Mother-Machine

The Mother-Machine

It was in a night filled with thunders roaring as beasts accompanying the luminous dance of lightning similar to colorful stains in the sky, soon before the first drops pouring down in an aromatic mixture of dust and wet soil when a young man of vast, unruly, curly, soft hair which, besides all that, had a peculiar silver color, trespassed the wooden doors of the main inn of the town. His eyes, round and of an odd scarlet color, wandered around the entire reception being bombarded with picture frames stuck to the walls containing carpets blotted by different colors – what was called art.

Women formed harems around men as others were dragged in loneliness by male humans inside rooms whose red lights turned off as soon as couples entered. The first sequence of words which popped in the head of the newly-arrived when the scent of cologne scattered all around in order to hide the smell of worn preservatives but which contributed even more to intensify the feeling of nausea in those present was – "human touch".

It took a while until the attendant, a portly, robust black man, noticed the young man's arrival and directed his attention towards him. He faced the newly-arrived for a while longer, stared at his torn, brown jacket, and his denim pants and very worn-out gray boots which left footprints in the inn's white pavement, completing his attire with a red-and-white scarf wrapped several times around his neck, covering the lower part of his face as a mask, and despite – with no explanation whatsoever – he didn't like the boy at first sight he had to admit: it was that kind of people who searched the services of that establishment.

All the lonely, abandoned scum, wandering lost across the muddy, dusty streets of the town, used to flee from the cheap service given at the street corners, illumined by signboards and holograms of scantily-clad women with tongues out and eyes pointing upwards, in order to look for the true brothels and get entangled with the best sex androids in town. And without a doubt that young man wasn't the successful kind with the opposite sex – who was it lately those days? Soon, it wasn't strange he would be there.

However...

As the very slender boy analyzed indifferently the movements of all humans and humanoids in the dependencies of the "hotel", the receptionist, whose name was Jason, continued to scrutinize the possible client looking for any reason (plausible or not) to send him away, and after a while he asked:

"What are you doing here?" Jason's deep voice could be overheard among the thunder outside.

"It's going to rain, I need a place to stay tonight", the boy replied.

He rubbed his eyes with his index finger and thumb, and shoved one of his slender, white arms inside some pocket of his coat, taking off a bunch of metallic, circle-shaped golden and silver objects, scattering them abouve the counter. The sound of the coins rolling over the varnished wood towards the receptionist attracted the attention of a dozen women and men playing around. The lyric-less music whose dancing rhythm seemed not to alter any moment whatsoever was instantly silenced.

"A foreigner...", Jason whispered. "Indeed they're pretty common in our establishment..." He stared at the coins, curiously.

He grabbed a silver one, staring at it against the light, and before they could realize the entire scene acquired liveliness again. Music blasted through the rooms of dirty walls, the scent of worn preservatives yet again swarmed through the environment, and women and men returned to their snickering, bottles of liquor, snacks and errands.

"A room", the boy asked. His voice came out from under the scarf as a sigh.

He retained his indifference even when a cart similar to a bunch of scraps of tin cans stuck to one another appeared in the main hall and from the tube coming out from what seemed to be its front part akin to the trunk of an elephant, a red dust was scattered around the place, making its odor improve considerably.