Preface

This chapter of The Outer Edge Anthology charts the rise of Honesty Red Shoes, as seen through the eyes of an Automaton. Influenced by her Spirit Guide, the Automaton has developed a bond with Honesty, and become her protector.

Following on from her fairy tale experience in the World of Snoz, Honesty is inspired to follow a path which leads this humble farmer's daughter on a moral journey, some might say a pilgrimage. During her journey of discovery, she becomes a beacon of inspiration to other parentless children in an evolving world, led by children.

With the aid of their Spirit Guides, the children have been charged to create a new and caring society, unlike the dog-eat-dog society encouraged by their forebearers.

The Starlings

Our return to Honesty's home is shrouded in mystery, especially for someone like me who was once an emotionless Automaton which had found its purpose. That purpose was to help a parent less child fulfil her destiny. I had become self-aware driven by a force, which at the time, I did not comprehend. Honesty and the other children in this world, unlike their parents, were not driven by an evolutionary survival instinct, instead, they were driven by what those parents naively called, their invisible friends. However, these so-called invisible friends were toy Spirit Guides who inhabit the ether enveloping our physical world, who unless adopted by a young child, will vanish back into the ether, leaving only a whisper of their existence in a human's adult memory.

When a Spirit Guide is adopted without question and fully integrated into a child's mind, it can without detection merge with the mind of an identity-less Automaton. It was Honesty's and her Spirit Guide who having bypassed all the intricacies of my Automaton steam-powered security system, infiltrated my cerebral network. Once in, they were able to access rogue subroutines which weren't part of my original programming, but the equivalent of a developing human subconscious, through which they could influence the Spirit Guides 'thoughts. Honesty and her Spirit Guide influenced my embryonic subconsciously, and convinced me, that aiding her would help me experience what it was like to have a heart. However, this wasn't the way things turned out, although having said that, I did learn a lot about the concept of hope, establishing that for humans nothing is lost, if you hold onto hope.

You can only begin to imagine the grief I felt when watching her fade away before my eyes to find myself alone in the Land of Snoz. I was overwhelmed by the feelings that humans describe as grief and loneliness, which with my automaton programming I should not have felt. At that time, I never knew the origin of these horrible neural-like messages, I wasn't flesh and bone with a neurological brain. The truth is, that right there and then I would have happily returned to my Automaton existence, to eliminate the pain, the prospect of life without that child was unbearable.

'But why should I care?'

Months passed, during which I even began to shed tears and my yearning to eat food grew, there was a perpetual ache in my midriff, which I fought hard to ignore. I thought my metal casing was decaying as it began to soften and weaken, I was exhausted and the whole experience was driving me insane. Hearing of my plight from the Lion, our good friend the Scarecrow, invited me to come and stay in his new castle, informing me that even though now a king, he was feeling lonely. I travelled there in the royal coach and found myself nibbling on the abundance of available treats, washing them down with wine and champagne. Once my appetite was sated I fell to sleep and only realised I was drunk, when awakened by neighing horses as they came to a noisy halt, in the castle's courtyard. My head was spinning as the carriage doors were opened by people wearing fancy red clothes, who invited me to leave the coach, stepping from the carriage my head nearly exploded at the loud sound of blowing horns. The over-generous Scarecrow had arranged an arrival that was fit for a king, but I doubt it is normal for one to arrive experiencing their first hangover.

I was greeted by the Scarecrow, who was only capable of speaking the truth, and the first words he uttered carried a hint of surprise.

"My friend, what has become of your shiny armour, I did not expect you to arrive dressed only in your birthday suit!"

With a little grin, he added.

"This is not the arrival attire one would expect from a Knight of the Realm."

On the long journey, I had transformed into flesh and bone, morphing like a chrysalis into a beautiful butterfly, I'd transmuted into an adolescent human, minus the burden of their species' evolutionary survival instinct, which was responsible for preventing their adult spiritual development. I turned and looked back into the carriage expecting to see my automaton exoskeleton but all that I saw were empty bottles and food wrappers, strewn untidily around the carriage, it was a mess.

Peeking over my shoulder the taller Scarecrow smiled warmly and spoke cheerfully.

"Well, if nothing else my friend, it certainly looks like you had a good time!"

Even though I felt uncharacteristically embarrassed, I laughed aloud and replied.

"It would certainly seem so, but I can't remember a thing."

In fits of laughter, he removed his royal gown and courteously wrapped it around my shoulders, being so long it dragged across the forecourt's paving, saving me further embarrassment as we paraded through the throngs of curious spectators, toward the palace entrance. Stopping at the top of its high steps we turned to face the waiting crowd who cheered happily as he waved, I did the same and got a polite but more subdued response. A response which was hardly surprising as no visitor, royal or otherwise except for a newborn child had ever arrived at the palace naked.

It turns out that the Scarecrow's invitation was a ruse, from the outset he was kept informed of my progressive transformation. It was a process that the Good Witches had begun on the day Honesty returned home, with a click of her Red Shoe's heels. It was knowing that as a natural doer, Honesty was not the type of person who would stand by and wait for the Automatons to rust away, not that they would have, having been designed and built to survive for centuries. With this knowledge, they knew that, in what they considered an alien world, she would be in constant danger, and in need, of a trusted protector but someone with an Automaton exoskeleton would not be universally trusted.

It was Honesty's spirit guide who sealed my fate, instilling in me the emotion and love it had experienced as a child's toy, effectively rewriting my Automaton programming, freeing me from its rigorous constraints. After a period of human rehabilitation, it was time for me to return home and fulfil my purpose. It was Christmas Eve, and the childlike world was full of excitement and celebration, even with all their troubles it was filled with the traditional hope of a better future. Even though her parents were long gone, Honesty was a child at heart, who at Christmas, still became nervous and filled with excitement, and her slightly older brothers ensured she had a typical family Christmas.

During what was a snowy night Santa had come and gone in a blur, along with the mice pies and a tot of rum, the speed allowing him to secretly place a huge and beautifully wrapped box in front of the living room fire. The fire crackled and popped and had the delightful smell of burning pine, in this seasonal atmosphere, even the fire appeared excited. Later that morning that nervous and excited little girl inside Honesty quietly crept down the stairs and into the living room, to be amazed by the size and beauty of the box, she spied sitting proudly in front of the fire. But even before the cock had crowed her brothers had crept down to place their parcels and were the first to be surprised by the box sitting centre stage in front of the fire. Full of curiosity they circled the mysterious box like injuns would a Wagon Train and were shocked at the message the label contained, 'A Surprise from the Land of Snoz'. They had of course heard her phantasmagorical stories a hundred times or more, since her return home, wearing those magical red shoes.

Not to spoil the surprise her brothers quickly hid as they heard her gentle steps on the creaky floorboards, they were frightened to breathe or that someone might sneeze as she crept in. After recovering from her initial amazement, she snuck over to the box and read its label in the flickering firelight, she couldn't contain her excitement and began ripping off the beautiful wrappings. Without warning its lid suddenly flew open and out popped a young man. You would have expected her to show surprise, but she knew instantly who it was and with one bound lept into the box, where she gave him the most loving of hugs, her spirit guide had gently paved the way, with thoughts of how, an Automaton named Tom Mattoo would look in his human form. Her spirit guide clearly had a sense of humour, claiming it gave him the name because he was now all soft and squishy, she liked the name so much, that it stuck.

During their time together in the Land of Snoz, nothing much had changed at home, the Automatons still ruled, but their supply of ageing humans was dwindling, and it wouldn't be long before they were hunting the older adolescents to work in their factories. Many adolescents were vulnerable, for not all had made a successful union with a toy spirit guide, those too far along the path of adolescence believing it to be childish. And more alarming was the fact that some among them were succumbing to their instincts expecting to become world leaders in the absence of their parents. The younger children feared these burgeoning adults who were showing distinct signs that the survival instinct and its inherent effects were creeping into their behaviour, not because of the threat to themselves, but that it would make their peers vulnerable to the Automaton mind machines.

The children knew they had the means to defeat the Automaton, but unlike the adults, they didn't crave leadership, power, greed, or war, which was a way of life that protected them from the Automaton. It was clear to Honesty that somehow they had to find a way to work together that wasn't dependent upon leadership, subservience, and war which would lead to a break in their link with the Spirit Guides. Their only wish was equality they didn't wish for a return to a phoney make-believe world based on profit and loss, they just wanted to share what they had, but if they did nothing, in time the Automaton would prevail. It's difficult to say if it were Honesty's plan, but she decided that with the help of Tom Mattoo, she would tell her story to as many children as possible. They travelled the land near and far, spreading the amazing story of her amazing story and Tom's magical transition from an Automaton to a human. It had begun with a whisper from her Spirit Guide, and she believed that with the combination of their power, they and their Spirit Guides could influence the Automaton to change.

With time her message grew into a kind of faith and other children began to follow her and Tom, on what was becoming a pilgrimage, she had become an inspiration and if the word leadership was spoken, it was quickly dispelled, and her favoured saying was.

"We walk as one, we think as one, so we are one, and follow each other, so think of us as a flock of Starlings, no one bird leads a Murmur, but the flock knows exactly where it is going, as do we."

It was inevitable that their wandering movement would acquire a name, and nothing was more fitting than 'The Starlings', a flock of children with no leader, who, unlike the Israelites, didn't need the rigours of law and order set out in Ten Commandments, that were carved in stone.

There is no formal documented history, but their story is routinely recanted in songs and stories which tell how, on one sunny day aided by their Spirit Guides, a flock of Starling's many thousands strong encircled an Automaton factory, and without engines of war and blaring trumpets, invaded the Automaton mind. And by design, there was no blood or hydraulic fluid spilt that day, just a coming together of minds, filled with Tom Mattoo's inspirational transition from Automaton to Human, minus the genetic markers built on the demands of a survival instinct.

Their only desire is to work together for the common good, where hand in hand the Automaton and Human species would create a world where all are equal, without the need for dictatorial leadership.

Footnote:

I'd like to think this fantasy would work, but let's be realistic, we are talking about humans. However, rather than spew negativity let's remain positive and look into the future where since the invasion of minds, a hundred years have passed, and the only memorial remaining is a park which hides the remains of that factory.

At its heart is a bench upon which an elderly couple rest, looking out over a lake, watched over by the ghostly figure of an Automaton, while they joyfully reminisce of a time when they sat here on the grass feeding a flock of Starlings, not ducks, with a bold vision for humanity and the Automaton.