Scene 05 — World
They're taking the children at noon
"They're taking the children at noon." It was Madame Orf's first conversation of the day. She looked up. Blinked. Stared through the man who delivered these strange words. They were taking the children at noon? Her mind bent in simple recompense. This was fucked up. I am a schoolteacher, she thought, I'm in charge of the daycare, nobody takes my children from me and they don't get let out until 3.
She started. "What do you mean they're taking the children?" What the hell was he talking about. The postal service agent had a dumb look about him. A plain face that sooner said hit men than here is an intellectual piece of mind. The conversation wasn't going anywhere.
"They're taking the children at noon."
"Idiot, tell me something, what the hell are you saying. Who? Why? What?"
"It's a new decree from Master Builder 17. Says it came from all the way up. Up from the top, up from 22 and whatever's above the Master Builder himself."
Nothing was above the Master Builders. Nothing save our God, she thought. He smirked. "Sorry ma'am, I have news to deliver." He turned, spun on his heel and walked a short distance away to stop some equally oblivious passerby, a mom it looked like, with this asinine proclamation.
It was confounding. It was unfounded. Where's the explanation. When will they come back, she thought, more whispered to herself. What are they being taken in for?
It was Harvees. Ma'sha'la'sha'la'ka. The spinning festival for the harvest of a new year. Children were an essential part of it. Was it for their own safety? she wondered dumbly to herself, nodding numbly in process of this news. Nobody even thought to resist. She knew it dimly in the backdrop of her mind, not anymore. Not since the Massacre.
What the Master Builder told us to do, we did.
It knew what was best for Svarth.
Maybe the turtle snatchers are going in for a raid, they've been rumored to do that from time to time, scourly beasts. She muttered more and more to herself. I don't know, I just don't know what to make of this, she thought.
As she continued her inner dialogue, a young bright boy by the name of Mattias looked up. "Madame Oruff!" he barked, more than half yelling across the sand lot of the playground. He rolled over on his back like some kind of donkey dog and began to run up to her. "I built 133 bricks worth of the toolish yellow today!" he gleefully exclaimed. She looked over. He was very proud. It's not every day the little inventor got to make 133 new iterations of a design for his own kindergarten child toy tools. He was a machinist in the making, one of the few professions left to a decently genuine Svarthian.
Mattias had a bright future ahead. His was a meaningful one.
What a decently inventive, creative young man Orf thought. Reclecting on how most of the other labor professions had been completely destroyed. Cleared out and filled by the machines.
She patted his head softly and told him to go lie down inside, that it was time for nap. The clock read 11:30.
Madame Orf knew the kids were in no state to be taken. They would surely protest. Panic, even
It was the day they looked forward to the most in the whole year, well second most, she thought.
First, of course, being Svarth-mas
She had no clue what to do. She felt complete defeat. The machines were crossing a line and she didn't have the courage to resist. No one did. They all just went along with it. We’ve been stripped of our bravery, like mute donkeys. No one had the gumption to fight back. The weight was crushing. And it only grew. At every step the machines pressed in on them, closing off the oxygen supply a little more. Each day a new role was being filled, and one less Svarth had a road to belong on.
A road to meaning.
The machines have given us so much, she thought back to herself. Screw that! WE’VE GIVEN THEM EVERYTHING. The voice in her head pushed back inside: you wouldn’t know what to do without them. Again, a new voice was emerging: You didn't choose this road, the machines were just one day invented. And now we have to live with them and deal with all the consequences. She thought about her children. What it would be for them to grow up in a world without the crushing weight of these machines.
Her shoulders slumped. She felt a sense of uncertainty. What is it that I'm here to do? she wondered.
Without knowing why and with no reason she could justify to herself, she did as the postman said.
She rounded the kids up and had them ready. In 30 minutes a courier had arrived, a carriage driven by robotic wheels, powered by the bells and whistles of Industry. The kids were loaded up, and carried off. Given blankets and stuffies, as they were carted to a “Special Occasion”
They were told they would be fine.