Gizmo

Nicholas’ leg swung back and forth through the air as he sat perched upon the metal beam of a high-rise’s skeleton. He gazed mindlessly through his binoculars at the barren landscape before him. A gentle breeze broke up the heat that enveloped his sun-kissed skin. Usually, by this time of day, the torridity of the Wasteland would make the air thick enough to choke on. Coupled with the scarcity of water, it was unusual to find its inhabitants doing much more than lazing about. Today was a gift.

Nicholas spent this time searching for anything beyond the flat desert. The terrain was too harsh for him to go searching on foot without anything to go off of but a dream. He spotted his sister, Annaliese, below, swaying with the wind. She must have wound up the old music box that Giz had put back together for her. Nicholas adjusted his focus to the dirt clouds springing up in the distance. Someone was running, a rare sight indeed. It had to be Giz. He was the only one passionate enough about anything around here to put pep in his step like that. Nicholas climbed down the tower.

“Whatch’ya got there, Gizmo? Another gizmo?” he addressed the boy in front of him, who was hunched over, panting deep breaths.

“This!” the boy held his arm straight up above his head, clutching a small, metal device.

Nicholas chuckled,

“This is the piece you’ve been digging about for your secret project, I assume?”

Giz nodded excitedly, unable to speak full sentences yet.

Timothy “Gizmo” Fiel, had spent this day as he’d done on many other days, digging in the dirt looking for artifacts of the old world that he could revitalize.

“What’s it for?” Nicholas inquired.

Gizmo smirked,

“You’ll see soon enough, Nicky.” He spun around and off he went into his hole. Nicholas watched the blankets at the entrance flap behind him as his friend disappeared just as suddenly as he appeared.

Annaliese walked up beside her brother,

“What was that about?”

Nicholas scratched his head,

“Eh, you know Giz. He finally found that part he’s been looking for.”

Annaliese’s eyes lit up,

“Oh! I can’t wait to see what he’ll come up with this time. He’s kept this such a secret, it must be big.”

Nicholas shrugged. He respected the way Giz’s mind worked, but he never got nearly as excited about his contraptions as his sister did. The water purifier was a stroke of brilliance, it allowed them to recycle their urine between long stints of rain. However, Nicholas was waiting for him to whip up something with speed and wheels.

The next two days were more along the lines of what the group had come accustomed to. The heat had returned, and everyone retreated into their shady shelters. They provided little reprieve from the temperature, but without them the sun would bake their skin blistered. People mostly tried to find a comfortable position to catch their breath in, while they counted the seconds until their allotted water breaks. Giz, aided by purpose, was the only one who was expending energy on a task. Though moving more sluggishly than before, he was making progress.

The following weeks offered the group the same miserable existence as the days before. Gizmo’s work had slowed to crawl, when thirty-seven days later, it finally rained. The group was jubilant. If they weren’t so dehydrated, there would have been tears of joy streaming from many faces.

Giz halted working on his machine to join his friends outside. People lined up in front of the raggedy aqueduct they’d constructed from old pipes found in the ground. At first, they opened their mouths directly underneath the spout, gulping down the much needed hydration. When everyone had had a taste, they started gathering buckets, bowls, hubcaps, anything convex and able to retain water that they’d come across over their years in the Wasteland. Nobody sought shelter on this day, they relished the rain.

The rain disappeared around nightfall and the group enjoyed a comfortable night’s sleep. By morning, the sun was already doing its best to wipe away the remnants of the day before. The group’s spirits had been lifted and they spent the day doing maintenance on the compound. Giz, Grandmother Toiya and the two little ones were the only people excluded from the labor. Gizmo, of course, was working on his latest obsession and Grandmother Toiya, the oldest of the group was regaling the sprouts with tales of the old world. They sat cross-legged and wide eyed, soaking up her stories of automobiles, trees and the various animals that had inhabited the Wasteland before it was a desert. Grandmother Toiya was the only one of them left who remembered how it was before. She was the one who imparted engineering knowledge on Gizmo. Before the war, she was employed for an agency called “NASA”.

Whooping and laughter erupted from inside Giz’s hole. Everyone’s heads turned towards the sound as Gizmo came running out.

“I’ve done it! It turns on and everything!”

“What have you done, Timothy?” Grandmother Toiya asked.

“I’ve harnessed the power of electricity and replicated the moving picture box you’ve told us about!”

Nicholas’ father, Marcus, chimed in from across the camp,

“That sure is nice, Gizmo, but isn’t there more useful things that electricity could be going towards?”

Grandmother Toiya nodded in agreement,

“He’s right, dear. It is quite an achievement, but a television won’t be of much use without any sort of signal to give instructions to the screen.”

Gizmo smiled wide,

“Marcus, we get along alright, but how do we spend most of our time?”

“Hot, sticky, struggling for air. Which is why a fan would be nice,” the man replied.

Giz paused,

“Noted, sir. That will be the very next thing. However, I thought we could use a bit of entertainment to get us through those horrible days.”

No one disagreed with him.

“I think we’re in agreement, that your invention is useful. But, you still haven’t explained where the images will come from,” Grandmother Toiya said.

Gizmo’s smiled returned,

“There’s no towers to send signals to screen, that’s true. But what do each of us have that send electrical signals all day long?”

Grandmother Toiya gasped, understanding what the boy was trying to say.

“You’ve tested it? It actually works?”

Grandmother Toiya’s eyes sparkled with admiration and excitement, making the woman of her youth appear behind her weathered face.

“Uh hello, can you guys clue the rest of us in please?” Annaliese asked for the group.

“He’s talking about our brain signals,” Grandmother Toiya answered.

“That’s right! Our memories, what we imagine, it appears right on the screen.”

Jaws dropped around the compound.

Gizmo continued,

“Imagine! We can see the old world through Grandmother Toiya’s eyes, we can relive our best moments, we can tell new stories and imagine new worlds! The possibilities are endless.”

“Timothy, this is a real Eureka.”

Gizmo’s face reddened, and he smiled through his bashfulness. His parents had both passed away when he was a young boy. With no children of her own, Grandmother Toiya was the one who took him in. Giz reveled in her praise.

Marcus fingered the old heart shaped locket he adorned around his neck. His own gears were turning. While he silently acknowledged how wonderful this invention would be for the whole group, there was only one thing…or person, that he wanted to see again.

Everyone gathered in a semi-circle around Grandmother Toiya as Giz went to retrieve his machine. He returned lugging an old, patched up box television.

“This is a marvel, dear,” Grandmother Toiya breathed quietly as he placed a headpiece over her thinning hair.

“Just wait,” he replied.

Giz pressed a button on the box, there was a whirring sound, and grey static appeared on the monitor. The group waited with bated breath; all eyes glued to the screen.

“I see something!” the littlest boy of the group shouted, pointing at the screen.

Sure enough a shadowy figure was forming in the center of the static. The figure took a few minutes to define itself. First, a graceful flapping motion, then feathers, a beak, eyes and a deep blue surrounding the animal.

“It’s a bird,” Grandmother Toiya informed them. The old woman looked as though she might weep. The rest of the group stared in awe. “Oh, thank you, Timothy.”

Gizmo beamed. For the rest of the night, the compound watched Grandmother Toiya’s stories brought to life.

The next day, they scavenged and built a shelter around the new machine, large enough for the whole group to fit inside. Gizmo instructed them how to use the television and then left people to bicker over who got to use it next while he went to search for parts to build the fan he’d promised.

Marcus sat silent at the back of the crowd, lost in thought, toying with his locket, waiting for a peaceful moment. He wouldn’t find that moment until the excitement died down and everyone had settled in for the night. While the rest of the compound slept, Marcus crept into the tent and hooked himself up to the machine. He waited eagerly, for the only face he longed to see. It took a few minutes, and the picture quality wasn’t great, but there she was. That was her nose, her smile, her brilliant green eyes, it was Sylvia. He immediately recalled her laughter and was brought a sense of peace that he hadn’t felt in three long years. Looking into her eyes, which were alive on the screen, Marcus could almost feel her touch on his skin. His arm hairs prickled, and he imagined he could smell her scent as he remembered her embrace. The man sighed deeply. He realized that the heat wasn’t the only thing that had stolen his breath. It was sorrow that kept it trapped in his chest. But here, alone in the tent with the memories of his lost love, he breathed easily again.

Marcus repeated his nightly viewings every night for the next few months. It was he that found a new obsession. He was noticeably weary and withdrawn during the days, the only person who was wasn’t captivated by others’ on-screen tales. While everyone else was brought together by Gizmo’s invention, he became further detached from his peers and reality. While everyone else rejoiced when Giz delivered the fan that he’d promised, Marcus didn’t comment or even seem to notice. There was only one thing he ever thought about: Sylvia.

Annaliese expressed her worry over their father to her brother. He told her that he felt the same. He promised his sister that he’d find out what was keeping their father’s attention. Nicholas pretended to sleep that night and waited for his father to leave the tent. When the man did, he followed him out. He found him, fully absorbed in the memories of his mother. Nicholas immediately understood and his heart went out to his father. He missed her, too. But still he tried to talk to him. The young man walked up to Marcus and placed a hand on his shoulder,

“Dad?”

Marcus snapped out of his trance,

“Sylvie? Oh…Nicholas.”

A sliver a shame was cast upon his face, he seemed aware that what he was doing had become an unhealthy habit.

“How long, Pop?”

Marcus’ gaze was cast down,

“Since the first night.”

The two men stood in awkward silence the first feeling his shame, the second not knowing how to help.

“There’s more to life than what we’ve lost.”

Marcus’ shame was replaced with defensive anger, he snapped on his son,

“Look around you! What around here is worth anything?”

Hurt, Nicholas snapped back,

“Us! We’re still here! And aren’t we worth anything you?”

There was a glimmer of guilt in Marcus’ eyes, but then it was gone. He turned his back on his son and returned to the screen.