Death of a Machine (Part One) (382 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.58 on 12 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Grownasskid (View user info) at 2007-03-19 15:46:58 EDT
The setting is a place that politicians would call "diversely populated" and "industrial minded". If the politician in question is a particularly pious or savvy individual, he might go as far as to refer to its residents the "noble working class" and claim they make up the "heart of the city".
That's one spin on it, I guess, and it's not entirely untrue; we are the heart of the city. But we are the heart of a cancer-stricken, ancient, and decrepit steel golem who's long forgot his purpose and is too stubborn or dumb to know he's dead.
An outsider looking in might look at this place and see whichever ethnic slurs come to their mind, but I tend to disagree. We are all one color here; we are one nationality and one background. We are all decedents from the state of Depression that was thought to have sunk so many years ago like a modern day Atlantis. We are all the same sin-bleached, faded color of dust; a hue-less shade somewhere between brown and gray. Our ageless, wrinkled faces tell silent stories of 16 hours days and paychecks that don't reflect how hard we've worked. We are all the great underwhelming; no songs will ever immortalize our lives, no poets will tell our stories, and no outsides can ever really understand. We all live together under the same oppressive cloud of labor; we all wear the same albatross of weary hopelessness.
Someone much more eloquent than me once said that hope is mankind's greatest weapon. Around here, the greatest weapons are automatic and untraceable, with serial numbers scratched out and components scrubbed and whipped. Hope is an idea that has not lived in our hearts or minds since before our grandparents were born.
Hope is beaten out of us at age 6 outside of first grade while our classmates and teachers watch from a second story window.
Hope is stolen out of our apartments in the middle of the night because the landlord forgot to fix the locks.
Hope leaks out of our wounds as we dip in and out of consciousness in a hospital waiting room.
Hope moved out of the city years ago; it lives in the suburbs now in a fenced in community with green grass and above ground pools. Hope has barbeques on Sunday afternoons and takes its kids to baseball games and soccer practices.
No, what we have is something much more powerful than hope.
See, Hope, this elusive arc that holds everything supposedly good about our foul brood, can't hold a candle to what we have. We have a blind monster that acts without conscience or judgment. We have a shark that cannot stop moving and it only knows one thing, consumption. We have rage.
Blind, unfocused, and targetless Rage.
Rage, as it turns out, is a much more powerful weapon than hope. Hope will keep a man locked in his house on his knees, keep him working a job to support his partner, keep him chained to the giant, even as its falling course threatens to crush him. Ahh, but rage? Rage will take that same man and make him a warrior who knows only bloodlust. Rage will turn that same man into a guardian angel who will do anything to protect his family. Rage will cause a man to cut of his own leg to free himself from the chains.
Rage, not hope, is mankind's greatest weapon. It is a tool beyond control, a inscrutable force to those not living with it.
It is that force, that true, pure, natural, beautiful force that turned one man into the clot that would eventually kill and toppel this rusted, iron titan of a city.
User Reviews
Submitted by messmind (user info) at 2007-03-19 20:13:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Realpolitik (user info) at 2007-03-19 19:10:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
So you live in Detroit?
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2007-03-19 18:44:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
Hope is beaten out of us at age 6 outside of first grade while our classmates and teachers watch from a second story window.
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This deserves a -2 for this line alone, but I see that at least you put some effort into this, so here you go.
Submitted by DirtyHarry (user info) at 2007-03-19 17:37:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Awesome. Above-ground pools suck.
Submitted by marginwalker (user info) at 2007-03-19 17:33:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
One of Uber's redeeming moments...
Submitted by _God (user info) at 2007-03-19 16:45:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent. I look forward to reading part 2.
Submitted by littledan (user info) at 2007-03-19 16:29:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No comment needed.
Submitted by sideshow (user info) at 2007-03-19 16:27:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
sounds good so far....a few spelling/grammatical errors, but whatever.
Submitted by St_Jimmy (user info) at 2007-03-19 16:05:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I would read part 2.
Submitted by The_Drake (user info) at 2007-03-19 15:56:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Fuck it, why not.
Spite is pretty cool too.
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-03-19 15:53:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by ih8u2man (user info) at 2007-03-19 15:51:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice.