Today's #flashfiction #Noble Gears

“Your number's up.”

Count Count* #quote

If you saw with your nose and smelled with your eyes, what would blinking do? Anyway onto the flash fiction!

Noble Gears

        “So is it true that the old King's finally wearing down?” I asked my best friend, not really believing the news myself. Even with our the steam engines in our body and our thick brown coats we felt the cold winter air bashing its winds against the sides of the carriage. A crack in the window allowed the steam that built up in the carriage to escape, though I'd gladly have kept in the hot steam coming from pipes that climbed out from our backs and over our shoulders. However the steam eventually would have drowned us eventually.

        My friend replied, “Yes, Paul, it's Shift Syndrome.” He fidgeted with his hands. The whole situation seemed unreal to me, and probably to him as well.

        People's lifespan and strength have been increased because of clockwork bodies, where master craftsmen alter the insides of people with an interior of gears powered by steam. Most die by Shift Syndrome, or by normal causes if your a commoner I suppose, those simple people can't afford clockwork bodies. Shift Syndrome affected people when they aged, their body changed, and it moved and became too weak to support replacements of its parts. Our poor King reached his final days since his heart became too weak to hold the clockwork that helped it, and now only the current pieces could remain. Operation to replace them would only accelerate death.

       “It's a terrible thing,” I told him. People loved the King. Rusting to death hurt, but I knew the King, and he wouldn't take the usual way out to end the pain. He'd live it out to the end. He'd already lived one hundred and fifty years thanks to clockwork, but maybe another ten he'd keep ruling. I then said to my friend trying to change the subject from the king's impending death, but my mind still too occupied with the news to completely stray off topic, “Prince, what do you think your older brother will do once he takes the throne?”

        My friend took his hands and opened the window a little more to let out more of the collected steam. He smiled and said to me, “Oh he's a good brother, he'll listen to me like he always does.”

I knew my place, and I nodded, knowing my place and how I was blessed to have such a powerful man as a friend. I decided to begin joking with him while the carriage continued to stumble along the road in the dancing snow.