Sinister Sentiments by K.C. Finn

Author:K.C. Finn [K.C. Finn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2014-10-24T07:00:00+00:00

Galileo’s Mistake

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” – Galileo Galilei

Hearts have feelings and minds have memories long after they allegedly die. At least that’s what I’ve discovered. If Silas knows it too, then he’s not letting on. He just walks beside me down the foggy pavement, cane at his side. The golden spiral around the polished oak whirrs with the click of cogs and gears, sending out subtle vibrations as it assesses the path before us. The signals return to his palm in calculated waves of volume and size. The cane tells him when to stop, when to go, when to turn and, perhaps most importantly, when to run. A black-skinned man in 1894 knows a lot about running. These murky cobbles, lit by the dim yellow glow of fetid gas lamps, they’re leading us to Oxford Street. It’s not a place to which persons of colour usually go.

That’s why Silas wants me here: just in case his midnight jaunt goes awry.

He only emerges to walk at night, taking air when London is at rest and the fumes of the factories that surround us are reduced, their dark chimneys only letting faint wisps escape, echoes of the production that occurs when the sky is bright. There is no sound of moving mechanisms now, save for Silas’s humming cane and my own four legs as they skip in step with his wide strides. Silas breathes contentedly in the summer air, humid in the centre of the city even at this late hour. All I can think is that it’s going to cause me to rust. My master brushes the reddish stains off as wear and tear, shining me and patching me up until I’m silver once more, but the rust causes me pain in the parts of me that are still the old me. I don’t think he knows what being part machine really entails.

Silas Obadiah is a man with a fancy for all things mechanical, a fact which hasn’t changed since the sudden removal of his eyeballs occurred last winter.

Once upon a time, I belonged to a grand old lady from a grand old house. She had skin pale as death but a kind, withered smile and a penchant for science books and all things dark and furry. One such furry thing was me, long ago, when my coat shone like polished obsidian and my eyes were bright and brown as cocoa. Milady supped tea in the parlour of her Kensington town house. with me at her heel as she read great works by great men. But I grew tired of the stuccoed white walls and the periwinkle china in her bony old hands. When time allowed, I escaped to other parts of her grandiose home, exploring the lavish furnishings until I found my way to a simple, wooden staircase that seemed terribly out of place.

I worked my way up, discovering that there were people in the house I had not previously known of.

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