My Steampunk Romance or Forty Days & Forty Nights_part 3
My Steampunk Romance or
Forty Days & Forty Nights
By Me
In a house on a cliff by the sea there lived a boy who didn't know how to stay out of trouble. If you'd known his father you would have understood how fitting that was. The boy had a cat, an orange marmalade named September, who was born in October, and lived on a street named November. Now the boy's father, as I mentioned before if you'd have known him you would have understood the boy's penchant for finding trouble. Doctor Malcolm Torrente Ballester was an inventor, and in the cellar of that house that the boy, Mario was never allowed to go where the dust covered remnants of his metallic machines, his porcelain dolls that ran on clockwork, the pieces of his giant mechanized robot, on the walls tacked were the more ambitious and room needy plans for a world boring machine, a submersible with tentacles capable of withstanding the deepest reaches known to man and further. Doctor Malcolm Torrente Ballester also worked in the town below the hill, the little industrial port town of Oil the valves. It was raining that day, the day they told Mario that his father's dirigible had disappeared flying over the Sargasso sea, likely it was the work of air pirates.
That night while Mario slept, he dreamt of airships and storms, talking squids, rainbows, and in his dream a field of flowers, a girl in a sunbonnet, and the airship rising over the horizon his father valiantly sword fighting a group of pirates. It all disappeared like watercolors running and he saw a light and realized someone walking in to his room, the whisper of a felt kiss on his cheek and his mother saying goodbye and her hands persinandolo before she walked out of the room. In the morning he woke up to find Tio Homero waiting in the living room to take him home to stay with him until his mother returned. Maria Santos Torrente Ballester had gone in search of her husband. The rifle above the mantelpiece was testament to that. So Mario barely nine went to live with his uncle.
:3
Somewhere out in the wide world Mario’s father was lost fighting air pirates and following after him was his valiant mother, which left Mario with the sole responsibility of going to school and getting a good education, so that he could help his Tio Homero in the smithy, or at least that’s what Tia Gertrudis thought.
The boy had other ideas in his mind. Following after his mother, who was chasing after his father would be stupid, obviously, Mario thought. If Mother caught father or if father came home then Mario at least would be there to greet them and let them know what was happening, but if he left to go after them and they came back together, then they’d have to drop everything to go look for him. And where was the sense in that, no? No. So, Mario thought the best thing to do would be to go on an adventure of his own. Besides he knew Mama was alright, she dropped him postcards from whatever new port she was in. Funny looking things with exotic stamps and pictures on the front, always with short messages explaining to him how sorry she was to have abandoned him and not to bother writing back as she wouldn’t be there when the letter got to him, and what new trouble she had encountered or if she had found any trace of his father. Usually there was some clue or someone how had seen him in passing just enough information to keep her going around the globe. So Mario settled into his ordinary life going to school and helping his Tio at the smithy.
September curled around the boy’s leg as he walked into the large warehouse that served as his uncle’s smithy, Mario bent down to pet the creature and picked up his long rubber apron donned it and his goggles and gloves and went over to where his Tio was overseeing something.
A group of men were standing around some holding the metal piece, others just watching a little behind respectfully as Tio Homero’s long strong arm came crashing down large hammer in hand.
It would be finished by today, his uncle was probably even now putting on the finishing touches onto the machine. Mario walked over and pulling his goggles down looked over one of the workers shoulders even as the last hammer blow came down onto the red hot bit of steel that would be the suit of armor.
“I still think it just looks like a tin can,” Don Miguel said, an old man and a dear friend of Mario’s uncle and father. “Only sardines belong in tins.”
The men laughed at that.
“And what of submersibles Don Miguel?” Octavio asked, ever the young smart ass. Tio Homero slapped him on the shoulder to say keep your mouth shut.
“They wanted a metal mannequin and that’s what they’re going to get. I don’t question what the client wants Don Miguel. If they’d asked for a tank I would have made them one.”
“One of those walking contraptions, ni lo mande dios! They scared my horses last week running one of those things through the countryside.”
“Don Miguel thought it was an invasion force from Mars,” Octavio started again.
“I don’t know about Mars, but those walking machines have no business running around the country scaring a man’s livestock,” he defended. “Horses were good enough in my day I don’t know that they aren’t still.”
Another round of laughter as the men listened. “Well now you’ve seen what he looks like,” the smith told his boys, “get back to work, this shop has a lot of orders still waiting.”
The men dispersed like flies swatted away each to a different part of the warehouse. Through the smoky glass ceiling the sunlight shone down. Only Don Miguel, Mario, September and the smith were left standing over the metal corpse.
It was the strangest order that Tio Homero had ever received, and from a very wealthy and reclusive man. Still, there it was, a moveable metal armor built to specs. Exactly who it was meant to fit was a secret.
“How was school today?” Tio Homero asked.
Mario just shrugged more interested in the metal man.
312
The gun shook a little, the unsteady hand unsure of what to do. Shoot the bastard and there would be hell to pay. Still to stay and be his slave would be worse. And he would never let up on her, he would never leave her alone.
"Don't be foolish girl, just put down the gun and ... let's talk about this pleasantly and quietly."
A gunshot fired at his feet stopped him advancing.
"I'm nervous about firing that doesn't mean I don't know how," the young girl replied. At sixteen her mother had sought to marry her off and nothing had made her happier than the knowledge that Baron Balleyforge had been so interested in her beautiful young daughter. Why even Emma had not been averse to the idea. He had spoken sweetly, and courted her mother and her so well. They had married in the fall and on her wedding night she had found out just what a bastard he was. She had also realized with finality what she had always known. She couldn't love men. Not in that way. Not because of what he had done, but because the sentiment had never been there, the feeling had not been like a blossoming flower. No, that had come later when she had met Vanity, the maid. But even now, where was Vanity? Maria had asked her to run away with her but ... no. It was not easy finding a job as a maid and she needed references and what would her mother say.
"Girl!"
"I'm not a little child, Meriton. You're a fool. Oh, you're such a sad fool." Her tears came unbidden, but they were there. The pain of so many months with him. Her mother's indifference, her father's death, her little brother's joining the metal army. So many pains and so many one after another. The bright shiny house, and all its mechanical baubles, all the piston maids and balls and money and paintings and fine food had been nothing. Her heart still ached.
"I'm going. You're going to let me go. If you don't ... if you try to stop me ... so help me God I'll shoot you with this gun. My father's inheritance."
"I won't divorce you. I won't let you go!"
"I could be a widow any time. Remember that. Now get the hell out of my way or so help me I will fire the next five shots into your heartless chest." She dropped the carpet bag at her side her hand growing more steady as her conviction.
"You can leave me but you won't make it out there. You can't be happy. You'll never be happy out there." His pleas like those of a child did nothing for her. "You ungrateful wretch. Go and don't you dare come back. You'll want me back, you'll want my money and I"ll give you nothing."
"I don't need you and I don't want you. And you can sleep with your money for all I care a whit. I'm gong to be free and I'm going to be happy."
"And just where the hell do you plan to accomplish that? You need a man. Just try doing anything here."
"The new world ..." she smiled. She picked up her carpetbag and walked around him. Maria had wasted enough time on him already, and while she was sure he would not stop coming after her, she was sure she could handle him. She could handle anything life threw at her ... heaven's knew she'd handled enough already and it hadn't killed her.
Maria walked towards the fancy tall oak doors of the mansion but there standing was Herbert the giant steam butler that Meriton had bought to impress on the world just how wealthy he was.
"Madame, farewell," the automaton said as he opened the door.
"Thank you Herbert," she said smiling through her tears. She didn't know if she just imagined it but it seemed that the tin man was smiling as she walked out the door. No car would be waiting outside for her ...
aw f*ck
That's all for tonight ... yay me!
Forty Days & Forty Nights
By Me
In a house on a cliff by the sea there lived a boy who didn't know how to stay out of trouble. If you'd known his father you would have understood how fitting that was. The boy had a cat, an orange marmalade named September, who was born in October, and lived on a street named November. Now the boy's father, as I mentioned before if you'd have known him you would have understood the boy's penchant for finding trouble. Doctor Malcolm Torrente Ballester was an inventor, and in the cellar of that house that the boy, Mario was never allowed to go where the dust covered remnants of his metallic machines, his porcelain dolls that ran on clockwork, the pieces of his giant mechanized robot, on the walls tacked were the more ambitious and room needy plans for a world boring machine, a submersible with tentacles capable of withstanding the deepest reaches known to man and further. Doctor Malcolm Torrente Ballester also worked in the town below the hill, the little industrial port town of Oil the valves. It was raining that day, the day they told Mario that his father's dirigible had disappeared flying over the Sargasso sea, likely it was the work of air pirates.
That night while Mario slept, he dreamt of airships and storms, talking squids, rainbows, and in his dream a field of flowers, a girl in a sunbonnet, and the airship rising over the horizon his father valiantly sword fighting a group of pirates. It all disappeared like watercolors running and he saw a light and realized someone walking in to his room, the whisper of a felt kiss on his cheek and his mother saying goodbye and her hands persinandolo before she walked out of the room. In the morning he woke up to find Tio Homero waiting in the living room to take him home to stay with him until his mother returned. Maria Santos Torrente Ballester had gone in search of her husband. The rifle above the mantelpiece was testament to that. So Mario barely nine went to live with his uncle.
:3
Somewhere out in the wide world Mario’s father was lost fighting air pirates and following after him was his valiant mother, which left Mario with the sole responsibility of going to school and getting a good education, so that he could help his Tio Homero in the smithy, or at least that’s what Tia Gertrudis thought.
The boy had other ideas in his mind. Following after his mother, who was chasing after his father would be stupid, obviously, Mario thought. If Mother caught father or if father came home then Mario at least would be there to greet them and let them know what was happening, but if he left to go after them and they came back together, then they’d have to drop everything to go look for him. And where was the sense in that, no? No. So, Mario thought the best thing to do would be to go on an adventure of his own. Besides he knew Mama was alright, she dropped him postcards from whatever new port she was in. Funny looking things with exotic stamps and pictures on the front, always with short messages explaining to him how sorry she was to have abandoned him and not to bother writing back as she wouldn’t be there when the letter got to him, and what new trouble she had encountered or if she had found any trace of his father. Usually there was some clue or someone how had seen him in passing just enough information to keep her going around the globe. So Mario settled into his ordinary life going to school and helping his Tio at the smithy.
September curled around the boy’s leg as he walked into the large warehouse that served as his uncle’s smithy, Mario bent down to pet the creature and picked up his long rubber apron donned it and his goggles and gloves and went over to where his Tio was overseeing something.
A group of men were standing around some holding the metal piece, others just watching a little behind respectfully as Tio Homero’s long strong arm came crashing down large hammer in hand.
It would be finished by today, his uncle was probably even now putting on the finishing touches onto the machine. Mario walked over and pulling his goggles down looked over one of the workers shoulders even as the last hammer blow came down onto the red hot bit of steel that would be the suit of armor.
“I still think it just looks like a tin can,” Don Miguel said, an old man and a dear friend of Mario’s uncle and father. “Only sardines belong in tins.”
The men laughed at that.
“And what of submersibles Don Miguel?” Octavio asked, ever the young smart ass. Tio Homero slapped him on the shoulder to say keep your mouth shut.
“They wanted a metal mannequin and that’s what they’re going to get. I don’t question what the client wants Don Miguel. If they’d asked for a tank I would have made them one.”
“One of those walking contraptions, ni lo mande dios! They scared my horses last week running one of those things through the countryside.”
“Don Miguel thought it was an invasion force from Mars,” Octavio started again.
“I don’t know about Mars, but those walking machines have no business running around the country scaring a man’s livestock,” he defended. “Horses were good enough in my day I don’t know that they aren’t still.”
Another round of laughter as the men listened. “Well now you’ve seen what he looks like,” the smith told his boys, “get back to work, this shop has a lot of orders still waiting.”
The men dispersed like flies swatted away each to a different part of the warehouse. Through the smoky glass ceiling the sunlight shone down. Only Don Miguel, Mario, September and the smith were left standing over the metal corpse.
It was the strangest order that Tio Homero had ever received, and from a very wealthy and reclusive man. Still, there it was, a moveable metal armor built to specs. Exactly who it was meant to fit was a secret.
“How was school today?” Tio Homero asked.
Mario just shrugged more interested in the metal man.
312
The gun shook a little, the unsteady hand unsure of what to do. Shoot the bastard and there would be hell to pay. Still to stay and be his slave would be worse. And he would never let up on her, he would never leave her alone.
"Don't be foolish girl, just put down the gun and ... let's talk about this pleasantly and quietly."
A gunshot fired at his feet stopped him advancing.
"I'm nervous about firing that doesn't mean I don't know how," the young girl replied. At sixteen her mother had sought to marry her off and nothing had made her happier than the knowledge that Baron Balleyforge had been so interested in her beautiful young daughter. Why even Emma had not been averse to the idea. He had spoken sweetly, and courted her mother and her so well. They had married in the fall and on her wedding night she had found out just what a bastard he was. She had also realized with finality what she had always known. She couldn't love men. Not in that way. Not because of what he had done, but because the sentiment had never been there, the feeling had not been like a blossoming flower. No, that had come later when she had met Vanity, the maid. But even now, where was Vanity? Maria had asked her to run away with her but ... no. It was not easy finding a job as a maid and she needed references and what would her mother say.
"Girl!"
"I'm not a little child, Meriton. You're a fool. Oh, you're such a sad fool." Her tears came unbidden, but they were there. The pain of so many months with him. Her mother's indifference, her father's death, her little brother's joining the metal army. So many pains and so many one after another. The bright shiny house, and all its mechanical baubles, all the piston maids and balls and money and paintings and fine food had been nothing. Her heart still ached.
"I'm going. You're going to let me go. If you don't ... if you try to stop me ... so help me God I'll shoot you with this gun. My father's inheritance."
"I won't divorce you. I won't let you go!"
"I could be a widow any time. Remember that. Now get the hell out of my way or so help me I will fire the next five shots into your heartless chest." She dropped the carpet bag at her side her hand growing more steady as her conviction.
"You can leave me but you won't make it out there. You can't be happy. You'll never be happy out there." His pleas like those of a child did nothing for her. "You ungrateful wretch. Go and don't you dare come back. You'll want me back, you'll want my money and I"ll give you nothing."
"I don't need you and I don't want you. And you can sleep with your money for all I care a whit. I'm gong to be free and I'm going to be happy."
"And just where the hell do you plan to accomplish that? You need a man. Just try doing anything here."
"The new world ..." she smiled. She picked up her carpetbag and walked around him. Maria had wasted enough time on him already, and while she was sure he would not stop coming after her, she was sure she could handle him. She could handle anything life threw at her ... heaven's knew she'd handled enough already and it hadn't killed her.
Maria walked towards the fancy tall oak doors of the mansion but there standing was Herbert the giant steam butler that Meriton had bought to impress on the world just how wealthy he was.
"Madame, farewell," the automaton said as he opened the door.
"Thank you Herbert," she said smiling through her tears. She didn't know if she just imagined it but it seemed that the tin man was smiling as she walked out the door. No car would be waiting outside for her ...
aw f*ck
That's all for tonight ... yay me!