(This book has been illustrated)
The country Askew has discovered a new way to power steam vehicles.
Before, they used coal.
Thick pollution would cover the land and the mines were getting scarce. That was until the ellipse was discovered.
The E...
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Monroe couldn't walk straight, as he made his was through the city to get back home. He had a terrible headache and this awful shaky feeling, like the kind one gets when too much caffeine has been consumed. And he couldn't focus on anything, in fact he really had no idea what Mildred had said, only that he was very mad and didn't want Monroe to be there. He could also make the assumption that he had been fired from his job. But in spite of all that, Monroe was in a state of excitement. The orb, the machine, the explosion. What was it, and what did it all mean? He knew exactly what he was going to do when he returned home, if he could only make it home. He stumbled into the wall by the train station, and leaned there to try and gain his surroundings. If he could get home and draw out the machine, he might be able to figure out at least what the machine did. "Excuse me sir," said an elderly woman, "are you alright?" "I'm perfectly fine," "Are you sure you don't need any help?" she said. "Ah, no time for help." Monroe replied, and got back on his way home. Slowly, but surely he got there, and eventually he made it to the top of the stairs. Roland was home, for he heard the sound of the accordion playing the usual mournful tune. He burst through the door and stumbled into the table, knocking down a few chars. Roland stood up from his chair, suddenly stopping his music. "What the- Monroe!" he said, Monroe began picking up the chairs and setting them back in their places. "Sorry, sorry. Roland something unbelievable just happened!" he said. "What?" asked Roland as Monroe ran into the room and pulled out a large sheet of blank paper, and laid it on the table. And began to scribble a drawing on it with a pencil. "What? what happened?" "I don't know," said Monroe exited. He stood from the table knocking his chair down again. "are you drunk?" asked Roland. "No," Monroe said gathering up some of the blueprints that he had neglected to give back to Mildred. "I need to figure out what Mildred is doing." "What is Mildred doing?" "That's what I need to figure out," Monroe replied, and continued to scribble down on the sheet of paper. "Will you tell me what happened?" asked Roland, but Monroe was not listening any more. He was sketching down on the paper with that usual dead to the world excitement in his face, as he always had when inventing and building. Roland frustratingly played a series of minor notes on the accordion, and closed himself in the room.
Mildred sat at his desk rubbing his forehead, how could it have all gone so wrong? It was finished, completed, there was nothing left he had to do. He would have finished it and needed not worry about it anymore. But now it was all gone, his progress was not lost, it was destroyed and gone. He had searched everywhere for it, but it was nowhere to be found. He had torn apart every energy he had in shop, but there wasn't a single sign of it. It was as if it had torn itself apart like any other ellipse, and perhaps it had. But that was not entirely his worry, his worry was... Mildred looked down at the compass, it was ticking, and the little signs were moving up and down. Tick tick stop, hold hold stop, hold tick hold tick stop, hold hold hold stop, hold hold stop, tick tick stop, hold tick stop, hold hold tick stop. "No, no, no not now!" he said as the message was past through again. Mildred stood and thrust the bookshelf doors shut, "what should I say, what can I say, what-" he stopped and looked out the window. The night was surrounding the city in a blanket of darkness, there was nothing but the faint glow of the ellipse lamps from out of the street. "No, I'm not going to tell him anything." Mildred grabbed the side of his desk and turned it over. It crashed to the ground with a series of bangs from books, and thunks from pencils. "Someone came looking for it," he said and pulled down the many books that he never read "and they've rid of me!" and with that he grabbed what was important and ran out. But at the door he stopped and pulled out the compass, he looked at it, but not for long. He threw it to the ground and thrust the heel of his boot into it, crushing it. And then ran as if his whole life depended on it, because it probably did.
