Ellipse

Chapter two

In the busy city there could be seen a tall dark young man with a bowler hat atop his head, walking with a spring in his step.
He had his hands in his pockets, and was observing the crowd of people shuffling by.
Monroe had only been living in the city for a little less than two years, and he couldn't seem to get used to it. Every time he walked about it's streets, he couldn't help but stare around him in wonder. The buildings where very tall, yet quite odd looking. For when the buildings started at the bottom they were older looking, but as the building became taller the more new it looked. And not only was the buildings themselves amazing things to behold, but the land they were set on was even more spectacular. For the land was made up of a series of small cliffs and precipiece that jutted out from the ground, causing some of the tall buildings look even taller in some arias. For despite the uneven ground, the buildings were still built on the shelf-like surfaces. Stairs climbed up the ledges of these cliff-like ridges, and slanted paths of dirt and cobblestone where set for carriages and steam vehicles. All causing the city to look slightly distorted. And on top of that, one of the most exciting things about the city, was that it sat on top a tall cliff that sat above the ocean. It's lights on dark nights could be seen by ships from far of in the ocean, standing as sort of a beacon.
Monroe moved through a particularly crowded part of the street, trying to get to a row of stairs. A steam vehicle whistled by, with it's ellipse heated steam engine huffing, and rumbling. There was a dense cloud of steam that always drifted over the place, for almost every engine now was powered by the ellipse heated steam. Monroe made it to the top of the long stairway where there was fewer people and he could look out over the city. The setting sun reflected it's rays off of the thin cloud of steam, causing it to glow in a certain way. Thanks to the ellipse the air felt clean, and there was no more dark smokey bog that used to fill the air. The bog came from the coal, wood and other means of burning to keep things running. The chimneys used to flow with black thick smoke, causing the city below to cough and wheeze in its wake. Monroe had not lived long in those times, he only remembered it slightly from when he was a child. Though his father and mother told him how awful it was, they told him about how there was always a film of grime on everything in the city, causing the most white of white materials to go grey. But that, of course, was before the ellipse was discovered. The beautiful luminescent spherical orbs that changed in color according to their temperature, from red, to orange, from orange to yellow, and finally at its hottest stage white. It fed on the energy of movement, simply giving it any motion would heat it up.
"Sir!" said the squat, pink woman at the stand, "got yer news yet today? Las' batch right 'ere 'fore close'n."
"Oh yes," said Monroe sticking a bit of money in the ladies plump hand. The front page said, "Solomon R Remington. The man who discovered our new technology. the ellipse."
"Gotta bit of bad news, you'll see it." the lady said, "cor's they didn't put it on the front page."
Monroe nodded, folding up the news paper small and putting it in his coat pocket, "what sort of news?" he asked.
"You'll see it," she said as she pulled down a screen, and began getting ready to go home.
A small city train passed by above the heads of the people below, carrying people home from work. Whatever new was in the papers, Monroe thought to himself, could not possibly cause his mood to fall. Perhaps it was because of the thought of good times and fresh air, or perhaps it was because he had been offered a good sum of money, or maybe it was because he was going home to work on a project. His passion was to build things, the complicated wires and pipes in machines, clockwork, he wanted to invent. Perhaps he was happy because Mildred thought he was worth something. Or maybe a good mood was just something that stuck to him, as hair sticks to a static balloon.
He walked past a city train station, in which there was a large crowd of people trying to get to their train on time. It was like this for every station at any time, of course sometimes more crowded than others. The small trains coming in to pick up people, and always leaving someone behind to wait for the next one. The trains would either go to above the city, or under it. Every once in a while the track would lead outside, not for any particular sake, but only because the shift of the ground caused it to be.
But this particular train station was hard to get by, for it stood in a very tight space, and there was a little less than fifty feet between it, and the other side of the street. Not wide enough for a steam vehicle to drive through. And the awaiting passengers were having a hard time getting into the already crowded station, so the where crowding that area of the street. The people looking to where they needed to go, ignoring everything, and everyone around them; especially the dirty strange people who would jostle their way in to try and sell something. Monroe had to squeeze through, accidently stepping on someone's foot, and getting jabbed by some unknown elbow. A bedraggled stranger tried to pickpocket him, but he kept all his money on the inside pocket in his coat.
He finally made it out from the busy area, and now to a row of closing stores. Walking passed three, and spotting a small store that sat underneath some sort of apartment building. The apartment building was obviously new, but the store below was a bit older, and a lot more shabby. It was painted red, yet had not been repainted in a very long time, chipping away showing the grey bricks from beneath it. Monroe pushed the door open, it creaked and rang a little rusty bell. The inside was much more shabby then the outside, and the things that were for sale where spread out in an unorganized manner, causing it to look even shabbier. The store sold parts to engines, vehicles, clocks, sewing machines, and typewriters, along with unidentified mechanical parts, small and large. All of which were so different in size and structure. But this place was very different then the usual stores for parts, which mostly sold the expensive factory made things. This one was an odd library of interesting things, and always seemed to have exactly what he needed.
At the end of the store there was a counter, covered in unsorted wires and pipes. And in the middle of the counter there was a tall stovetop hat bobbing up and down, and moving two an fro. Monroe walked over to the counter and looked over it, there was a little man behind the counter sitting on his knees, he was looking through a box of wheels. He had a scope on one eye, and he was inspecting the contents in the box. His top hat was sitting tall on his head in order to make him look taller then he really was. And he was completely bald, on top of grey bushy eyebrows that sat furrowed because of the scope. He absolutely did not notice Monroe, mumbling to himself as he picked up each wheel. Monroe gently tapped the top of the man's top hat to get his attention. "Mr. HIckory?"
The man looked up, revealing a long white beard and causing his tall hat to tip backwards. He smiled a toothless smile, "hello there good friend," he said as he wobbled to stand up, "it's been awhile since I've seen you here."
"A while?" said Monroe, "it was four days ago."
"That's a long time for me, you're one of my only customers."
Mr. Hickory, dropped the box of wheels on the counter, he was so short the counter only came up to his chin. "What time is it?" He asked looking around for a clock that was hidden in the mess, "past six," said Monroe.
"Really!" replied Mr. Hickory, "I thought it was earlier, getting brighter I reckon."
Mr. Hickory picked up a box from underneath the counter and placed it in front of Monroe, opening it up he said, "take a look at what I found."
"Gears," said Monroe, not exactly sure which gear he was supposed to look at.
"No, no, not those," said Mr. Hickory, "This," and with a thin pair of tweezers he picked a very small speck of something from out of the box, "look at this" he said. Monroe squinted, it was a very small odd shaped cog, but it was so small it was hard to even see.
"Here use this," Hickory handed him the scope, Monroe looked into it, it was a very strange cog indeed, so extremely small.
"Extraordinary," said Monroe, "but what does it belong to I wonder."
"No idea," stated Hickory, "found it in a box of old useless wires, it was so small I almost mistook it for a speck of dust."
"Well," said Monroe, "it's quite interesting, though I don't really need that at the moment. Why, I'm here is to ask if you have any of these," Monroe pulled out the blue prints from his pocket and showed it to Hickory. Hickory reached out across the counter to grab his glasses, putting them on magnified his eyes to three times their size. He inspected the papers closely, "what sort of pieces am I supposed to be looking for exactly?" he said scanning the designs on the paper,
"just these pipes," Monroe pointed them out, Mr. Hickory frowned looking over the blueprints. A quick shadow passed over his face for a brief moment, and then was gone.
"oh yes," he said smiling again, "I have lots of those," Hickory hobbled off to the corner of the store, rummaging through a pile of things. Though the place seemed bad off and chaotic to most people, Mr. Hickory had everything in its rightful place, for he was always able to find whatever he was looking for without any problem. He pulled out a bundle of pipes, of a particular size and shape, he brought them back and dumped them on the counter. "How many did you need?" Hickory looked at the paper again, his magnified eyes flying over the paper, "Ah," he picked out four. "Anything else?"
Monroe looked at the papers one more time and then folded them, and put them back in his pocket. "No,"
"Okay then, that will be one flat for all of them," said Hickory.
He paid Mr. Hickory as he wrapped up the pipes in old news paper and put them in a bag. "Good evening Mr. Hickory," said Monroe taking up his bag, "before you go Monroe, I want to ask, did you invent the machine you're making?"
"No,"
"Then where did you get those papers?"
Monroe opened his mouth to answer but then stopped, he had forgotten to keep it a secret as Mildred had asked him to. 'But old Mr. Hickory wouldn't be of any harm would he?' he thought to himself looking at the tiny little old man blinking in his large magnified glasses. "Someone gave them to me to build for them."
"Can you tell me who?" asked Hickory.
"Mildred my boss, you know him?"
"yes," said Mr. Hickory, "I do know him, well actually."
Mr. Hickory turned around, and took something small from off the shelf.
"Would you like to take something home with you, I found this cog the other day. It's rather strange, I just figured you would enjoy it."
Mr. Hickory held it out for Monroe to see, it was around the size of a coin, the teeth were leaf shaped, and inside the teeth were very small diamond shapes. Not the kind of cog one would find in a clock.
"I can't sell this, just take it."
"Er.... thank you," plucking it from out of Hickory's hand. "I don't think I'm going to use it though," he said.
"Well neither am I," Hickory mumbled, picking up the box of wheels and shoving it under the counter.
"Evening Monroe," and he disappeared underneath the counter again, showing nothing but his tall hat. "Evening," said Monroe shoving the small little cog into his pocket, wondering at the odd things the little old man did sometimes. He didn't really want the cog, but he thought it would be rude to refuse it.
He left the little shop, and walked out into the street, where he could see that the sky had turned purple from behind the mist of steam. He walked past the train station that was now unimaginably empty as the crowd had been taken away. He walked around the barber shop, and passed some office buildings, the message machine whirred from above delivering some message of some kind.
"Excuse me sir," a quivery voice was heard from the shadows of an alleyway, Monroe paused a moment to see where the voice was coming from. "Please sir," said the voice again, at first his eyes did not catch it but when he looked closer he could see that there was a person sitting leaned against the wall. It was a bedraggled and dirty old woman, her white hair fell about her shouders in thin ragged stips. "Please, just a little money, I'm starving," the woman held out a thin shaking wrist, "please sir," she said again. Monroe paused looking at this poor woman, she was wrapped in what seemed to be an old sheet. Monroe hated it when beggars asked him for money, he couldn't help but give them something, but there was so many beggars out there and he did not have enough money to help all of them.
It was just the fact that he had been raised in the country in a small town. People who were used to cities always ignored people like that, not always because of the coldness of their hearts, but because of the practicality.
"Here," he said, and dug in the pockets of his big coat, he took all of his copper capes, there were twenty of them, enough to buy two meals. "Take these," he placed them in the woman's fragil hand. "Bless you sir, bless you young sir." She disappeared into the darkness of the alleyway, leaving nothing but the memory of her behind. Monroe noticed a few beggars appeared out of nowhere from a little way behind him. Seeing that he had given so generously to her, wanted a little something as well. He walked briskly on to avoid them from asking him, he didn't like saying no.
Nothing was being done to help the poor, the entire country of Askew was focused on building, growth, to advance and was obsessed with progress.
Monroe stepped up that last flight of stairs, meeting a row of apartment buildings. They were, like the rest of the city, a mixture of old and new, with metal stairs leading from one to another. This street was called Majestic pine, because once upon a time there stood a majestic pine. It was cut down. There were only a few people living in these buildings on Majestic pine, Monroe did not really know why. It felt like an unfurnished room, empty corners, and blank walls where there should be tables, chairs and pictures. It was one of the quiet places in Cors, not much was heard but the occasional groan of an old cat.
Monroe walked across the empty street to the sixth apartment building in the row, not even an old cat was heard tonight. There was a faint whistling sound from the traffic of steam vehicles from somewhere deeper in the city, and some voices of people talking from another street. But no sound came from Majestic Pine. Monroe walked up to the bottom of the stairs and looked up. He lived on the very top. But before he he could even begin to ascend the stairs, he stopped. He never hesitated, why should he? Tonight was different, he stayed still, with one foot on the bottom stair and on foot on the brick sidewalk. Someone was watching him. The buzzy feeling shot through him, by the corner of his eye something was there that had not been there before.
He stood there a moment, trying to decide if he should turn and look, or just go up. It could be just a harmless lost person, someone who was loitering around. There was a lot of those types.
He finally decided that he couldn't stand there forever, so he turned and looked behind him. There was someone standing on the other side of the street, and yes, they were watching him. They were standing at such a distance that he couldn't really see their appearance. But something about them didn't seem right, he couldn't spot it at first, but as he looked at the stranger he noticed that they had something covering their face. He squinted, it was a mask of some sort, with shiny eyes, 'no,' he thought, 'not shiny eyes, some sort of...' and then he realized what they wore on their head. It was a gas mask, an old military gas mask by the size. One that would have been worn during the Askew and Bordlon war forty years ago. Monroe turned back towards the stairs and ran up, making a clunking sound on the metal stairs as he did so. There was something not quite right about whoever they were, and he didn't like it. He made it to the first platform and turned back to see if they had moved, they were still there. Monroe, feeling a bit more brave standing on the first platform said, "ahoy, over there!"
The stranger didn't move,
"what are you doing?" he said, obviously loud enough for the stranger to hear, but they didn't move a muscle.
"I said ahoy, can I help you?" this time he cupped his hands around his mouth. They still didn't move, and now Monroe was no longer going to yell at this stranger. He probably shouldn't have to begin with, someone had told him before not to pay attention to strange people. But he couldn't help it.
"Right," he said, and turned back again to the stairs and walked all the way to the top, without looking back once. Finally when he reached the top platform, he looked down at the spot where he had seen the stranger stand. They were no longer there, "strange people out there," he said still looking out over the metal railing.
The sun was now setting in the distance, causing the sky to turn peachy. He turned his mind away from the strange person, as he tried to find that little space between a faraway building, there was a little view of the ocean from that space.
The ring of an accordion was heard from inside the building as Monroe stepped in, pumping a sad tune in what sounded like some dark organ piece. And that is where he always found his brother in the evenings, sitting on a very old armchair in the corner playing woeful sonatas. Monroe shut the door with a slam and rushed to his desk, dropping his coat on the table, and causing Rolend to slightly get of beat in his sorrowful melody. The apartment was small, consisting of a kitchen and a bedroom. Monroe's desk was in the bedroom.
Roland tried to regain it again, but he only lost his place, so in frustration he pressed all the pottons creating a hellish chorus of random notes.
"Roland," said Monroe from the other room, "play something happy, I'm in a good mood tonight."
"You're always in a good mood,"
"Not always, but it seems YOU are always in an ill one."
Rolend looked over at Monroe who was now dumping a box of unorganized mechanical pieces onto the desk, "no I'm not," he said, Monroe laughed, "no you're not? That is the most rubbish I've heard all day."
Roland began to angrily play a major polka, "really, I can be in a good mood, I just choose not to be most of the time."
Roland stood up from his chair and walked next to Monroe, he played in his ear as he watched him begin sorting out the pieces he needed to build the machine. "What are you up to now?" he asked, eyeing the blueprints that Mildred gave Monroe.
"Just helping Mildred out with that thing he's doing."
"You've practically built the entire machine for mildred, whatever it is, do you even know what it's for?"
"No, but it doesn't really matter does it?" said Monroe, "He offered to give me thirty flats, and I decided not to ask him about it any more."
"If I were HIM I wouldn't give you that much," said Roland.
"Wow, look at this!" Monroe ran his finger along the paper, "one wouldn't think Mildred at first sight to be so amazingly genius!"
Roland put his accordion up, and picked up a book on geology, this is where Roland was found mostly doing when not playing the accordion; reading. Roland was much shorter than Monroe, but that was only because Monroe was tall. he had a round face, and was often mistook to be much younger then he was, and he was rather young in the first place. He had very large eyes, yet in his always being grumpy he never opened them all the way. Prior to the way Monroe dressed, as he was often dressed very well, Roland wore the same old jacket, and the same pair of shoes. He put the book down, He had read that one three times over.
"professor Winningham says he doesn't want me to come until later tomorrow, not sure why exactly. He has been into some strange ideas as of late," said Roland, "he hasn't been in the study of geology, as he should be, but has been going off about all kinds of nonsense; half of which I don't even understand. He is a clever man, but when he gets in these moods, what would I call it... Philosophical. When he gets into these ideas and philosophies I can't stand it. We never get anything done, and I feel as if we are wasting precious time trying to find out where the existence of humanity came from. He is a scientist, not a philosopher. I think I should bring up the subject to him, yes, what do you think?" he looked over at Monroe who was lost at the moment in what he was doing. "I said what do you think?" Monroe didn't respond, "Monroe!"
"Hmm..."
"I said, what do you think?"
"No sure. Have you seen the hex key?"
Roland sighed, and shook his head, "dunce," he mumbled as he walked into the kitchen. He noticed the newspaper sticking out of the pocket of Monroe's coat as it lay on the table, and picked it up. "Solomon R. Remington. The man who discovered our new technology, the ellipse." he read out loud, "they give that man way too much credit," he mumbled and flipped through the news scanning it in a bored manner. Suddenly he stopped on a page, "Monroe, have you read the papers today?" he said.
"Hmm, I don't know," Monroe replied.
Roland walked over with the news in his hands, "how do you not know if you've read the paper?"
"Capital idea." Monroe was pinching two very small sheets of metal together, while trying to screw in a very small bolt to keep them that way, he was not paying any attention to what Roland saying at all. "Hey," Roland barked sharply, "pay attention!"
"What?" Monroe said suddenly looking up.
"look at what happened yesterday," said Roland, Monroe put down what he was doing and took the news paper from Roland. He scanned the story, "heavins!" he exclaimed, "this happened yesterday?"
"Yes," said Roland, he snached the newspaper back from Monroe. It was opened on a weird and random banquet the mayor was having.
"What? no, not that. Look."
Monroe looked at where Roland was pointing, and then snached it back from him.
"That's quite disturbing." he said looking it over.
"And listen to where it was, 'the body was found on Wasted avenue.' that's about a mile from here."
"How where they killed?"
"I don't know, all it says is that they were brutally cut up by some kind of blade, 'investigations are still being made,' it says, 'but we suspect it to be some kind of construction accident.' I don't remember seeing any construction going on last I was on Wasted Avenue, do you?"
"No," replied Monroe, "but I don't go there very often."
"Well I do, for the library is on Wasted avenue, and Professor Winningham sends me to the library quite often. I was there day before yesterday, and I saw no construction."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying I think they were murdered," Roland stated.
"Highly unlikely," Monroe replied, "the construction could have started yesterday, or even before. Just because you don't remember seeing any doesn't mean there wasn't any. Who was it that was killed?"
"It says Mr. Gregory Pitts, I don't know a Gregory Pitts."
"Neither do I," Monroe looked back down at his work, "though the name seems familiar. If a murderer is wandering around..." he trailed off when his mind went to the stranger he saw, "if there is a murderer wandering about, there would be no reason whatsoever why he would want to murder us. So don't get over upset about it,"
"How do you know they wouldn't want to murder us?"
"Because murdering pessimistic people such as yourself really puts one in a fowl mood."
Roland frowned at Monroe, as Monroe laughed at his own little joke. "I don't think you should worry about it."

The sun sank down over Cors, while the inhabitants talked about the same situation amongst themselves. The message machine whirred over the top of the city, delivering it's last message for the day. A spring wind picked up, the little spires on top of the building whistled as it blew. The waves from the ocean crashed against the cliffside, as the city trains took another round about. In the night people walked about the streets, some fast, and some slow. Each with their own thoughts to themselves, among them dark shadows and figures of their own devices. The lamp lighters walked about the city, pulling the cords on the ellipse lamps, with the usual rambling stutter, as the ellipses became hot, their light filled the streets. The same orange red glow emanated from window to window, as the city lit up in a chorus of ellipse.
In advance to the fact that Monroe had the next day off of work, he worked on Mildred's project late into the night. Roland lay in his bed trying to sleep, ignoring the ellipse lamp on Monroe's desk as he worked. It often went like that most nights, Roland never understood why after a long day of fixing clocks, Monroe could come home and spend even more hours building, fixing and enventing. Roland did spend a good amount of his time reading of science when he was home, for being an apprentice of the less than known professor Winningham, it was a part of his job that he needed to study. But he did not like staying up late, prior to his brother.

And yet even so, the light that gleamed from the window of that top apartment building did turn off eventually. And as the night became late, there was hardly anyone out, besides the night workers, and the drunk people staggering there ways home. There was yet one other who was out, he was waiting in ink street, his hat pulled over to cover his gas mask. He stood watching, not seen by anyone. And eventually, as if becoming bored, turned and walked away into the night.