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On Crafts and Flappadoodle
By S. Jayant
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There is a tiny ragged perforation in the armor through which a wisp
of yellow smoke enters the hull of the fighting craft. He looks absently
at it and thinks of his home kitchen, his wailing wife and young son,
abandoned in the name of duty. The war must be won.
The craft rumbles on. He systematically checks the rear gun;
sights the barrel at a grove of trees. Behind him, the spools
of tape that will later record his in-combat performance
flap idly. Flappadoodle.
A large shell hits the craft. It disintegrates, leaving no survivors.
Another craft arrives on the scene and surveys the fragments
with curiosity. This particular craft is sentient, of a
later series, with no human occupants.
A large shell hits this craft too. There are no survivors
again, this time because there were no occupants.
Ah, but when will this war end ? When will all such crafts
cease their relentless engagement of the enemy in this senseless
dispute over the prices of tape spools and craft fuel ?
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I saw a dead craft in my backyard last night; a shattered
example of the craftsman's art. It lay still, its green body
inert, unmoving; its silken thighs untouched by the hands
of crewmen. I closed my window and waited for dawn.
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I walked up to the craft. Its silken thighs gleamed dully
in the morning sun. Thirty-millimeter cannon shell casings
lay scattered about.
I picked up one shell and sniffed. It smelled of lost dreams
and lost love, clad in a brass jacket. Unexploded and impotent
passion unrealised. The craft gazed at me with unseeing dead
eyes. I peered at the builders' plate and marvelled at the
calligraphy and ornate metalwork. Crafted at the Kroft & Tinker
Works by some nameless craftsman. His dead hand was the last
to have skimmed over the silken thighs of this craft, not quite
touching the surface.
Birds fluttered abruptly out of my backyard orange tree. A flotilla
of crafts flew overhead, businesslike. Their synthetic leather
wings beat with the regularity of cold purpose. Another enemy
sighted somewhere; no end to war.
I picked up my garden shovel and threw damp black earth over the
dead craft. Its silken thighs disappeared early; one empty eye
gazed at me until the end even as scattered shells glinted.
The craft was buried soon; I mopped my brow and proceeded into
my kitchen for a cool glass of orange juice as other crafts roared
overhead. I remembered that time past; an era in in which crafts had
actually carried human crews, including real rear-gunners; along
with a large number of spools, their loose tape-ends flapping wildly.
Flappadoodle.
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JS
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