The Mechanic need not the kiss of light, he slumbers in the dark and dust. His skin is kissed by ink and oil, by dirt and chalk and rust. His eyes alight with sparks and fuses, such passion warm and bright. In the candle fire his goggles glow, coloring his sight. The Mechanic’s hair falls softly over eyes so pale and grey-Beauty with not a shadow-suggestion of the slightest olden decay-Tumbling down high cheekbone slopes, the curves of his face. Lips white and with skin like paper you wish to trace.His hands are slight and soft, his nineteen odd fingers, plus a stump tenderBut it’s brethren left, so long and are they slender!So thin and dainty so delicate they are! Such music, think you, could they renderPiano, violin, think of the talent if he a musician could be born, so much!But his uses for them implements a thing much more tangible, to touchTo hold to mould to twist and smooth, to create these things, these things!The Mechanics thingymajigs and doodads and whatchamacallits, they sing!And so his scar marred, ink blotted, rough and toughened nineteen fingers danceDancing about like performers spinning, flying, twirling, whirling, as though a tranceHad befallen him, had taken it’s hold, a hypnotic state of complete creation.The Mechanic sits alone, in a happy old home, in a sad old world, sitting alone. But his happy house inside is filled, wall to wall with things, such things. Like a treasure box, a secret box, like that a child would own. And so he works, with a wrench in hand he becomes a wand-wielding magicianFor magic is created, and he transforms himself. A technician, physician, tacticianAnd yes- a musician, for how could the whirring of gears be naught but music?But something is amiss in the Mechanics heart, something no metal can fix. As he sits he ponders, as he solders and wires, as he creates and creates, He loses a piece of his himself in his work, each bolt he bolts, each. And he know he will live forever, in his work and in his happy old homeIn his worn leather chair in his worn oak desk, he will live forever Even when he rots in the ground in the earth that he abandon. For he can never love, has never love, will never love, for he has given his humanity to his work.To his thingymajigs and doodads, his children of metal.For he is the Mechanic.

Copyright © 2012 by Jay Janski