The Volitant Conveyance
The rising spring sun flickered cheerfully through the trees at the edge of the park making for a stark contrast for the grim scene unfolding in the grass below. Police and medical personal darted to and fro; blue lights flashing. A body had been found, smashed. The rumor spreading among the handful of gawkers behind the yellow tape was that it had plunged from the sky as if the poor devil had fallen from an airplane.
The man turned away with a shudder and resumed his morning walk. He and his dog came this way every day. They followed the familiar path away from the field with the body into a copse of trees. It was too small to be called a forest, but it was lovely, stretched out along a small canal. Suddenly the dog veered off the path and began sniffing at something laying at the foot of the tree. There was a round object there, a cylinder the size of an oatmeal box. He picked it up; it was heavy for its size. It appeared to be made of a black lacquer with filigree inlays and with ornate Victorian brass work all around. The end of the box was obscured by mud from where it lay. The man regarded it for a moment. He felt he should simply leave it there. The object was too fine to have been forgotten; surely its owner would return for it. Yet he found he couldn’t. His curiosity was tugging at him, he wanted to know what this mysterious object was. In the end he decided that he would take it home and examine it, and if it proved to be of value, he’d hand it in to the police.
He intended to look it over right away, but he discovered he was late for work. His walk had taken longer than usual, and he barely had enough time to catch his train into the city. As the day wore on, his mind kept returning to the box. What could it be? He found the thought of it more and more distracting until it was all he could think of; the minutes seemed to crawl by.
When the work-day finally ended he found he was nearly running home from the station. He was so obsessed with the object that he even broke his routine with his dog, who sat at his feet and whimpered in confusion. The man grabbed up the object and using a damp washcloth carefully cleaned away all the dried mud. He discovered the end of the box was adorned with an engraved plaque and a small brass knob. The plaque read:
Professor Rumpington-Ackworth’s
Amazing Volitant Conveyance
1, Place In Open Space
2, Turn Knob Thrice
3, Stand Back
This made the man more curious than ever. His command of English was good enough to understand the instructions, but not the title. Rather than look it up, he decided to follow the directions straight away. Taking notice of the long-suffering pooch at last, he snapped on its leash, grabbed the box and headed out to the park. There were still some police present, guarding the cordoned off area, but man avoided them and headed to a sports field on the other side of the woods. The sun was setting, making long shadows across the empty field, the spring air was turning chilly and damp. The man walked to the middle of the space and placed the box on the grass. Then he turned the knob as instructed and stepped back.
The box began to whir and tick as if it were filled with dozens of clocks. It began to jiggle up and down as the whirring grew louder. His dog began to growl, and slinked backwards behind his legs, but the man stood transfixed. The box began unfolding, glittering with rainbow colors as the setting sun reflected off brass work and crystals. It kept unfolding in seemingly impossible ways: arms, struts, wheels, gears, all unfolding like an inverse origami. The man was reminded of a magician who stuffed a scarf into his fist before making it vanish. Only this was the exact opposite.
When it was done a wonderfully complex machine stood before him. It was made from gleaming brass, shiny black lacquer, and deeply polished mahogany wood. Resting on three bicycle-type wheels was an open top carriage with a velvet upholstered seat. A round-barrel on the back appeared to be an engine. Three thick glass port-holes on the side of it swirled with a mysterious glowing orange fluid. It hissed and whirred as brass pistons idly cranked a propeller on the back, and a governor with crystal weights spun on top. Two more propellers, mounted horizontally, stuck out on either side on the end of brass arms turned by a brass chain. The carriage was hanging from a torpedo-shaped balloon roughly twice the length of the cart. Small wings covered in red and white stripped fabric projected from either side of the balloon. The man found it indescribably beautiful.
The cowering dog tugged at his leash, pulling away from the machine. The man dropped the lead and climbed into the machine as if in a trance. He sat on the plush chair and looked at the brass dashboard in front of him. It was engraved with instructions:
1, Set Destination
2, Pull Lever
Below this was a crystal window through which could be seen a cylinder with the names of various cities. A dial turned the cylinder. It currently read Amsterdam. He rolled the cylinder; Athens, Berlin, Boston, he scrolled through the list until he came to London. He didn’t really expect anything to happen when he pulled the lever, but he was very wrong. The machine started to vibrate and rock as the propellers began to spin. Before he even had a chance to change his mind, the machine leaped into the sky. He had a glimpse of the broad flat plains of his country before the machine banked wildly to the left, nearly spilling him out of the carriage. Belatedly, he noticed a sort of seatbelt made from a leather strap and a belt-buckle. By the time he got it fastened he was rocketing over the city pointed west. The wind beat at his face, and it grew colder as the machine climbed into the evening sky.
Looking down he could see the windfarm in the North Sea far below. The wind beat on his face. He drew down into the seat to try and hide from the wind, but the air was frigid at this height. He only had his jumper; he hadn’t taken a coat or hat. In five minutes, he was miserable. Peeking out, there was nothing but the dark water turning black in the twilight. In ten minutes, he was positively chilled. Twenty found his situation desperate, he was so cold that he was becoming terrified of freezing to death, his toes were numb, and so were his ears. The machine roared on into the growing darkness.
He pulled his jumper over his head and tucked his hands inside the sleeves, then curled himself into a ball on the floor of the carriage to keep out of the wind as best he could. Forty-five minutes later he felt that the machine was beginning to slow. Shivering, and more than half frozen he peaked out of the cart. He could see London below growing bigger as the machine descended. He pulled himself onto the seat with numb hands and looked around. He could see the lights of Big Ben and Buckingham Palace, so the big dark area ahead must be Hyde Park. Hope soared, he realized that would be a great place to land, but how? His teeth were chattering so hard he could barely focus on the dashboard. He looked again and again, but there was nothing that indicated how to make the machine land.
The machine streaked on. It seemed to be a bit lower, but he was rapidly approaching the park. He had to do something or he would miss his chance. He pushed the lever upwards in the hope that the if it made the machine start it might stop it as well, but nothing happened. Then he saw the red button on the far right of the dash, made from a glowing crystal like a ruby. In the dull red light, he could make out the large engraved letters around it: STOP.
He looked down, they were over the park, but too high and fast for a landing. His half-frozen mind began to panic. He felt he had only moments before he froze to death. He couldn’t feel his feet or hands. Perhaps the button was how you made it land, he thought. Certainly. It said stop; that must be it! He tried to press the button, but he couldn’t get his fingers to bend. He stabbed at it a few times, the panic growing. He frantically slapped at it, crying as he tried to awaken his frozen digits. Finally, in a fit of desperation he used his nose to press the button. There was a buzz, and the machine lurched as it slowed.
He sat up in triumph, his shout of victory turning to horror as he realized his mistake. All around him the machine was beginning to fold itself up. As the balloon retracted, the machine began to fall. He screamed as the carriage began to fold inward, spilling him into the air. He tried to grab at it as he fell, plummeting toward the Earth. His last thought was realizing he was near the pond where he had a picnic on holiday before smacking into the grass.
Falling somewhat more slowly and carried forward by its momentum, the machine finished folding itself back into its box a fraction of a second before landing in a hedge of boxwood beside one of the gravel paths several dozen meters from the man’s final resting place. It tumbled through the branches before coming to rest just off the path.
His body was found at dawn. The police and medical personnel cordoned off the area and were creating quite a commotion as the woman and her dog found their usual route blocked. She detoured across the damp grass as the sunlight broke cheerfully over the trees. Rejoining the path, the dog stopped to sniff at something in the boxwood hedge. The woman pulled the dog back and spotted a black lacquer cylinder covered in ornate brass work.