All Thumbs

 

The Thumbies built a most superior hen house!

😁

There is a new one. It’s very small. Some of them are in bed. So, I am on my chair being quiet….

The house where Jen and Doug and Lou and Elvin have lived together for a year or so was quiet now. Gabriel had nursed and subsided into soft baby sleep. Their friend Roops was still there waiting for morning to walk back to his radio station home. He will stop and see his mother on the way.

OZ was more related to lab-grown meat with some electronic components built in than anything else. He thinks, after a fashion, the way a computer thinks. That is, he’s not thinking. He’s adding and subtracting.

He had a sort of personality. But it was so easy to anthropomorphize these guys, or animals, or other appealing machines.

“Figuring,” said OZ to himself.

“Shut up,” said Bubby.

“I obey Doug,” said OZ absently.

“At night you obey me,” said Bubby. “So shut up.” Bubby got up from his place under the table and went to the living room and flopped on the floor near Elvin’s sofa.

“I obey Doug, dog.”

Now there are more. More work. Figuring. How many? 5 more we. Need to send….he fidgeted and mumbled like that deep into the night.

His clothes never wore out. Whatever he happened to have next to his skin, if skin it is, was renewed by the same process he used to heal and feed himself. He was a matter sucking machine/organism.

I will call 5.

Morning arrived. A new sort of a morning for the family on Riverside Road. (Roops drank some tea, ate a biscuit and began the hike to his mom’s and then his own place.)

The family arranged its lives around Gabriel. Jen rested most of the next day with her son. Lou took over the household chores assisted by Elvin.

OZ spoke to Doug as he sat in the kitchen waiting for Lou to finish making him a couple of pancakes.

“Doug, we need more. 5 more. Things are broken,” said OZ. He placed his palms together. He hummed. He fussed. He configured.

“Five more what, OZ?”

“OZ, ZO, OZ, ZO, OZ, ZO,” hummed OZ urgently.

Doug sat up then. This had his attention finally. He was not sure he understood. “What for,” he asked at last.

OZ took the floor. “Things are broken. Your house is broken. I have seen your roof, Doug. Bad. Many things.

“Your garden is not good. You need more space for food plants. You need more chickens and chicken rooms. You need more animals! You are not able to do everything. We will do it! We will all obey you!” hums OZ. “I will teach them to obey you.”

Doug heard the phrase “will all obey you!” It stood out.

“OZ! Where are they,” Doug yelped and stood up. OZ’s black eyes watched him placidly.

“I called them. 5. Behind the house,” said OZ, like water dripping. His assurance was total.

Doug headed for the back door. OZ followed in his Carhartts. Elvin followed too.

Standing in a row like Dept Store dummies, wearing brand-new Carhartts were five more. Except for details of positioning, you could not tell them apart. They all placed their palms together intoning “Joyous Configuration!”

Doug and Elvin stood together on the back porch steps. OZ joined his others on the ground level.

OZ spoke. “New master is Doug. If you will obey him, he will direct you. If you will not obey him, you will go. He will not break or remake you. You will work joyously.

“Will you obey Doug?” Five identical voices sang out. “We will obey Doug!”

Surveying this strange scene, Doug held up a hand. It silenced the Thumbies. They waited together. Five sets of huge black eyes looked at him as he prepared to speak to them. Elvin looked at his brother.

“Alright you guys. Alright. We will try it out. Don’t do anything without telling OZ #1 here, so he can tell me. Then we will decide.”

The Thumbies were very well programmed to perform all kinds of construction and outdoor labor. Doug didn’t know yet, but they were also the latest word in technical workers. He would find out.

In the next week, while Doug was tending to his family, the Thumbies went on the job. All aboveboard, with Doug’s permission they tilled another section of garden and planted winter vegetables. They weeded Lou’s current garden very well, freeing her to hang out with Jen and Gabriel.

They built a hen house of great excellence using materials hanging around the place. They fenced an area around it nicely. They moved the chickens into the new one.

There was some material shapeshifting going on, but not a lot. Mostly they used lumber that was lying around in the backyard shed.

Then, they got hungry for work again.

Total linkness!  In the tenth year of the pandemonium.docx