Unlit — Roleplayer Guild

Morning. The old battered coffee machine burbled steadily, thick black dripping into a hazy pot. The toaster on the corner of the worn counter ticked whisper-quiet as the coils heated inside, the spring-loaded lever biding its time. A rickety ceiling fan squeaked its slow rotation. Adam sat at his tiny kitchen table, unaware of the near comical disparity in size, reading the newspaper. Or more accurately, reading the comics. He read the comics first every morning. Why? He could not say. But something in the cartoonish depictions intrigued him. Business ads, sports, breaking news… They were all facts, easily assimilated, easily understood. But here was the true mystery -- an animated child and tiger with puzzling fantasy adventures, or there a bulbous canine riding his square red home in the skies, or the neanderthal forever perfecting a stone wheel.

Adam very precisely, very carefully turned the page.

The home around the golem was small and aged, but incredibly neat and clean. The meager furniture was all at perfect right angles. Picture frames, still with stock photos, hung in a straight line that stretched to every wall, a parade of smiling beautiful faces with no names. In the closet hung ten outfits at even intervals, all the same dress clothes, trench coats, and fedoras, and ten pair of the same oversized dress shoes beneath each individual outfit. The bed was made military tight. A multitude of old and new books were arranged by size and then alphabetically on the shelves.

Tom and Jerry re-runs played on a tube television in the living room that Adam could see from the kitchen. The golem looked over a moment, watching the cartoon feline chase an object of obsession. Chase and chase and chase, but never catch. At times, Adam wondered what the feline would do if he ever caught and ate the mouse. Would he be fulfilled at last? Would he find a new obsession? Would the feline be sad, to have consumed his only constant companion? Would he regret? Adam could not decide.

The golem glanced down to the large black and grey tabby curled round his ankle. Adam had named the feline Optimus Prime, in homage to the fictitious leader of a team of living constructs and because the feline was larger and braver than others Adam had seen. Optimus never seemed to regret the mice he caught.

“Do you?” Adam asked the feline, reaching down. Optimus bumped his head gently into a large dark palm that could rend stone, purr box revving quietly. Adam stroked the creature’s fur.

The toaster finally click-jumped. Adam stood to unplug it while Optimus lazily rose and padded for the cat-door. The golem also turned the coffee maker off. There was no toast in the toaster, and the golem did not drink coffee. It was the ticking and burbling sounds that gave him odd comfort, the aroma of scalding bean, the clockwork routine of it all. As Adam was pouring the full pot of fresh coffee into the sink, he noticed the metal sphere tapping against his kitchen window.

His head cocked fractionally. “Atticus,” the golem said aloud in a voice inhumanly deep and oddly distorted, the name somehow phrased as both question and answer.

Adam opened the window, and the metal sphere flitted to his giant palm. The shimmery page opened, and he read.

***

The golem approached the stone circle slowly, remarkably silent for a being so physically large. A dark tower in a charcoal trench and low-slanted fedora, sleek sun-shades hiding his eyes, mighty hands holstered in the deep pockets of the coat. He stopped on the fringe of the stones, only his eyes moving behind those shades to asses the others that had already arrived. Even though his thoughts were amiable toward most, he did not feel the compulsion for greeting or personal announcement when his looming presence alone should count for both.

In a motion that he had practiced many times, the golem retrieved a cigarette and lighter from those deep pockets. He half-turned a shoulder into the licking wind and put the white stick between dark lips, lighting up with a tiny click of flint and steel. He needed breath only to speak, but now he sucked in air slowly, coaxing life to the ember. Like his breakfast ritual, the routine had become a familiar comfort. Almost a true habit, like a true human would succumb to. The thought always pleased Adam, that he was capable of developing a habit.

Waiting for the others to arrive, the golem smoked.

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