AMeagerLifeOfConsequenceA Meager Life of Consequence.By jryanLife was not easy as a young, attractive, Canadian librarian. That was a notion that often occurred to WittlePanther as she cleaned her books. That is to say, the life of grand adventure that she tought would be in store for her in the plentiful tomes she tended never really materialized. Yes, there were the book cleaning sessions... there was always that. Even great jobs have long moments of unpleasantness. But it was not the book cleanings that really bothered her. Those could be scheduled, they could be planned for. She liked schedules, and she loved planning. Give her a Dewey decimal system, and a room full of unmarked books and she would swoon with the prospect of, in some small way, adding her mark to the literature in such a subtle and profound way. In that way she tollerated cleaning. Soiled books were not something that she often let pass without at least a touch of anxiety. Planning... yes.. it was the unplanned interuptions that she simply could not stand. "Miss? Have you seen my children?"... "Ma'am, their is a homeless man crapping in this weeks Time Magazine".... she had a problem with these interuptions. She was not a baby sitter, she was not a janitor. Goddamit she was a librarian. She even had the thick framed glasses to prove it. No. Life as a librarian had not turned out to be as escapist as she had hoped. She rarely had the chance to sink deeply into a book and truely block out the obvious and careless disrespect for the quiet rule. No, such dreams had melted away. She would have to continue to read at night.. after work, and after time with her man friend. That was not so bad, she thought, since there was an age old comfort in getting into her pajamas and reading in the dim light of the evening.. or a dimmed lamp that she pretended was an olde time candle. Just her, her book, her rabbit and clock pajamas, her glasses and the dim light. Yeah, growing up meant that her special times were getting smaller, but more concentrated. Such evenings had protected and prepared Wittlepanther for the trials and tribulations of being a real world librarian. Unfortunately it did not prepare her for the Canadian Robot Holocaust. The robot smashed through the front door sending shards of broken glass flying into the periodicals and leaving the door jam wrapped, almost comically, over the robots shoulders. It would have been comical had the robot not grabbed the door frame from it's shoulders and spun it around the lobby tearing through the patrons as a machette through tall grass. A man stepped in to make a meager effort to slow the juggernaught but he was backhanded with such force that only most of him impacted the wall behind. WittlePanther looked on in amazement. The robot stood roughly 9 feet high, rear swept antenna probably adding a good six inches to the top of his head. His hands were large and now covered with gore and tattered shreds of clothing. It had two long fingers and what appeared to be a thumb.. or at least an opposing finger. It's arms looks much like she would expect from a automobile assemply robot that she has seen while cleaning a copy of "Boys Life". The only diffence was that the arms appeared to have loosely fitted armor over top and faintly visible wires underneath. The torso was stiff with the outward appearance of a somewhat rounded "T". There appeared to be nothing of great importance in the lower torso.. instead the hydraulics and actuators were housed in the rounded and oversized top of the "T". Rather than bend at the waist, the robot appeared to rotate its arms and head forward and back at the shoulder... giving it the appearance of a hunchback as it lifted another patron and clubed them against the support pillar sending fliers and cork boards flying everywhere. It's legs were fairly human in design with metal plating immitating human muscle structur. At times it moved as if skating. She figured there must be rollers on the feet because... "Christ!!!" Wittlepather exclaimed as the robot turned his attention to the check-in desk that she was currently manning. Quickly she ducked into the desk just as the top half exploded under the force of the robots swing. ANother swing and the desk itself was gone. Wittlepanther crouching now on the floor felt so small under the robots towering frame. She looked away so as not to see the final blow. At that moment she saw the books.... torn.. shredded and anger swept over WittlePanther that she had never fealt before. Rather than accept the fatal blow she lunged forward as the hand crashed down on cement. The robot had apparently been designed to destroy soft targets, and the impact with the floor cracked the arm at the shoulder, and for a moment drew the robots attention. With her next move she grabbed the bottle of cleaning concentrate from the remains of the desk and poored it through seems in the armor of the robots left arm. She had no idea why she did that, pannic was her best guess... but damn if it didn't work. Both she and, it seemed, the robot looked at it's left arm in confusion. A faint smell of ozone crept from the seems in the robots second and as the robots head wheeled around to focus on WittlePanther. It began to raise it's good arm when suddenly pop and sparks flashed at the elbow and smoke began to rise from the forearm. The robot realed for a second and turned full on toward WittlePanther. Throwing it's body forward into a full run WittlaPanther waited and dove aside at the last minute sending the robot smashing into Psychology and Humanities. The robot tripped over the falling book racks and slid to rest by the employee break room. Without the use of it's arms it flailed face down unable to move. Taking a dep breath WittlePanther walked over to the break room, grabbed the pot of burnt coffee and walked back to the robot. Leaning over him she said "Looks like your... uh.. Deweys are... decimaled. Bitch." ... she had always figured such lines would come easily when the adrenaline was flowing. But she shrugged it off and poored the coffee into the robots head as sparks flew and the robot spasmed and came to rest. She finally looked up and saw the remainder of the library staff and customers looking on bewildered at what they had just seen. "Fuckin' don't stand there! This is the GODDAM CANADIAN ROBOT HOLOCAUST!!", she screamed. It failed to shake the onlookers. "Well fuckit! I'll do this myself!" she growled as she ran to the remains of the front door. She reached the door and her blood ran cold. There, marching down the street were hundreds of similar robots.. peeling off the main march in twos and threes to enter offices and homes accompanied by sounds of muffled slaughter. "Fuck Me." she finally said over a dull rumble. Wittlepanther turned quickly to see the library shake, sag, and collapse on top of her. ................. "So you see Jimmy", the Grandfather said, "I was just a child that day... I saw what the Librarian did to save those of us that actually survived the collapse... but certainly would have died at the hands of that beast." "So she taught us how to fight back?" Jimmy asked. "She taught us that day that we had to fight." said Grandfather with a force well sharpened by a long life of hardship and war. "We all have something we love.. and for that we must fight." Jimmy looked at his Grandfather for a moment and thought. "Grampa?" "Yes Jimmy?" said Grandfather. "I'll fight for you Grampa." Jimmy said, "you and the librarian." "Thank you Jimmy." said Grandfather tearfully. The End. |