as my energy source.”

“Ah,”said Richard sounding amused, “ May I now ask what it is?”

“It’s a machine, meant to manifest and trigger your sentient capabilities more or less. An enhancement allowing you to delve into the greater recesses and conduits of logic not normally visited, since only 10 percent of the brain’s thinking processes are accessible under normal conditions.” He smiled through his beard in a gregarious manner, “Simply put, a dream machine.”

“A machine for catching dreams? You mean to tell me that you can take an intangible thought and make it concrete enough for another to witness?”

“Not necessarily. For discerning them. There is no eyewitness but the dreamer. However given a sedative, such as what was put in your share of moonshine, one can relay the visuals far easier after the point of visual stimulation.”

“Visual stimulation?” Dr. Mayson smirked. He was beginning to laugh impulsively, whether it was the liquor or the outlandish information that was being force fed to him like an infant he did not know, “And how exactly is that accomplished?”

“Electrodes. Implanted in the brain’s pleasure and visual receptors. Implants– should I say– appear to be your area of expertise.”

“Surgery. Yes,” Richard said astutely, “But I’m in no way about to undergo any procedure that would strip any person of their freewill. Altering another’s faculties for a laboratory significance is beyond me.”

“You have already accepted the job offer Mr. Mayson, as well as volunteered to be our first guinea pig.” Mr. Morgan unfurled the contract from his pocket. In minuscule writing, barely enough for him to see, Dr. Mayson read the words… and his signature.

“You will profit much. Half the shares.”

“Potential shares,” began Richard. He was skeptical but wished to inquire more. “And how will this make a profit?”

“Economists my dear sir, economists. The world’s businesses and corporations. Imagine if every fluctuation in the stock market could be foreseen, every variable accounted for—predestined all with a single prophetic dream. Clairvoyance achieved.”

“But you said it was a dream machine,”said Richard, “How does prophecy relate to dreams?”

“God bestowed man with dreams, Mr, Mayson. It is thus up to man to to decipher the cryptography of conceptualization. It has often been said that there exist three dimensions. Some have alluded to a fourth such as time, but I propose a fifth which is metaphysical.”

“Which is?”

The man smiled and swelled his chest, clearing his throat with a slight smile.

“Thought. Or more so consciousness.” 

“But,” began Richard, “Thought isn’t concrete. How could that which is not physically existential be a–”

“Dimension? That is where you are gravely wrong,” said Mr. Morgan who had taken the liberty of reclining on a laboratory bench, “Regard it as a deviant of Time which is immaterial: that which stays afixed, but in theory may well be manipulated to one’s bidding, can be warped. Such is the same principle with thought. Unseen, it exists on its own separate plane. In part its origin is physical: existing in a precognitive form, manifest in every neuron impulse, every synapse overload, every rudimentary cell process and in turn electron revolution. The question, and sense of better judgment, is what is the catalyst for thought? Where does it originate?”

Richard stood smugly, arms crossed. He could not question whether the man was at his wit’s end or an intellectual heavyweight. In his brain the two portions of rationale and blind faith warred, amplifying the nausea of the drug that had been administered to him through the alcoholic beverage. How near or far from the truth the idea actually was, was frivolous. He needed an ibuprofen.

“I don’t know.” Simple and precise. He found the man’s subtle aggression irksome. “I suppose I’ll find out won’t I?”

“Perhaps. But only with your expertise. We are both men of faculty, do-gooders are we not? Let us reach a consensus. I will grant you sixty–no–seventy percent of the shares. Surely you must acquiesce to that.”

Richard stood dumbfounded. He felt numb. The salary would exceed his surgeon compensation, allow him to pay off any remaining medical and residency loans.

But he was still taking a gambit.

“There may be certain physical repercussions,” said Morgan. He had finished his flask, and sipped distastefully at the remaining melting ice, “Of which I won’t sugar coat.”

“As is with anything there is always a catch. If so I want to hear them before–”

“You set foot in the machine? That can be arranged. Psychosis is one. Also an effect similar to a hallucinogen as the residual drug is still in the system. Nausea and vomiting as symptoms. That sort of thing. I won’t bore you with the pharmaceutical implications.”

The prospect of a sanitarium seemed dismal to him. He couldn’t throw away his career for this. Nor could he toss the potential monetary gains from out his head. This was nonsense. “What’s the probability?” he said impatiently.

“Less than 1 percent.” From his suitcoat pocket was a silver flask, shining bright against the lab lights, Richard saw the distorted refraction of his face. This, Morgan poured in his glass.

“Toast,” Morgan said.

“Toast.” They clinked their glasses, the sound pealing—resonating throughout the room.

He stepped in the box, underneath the Tesla coil.

“I wish you Godspeed on the Primrose Path, Mr. Mayson. ” said Morgan. He took the penny from his suitcoat and raised it up in the light. “E pluribus unum,” he read on the inscription, “One out of many.”

The door closed, the tumblers clicked, the darkness ensued. Richard did not know for how long he had been in the machine. Minutes? Perhaps hours. He shuffled sheepishly in utter darkness; he paced uneasily—and fell. He expected to hit his head on the far wall. He expected to have been hurt and bruised, bashing his head in.

But he didn’t.

The first thing he ascertained, or rather perceived was that the box was far more spacious than he had deemed. He had fallen—yes—that was true, but he landed, not on the rusted iron floor of the machine. In fact Richard wasn’t sure he had landed at all…

By some unseen force, it occurred to him that he was suspending; he felt wind whip his hair—tumbling into some intangible, nebulous void. He felt heavier, as if gravity had increased 3 fold. His head ached.

Light.

He saw that now. A pinprick below the canvas of black beneath him. Yet it increased exponentially…perhaps he was accelerating faster than he had deduced.

The pinprick grew larger, like a nearing halo. A portal. And as quickly as he had fallen, he had stopped. Gravity had neutralized had it not? Now he… floated.

In haste he entered the aura, almost numbingly at first. But something even more had surprised him. He could feel his right hand. He looked down. The prosthetic was gone. In place of it, was a hand—very much like his left—with feeling. He pinched it and winced.

The universe had employed a nasty trump. This was unwarranted, unjustified nothing short of miraculous. It’s just a dream. Only a dream. But a wonderful dream it was.

He floated further. From his vantage point, he saw clouds. Towering nimbus, with mountainous facades. He saw the flash of lightning and felt the resonance of thunder deep within his chest. He felt rain dappling his cheeks—flecks of snow too. Yet the light still bathed him. He felt like basking in it, reclining into an everlasting slumber.