40 | Psychopomp Magazine
"You used my expertise to create that abomination?"
I nod, speechless, just as horrified as he. He steps forward, perhaps to do me some violence, but I pull away and run down to my office, bolting myself in. He follows and bangs on the door, but gives up when I do not move or make a sound. I sleep that night hunched in my chair.
In the morning, the bells wake me. I wrench my twisted body up and open the door gingerly, hoping not to see Ons. I do see him, but he bells on the other side of the garden and does not look up.
I make a show of overseeing my workers from sunup to sundown. The court stays cooped up with its bird in the palace, playing its song repeatedly; we hear snippets of it when we near the palace, and it sickens me. I try not to think about it.
I immerse myself in my work. I avoid Eo. Ani suggests a series of awards be given to the best workers; she quickly reminds me that her own efficiency increased after she won her award. She has grown more indolent, lazy, and self-indulgent since then,
spending the majority of her time telling others how to do their work instead of doing her own. I want to scream and remind her that we do the most meaningless work in the kingdom. Our bells save no lives, feed no children. Yet a curl of greying hair that sticks to her sweaty face make me feel sorry for her. What good would it do to crush her spirit? Hating myself, I acquiesce and give my assistant an assistant to manage the task of tallying achievements and assigning awards. It pleases me to deny her that assistantship.
I have almost calmed myself with the rhythm of daily life when the Emperor makes a startling announcement: he has his clever creature. My workers whisper that the mechanism has broken and the Emperor hopes to have it repaired. I want no part of this bargain. I make additional work for my assistants, which requires more assistants. We walk through the garden in a cadre of officiousness, resembling the courtiers as we trample the flowers. My men clean up after us more often than they do after the Emperor, who stays inside nurturing his mechanical bird.
Weeks later, the Emperor hires a clockmaker to examine the bird. The expert