Gearbox

Two friends share a table in the Mangrove Club, playing a game of Trinkets.

They regularly meet in different corners of the City, at least once a week, discussing each other’s lives, recent developments, how things are going for each of them.

The skunk beams effortlessly as he tells the grass snake about Evening, his parents Ripley and Jingles, his friends, his most recent project. Those come much less frequently than before, but they are always undertaken with such care and precision that the results have never once disappointed. He makes another move.

She listens intently, pleased to take in every word he says. In turn, she tells him more about her own life. Her little flower shop on the Terrace. The handsome adder she’s seen more and more of in the past few months. She successfully defends, gently pushing each Trinket with her head, one of her gold tokens landing on top of his silver. He takes the piece from the board.

They laugh and reminisce, chat of times old and new, and it’s as if they never spent time apart.

Ultimately, it’s Jasmin who wins the game, as three golden tokens take Gearbox’s final silver one.

Defeat doesn’t sting as it perhaps once might.

“Do you want another go on the jukebox?” A conversation between two bargoers can be overheard.

“If the boss’ll allow it.”

“Aight, just once.”

“You reckon the magpie would be able to do this one?”

“Two whatsits says yes.”

They shake hands and wind up the jukebox.

As two old friends play round after round of Trinkets, passing many carefree hours into the night in one another’s company, a familiar melody fills the room with its beauty for all to witness.

She rarely crosses his mind. Perhaps once a season does he envisage two ice-cold eyes scorching his soul, a fire that will never be extinguished.

He thinks he sees something out of the corner of his eye.

A flash of black and white fur. A furtive side glance from across the park. He hasn’t seen her in years.

He’s alone, and unprepared. But so is she.

He weighs up the options in his mind.

Is this truly worth it?

He feels eyes land upon him.

He tentatively looks up.

To his surprise, she doesn’t glare as such. Not a single flicker of recognition appears.

There’s nothing.

He blinks for a moment, then notices there is another skunk with her, the two stood closely side by side, both sharing that same expression.

She doesn’t pay any attention to him at all.

Maybe that’s for the best.

The past is firmly in the past.

And she seems happy too, if Hyacinth could resemble anything close to happy.

Gearbox sets his tools aside. He’s been working on this project for a really long time – months, in fact. It was Spring when he first had the idea of creating this masterpiece. But now it’s Autumn again, the leaves of the trees in the Park are tinged with russet, fog lingers over the yards in the Shelters every morning, and the sky reaches that beautiful hue it does as the sun dips over the horizon minutes earlier each day.

And today it is finally complete.

He doesn’t try and fix any old thing now. His hoard of trinkets hasn’t grown at all. No, he creates, and he creates things he knows will make people happy, so the sunshine that still emanates from him can reach and warm others too.

It doesn’t matter how long the journey to getting here took. It could have taken weeks, months, years.

What matters is that it is finished.

A perfect product sits in front of him, yet he never worried that it would fail.

The hardest part has been keeping the surprise. He doesn’t like having to keep things from Evening, the one who he shares everything with. Each achievement. Each conversation. Each sunlit day.

This is for her. And it’s imperative that it works.

He smiles down at the little object in front of him, gently scoops it up, wraps it warmly in pastel pink fabric, and sets it aside.

When Evening Sprinkle returns home from giving a lecture that night, Gearbox greets her with a glowing grin on his face, if tinged with a little nervous anticipation.

“Eve… I have a present for you. I hope you like it just as much as I’ve enjoyed working on it. I want you to know how much I appreciate you. You’re the greatest gift I ever received. And so…

“Here.”

She opens it, carefully, but with an excited glint in her eye the whole time.

She pulls the layers of pink fabric away to reveal a miniature unicorn, almost a direct replica of her, delicate yet beautiful.

Her eyes grow wider with joy.

“Gearbox… I love it! Thank you so much!”

She pulls him in tightly.

“There’s more… Watch this.”

He takes the unicorn, winding up a little cog fastened to its side. As if by magic, it begins to prance around, galloping in a dainty little circle, each of its metallic hooves rhythmically clopping against the ground.

She watches with awe, entranced with every movement the gears make, and he cannot help but watch her as she does so, feeling that glowing feeling inside of him as he always does when watching her. He can bring her happiness the same way she does him.

Evening beams, and her eyes glisten softly with tears. Not tears of sadness, but of sheer delight, of love, of ecstasy.

His world may once have been overcast with night and shadow, where every move was another opportunity for things to go wrong. Now it's illuminated with radiant light, looking up at the next success.

Maybe he did break things. Yet that does not matter anymore.

He can also fix them.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”