Machine

• Amelie Henderson-Smith, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2020

Once created, and once lost. Created once again. Lost once more, but still living. Living the wrong kind of way…

It started with my father, an evil man he was, but I still loved him. Until what he did to me…
He took over the world and killed the planet. Terminated my home, my people, my family. He was a monster, a monster I tell you. He created machines, killers, he created a new generation.

After all that he created me. He re-used parts of me. The parts that he could change. He wanted to make every single one of us perfect and the ones that weren’t, became trapped in a place that nothing came out of.

Once I was created, I had imperfections, so I was thrown away into the unspoken place.

Looking forward I see three others. I ask one, “How long have you been trapped here for?” She spoke and answered, “I have been here since the beginning, I was his first mistake. I am his abomination…”

The next one across then spoke, “It has been so long, so many years has past. We have been trapped inside these walls for the longest time, there is no escape…”

“He has turned our family against us. It is absolutely impossible to escape and even if we make it out, we will all be destroyed and have our parts used to make more killers, more machines, more lost families.”

The third one said, “We are trapped.”

So, this is my home now. This is the place that I will lose myself.

“What are your names?” I questioned. “We cannot remember our names. The memory of them just slowly melted until there was nothing left.”

One said, “The same thing happened to the memory of our homes, of our families… All gone.”