NORTHEAST OHIO SPOTLIGHT

The Machine Room

Fiction by ​​​Nathan Willis

The baby is crying again. We’ve tried everything and nothing calms him. When he really gets going, I pretend to read the paper. I stare through the gray pages until the words blur. Lynn still thinks she can help. She moves from room to room, leans her body against the walls and whispers, “It’s ok, baby. We love you. We’ll always love you.” The baby gets quiet and Lynn listens for clues about why he’s upset or even here to begin with. But the baby gives nothing away. He starts crying again, louder than before. Lynn pulls away from the wall and moves to another room.
 
When I am old and in a home, I’ll go on and on about this to the nurses. They will shush me and tell me everything’s alright now. It’s quiet here. Listen. And we will listen to the heart monitors and breathing machines and the clatter of cheap flatware and whatever other noises the last pieces of us still make. If Devon ever visits I’ll say, tell them about your mother. How she used to go around the house. How hard she tried to love something that wasn’t there. Tell them about the Ghost Baby. And Devon will tell them that the Ghost Baby isn’t real, just like he did when he was little. 
 
 
Devon is a runner. He’s good at it, but it’s not something he enjoys. He got a track scholarship from a college in Illinois. It worried him that he was getting money for something he wasn’t going to pursue as a career. He was afraid that by accepting the scholarship he was making a commitment about his future. Even as we drove him to the dorm he said, “They know, right? That I’m not going to run forever? That I’m going to be an architect?”
 
We told him that they know, but he should keep his options open in case he changes his mind. That’s what happened to Lynn and I. We didn’t set out to become what we turned into. When we were in school, we said we were photographers. We liked the weight of a camera around our neck and the license it gave us to present the ordinary as important. And it gave us an excuse to be together.
 
Off-campus, there was a little concert venue called The Machine Room. When no one was playing it was free to get in. We were both broke so instead of going on dates, we went to The Machine Room and hung out and took pictures.
 
When we developed the pictures they were all the same; the empty stage from slightly different angles. Sorting out who took which pictures became a light-hearted game between us. It went on for weeks until Lynn said the only realistic solution was to keep the pictures together, and us along with them. I had to agree. By then, I was already in love with her. We put the pictures in an album, drew a heart on the cover and wrote “Machine Room” on the spine.
 
 
The first time we heard the Ghost Baby was after Devon learned to crawl. He was making his way across the bedroom floor when a cry came from the kitchen. It was so loud and clear, we knew it was real. We thought Devon had been born with a natural ability, like being double-jointed. Only Devon could throw his voice. So, when the Ghost Baby would cry, we would turn to Devon and ask him to stop. Then we would scold him and tell him to be quiet. Then one by one we would take away his toys until the Ghost Baby was finished.
 
 
Devon came up with the term Ghost Baby. That’s what he called it once he was old enough to tell us that the crying we heard wasn’t him. But we didn’t believe him. We couldn’t. We weren’t willing to face that an alternative was even possible. So instead, we took him to a psychologist. It took just one appointment for her to diagnose him as a perfectly normal kid. She said there was no reason to come back. The Ghost Baby was something he would outgrow. It could take a week or it could take a year. She gave Devon some exercises to hurry the process along.
 
For the first exercise, Devon was supposed to paint his face to look like the Ghost Baby. It wasn’t until we got home that Devon mentioned the Ghost Baby has a new face every day. We lasted a week before we took away the paint. In that time, Devon turned himself into a vampire, a dog, a robot, a lizard person, a bumblebee, “Super-Old Dad”, and finally, a Fart, which was just all of the colors mixed together and smeared on his face. He spent the whole day blowing air at us, even after we made him wash it off.
 
Devon was too smart for the other exercise. The psychologist told him to write letters to the Ghost Baby like they were pen pals. He knew that if he got a response, it would be from us. Ghosts can’t hold pencils and babies can’t write. Devon’s letters didn’t waste time on small talk. Each one was a list of questions about Lynn and I. Nothing about the Ghost Baby or Ghost Moms, Ghost Dads or Ghost Hobbies or Ghost Sleepovers. He just wanted to know about us. What were we like as kids? What were we like before he was born? Where did we grow up? Who lives there now? What would we have named him if we didn’t name him Devon? What is something that we miss every day? Is it ok to be mean sometimes? What is the meanest thing we ever did to each other? In one of the letters, he asked how Lynn and I met. I told him about The Machine Room and the pictures and how we still have them here somewhere in an album.
 
Devon found the pictures and laid them out in a grid on the living room floor. The grid is supposed to be a building. Every picture is a window. In every window, there is an empty stage.
 
Lynn asked what he was doing.
 
He said, “Do you know who lives here, Mom? I think they’re waiting for something.”
 
She thought he he might be reaching out. “Is this where the Ghost Baby lives? What is he waiting for, Devon?”
 
Devon shook his head. He was frustrated. This wasn’t about the Ghost Baby. “I made the Ghost Baby up. He was never real and now he’s gone forever.” He swept the pictures into a pile with his arms.
 
After this, Devon didn’t write any more letters and whenever the Ghost Baby cried, he would go outside and run.
 
Devon rocked the pictures between his hands until they lined up like a giant deck of cards. He tucked them under his arm and put the empty album back where he found it. He carried those pictures with him everywhere for years.
 
 
Devon was offered an internship with Meridian Hospitality, a hotel chain well-established in other countries, but not here. He was hired after he graduated and moved to work at their headquarters overseas. He had been there for a couple of years when he called to tell us that Meridian is moving into the North American market. They are going to start with four hotels, each in a different region. They will all be based on his unique design, which includes a running track on the roof, something not offered by any other hotel chain. Lynn wants to know if this means he is coming home. He visits once or twice a year but we miss not being separated by an ocean. He says, “Not right away, but yes. I’ll be there when the hotels open.”
 
 
The hotels go up and Devon is still not home. There is work that needs to be handled first. It will be at least another month. In the meantime, Lynn and I go on a tour of the hotels. They’re beautiful. We spend hours walking through the hallways and lobbies, pointing out structural details and intricacies before we even check-in. We can see Devon in the floorplan and doorways. In the decisions that were made and avoided. We can trace elements of these buildings back to our own DNA. There is even a print of a Machine Room picture hanging on the wall in each room. It’s good to know Devon held onto them for all of these years. We thought they may have been lost. The Machine Room reminds us who we wanted to be. We start taking pictures again like we used to; not documenting milestones and who was present for what, but for the first time since we were young, we felt like we could capture something special and make the mundane, extraordinary. At each of the hotels, we go up to the running track and take pictures of the buildings populating the horizon.
 
It wasn’t until we got home and I uploaded the pictures that we saw they were all exactly the same. It didn’t matter which hotel we took them at or if they were taken by Lynn or myself. 
 
 I make the picture black and white and push the exposure and saturation levels as far as they’ll go. The result resembles a soundwave. The landscape is a repeating phrase. I show it to Lynn. We both know what it says and we’re not surprised. I change the settings back to normal. We special order four copies, framed. They are five feet wide and three feet tall. We hang one on each wall of Devon’s room. Not long after that, the Ghost Baby stops crying.
 
 
The Meridian hotels are not embraced by North America as anticipated. Devon is laid off and moves back, but he doesn’t come home right away. Part of his severance is that he can stay at any Meridian Hotel he designed, free of charge for as long as it is operational. The offer sounds better than it really is. The hotels will only last a couple of months at most. When the hotel he is staying in shuts down, he moves on to the next one. Then the one after that, and the one after that. And when that one closes down and the staff stops showing up and the utilities are turned off, then he comes home. 
 
 
Devon notices right away that the Ghost Baby is gone. He is so relieved that he tears up. He says it's because it’s good to see us but we know better.
 
Lynn makes lunch and we tell him how impressive the hotels were and he tells us how his job search is going. When we are done, Lynn says she wants to show him something. They go to his old room and she holds out her arms. “What do you think? We wanted it to be like the roof of your hotel.” 
 
Devon puts his hand on one of the pictures. He leans against the wall and whispers, “Thank you.”
 
The acrid smell of film chemicals fills the room. On each wall, the corners of the buildings fall away in small pieces. Lynn calls me in to see what is happening and together, the three of us watch as one by one, the buildings collapse leaving a thick gray cloud of dust and debris in their place.
 
Before he goes, Devon won’t stop apologizing. He feels guilty. We hug him and tell him not to worry. We love him. Everything is fine.
 
 
In the years that follow, Devon takes a few other architecture jobs. For a while he even has his own firm. Most of his work is local now. He designs small office buildings and housing developments. They’re good, but they aren’t like the hotel. They blend in with everything else around them. He is waiting for an opportunity to start over. He is waiting for something else that will make him run.
 
The cloud in his room gets lighter, but it happens so slowly that some days it’s hard to tell if anything has changed at all. Not long after we are gone, the cloud will disappear completely. The picture will be blank and the Ghost Baby will start crying again. 

Nathan Willis

Nathan Willis is a writer from Ohio. His stories have appeared in various literary journals including Booth, X-R-A-Y, Atlas & Alice, Cotton Xenomorph, and Little Fiction. He can be found online at nathan-willis.com and on Twitter at @Nathan1280.  
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