Inventing Love

She came into Seven’s office with such a lack of confidence that he thought she must be lost. She was below average height without being short. Her hair was a dull blonde that hung just above her shoulders and was straight across the fringe. A pale yellow dress and light tan shoes, she almost dressed as though she was trying to blend into something. Steven wasn’t quite sure what she could possibly blend into though, pretty without being glamorous, and a look of sensible honesty about her. “Ah, hello, Mr Stevens?”

Trying to put her at ease he smiled, pointed towards the chair in front of his desk and said “call me Steven” Shit! He thought. He hated it when he made that mistake. “Oh sorry, Mr Steven” His attempt to put her at ease had failed entirely, she was now more tense than before, outwardly she looked more tense than he can remember anyone looking. “No ‘Mr’, just Steven” he added, trying to sound casual and breezy. Why did he always make this mistake? “Ah, oh right, I was told the second door was the office of Mr…”

“You’re in the right place” interrupting her was the best thing to do, get it over with as quickly as possible “I’m Mr Stevens, but call me Steven. I know, I know, Steven Stevens. No, I don’t know why my parents thought it’d be funny”. She smiled, they always smile. But then she kept smiling, usually it moves from smile, to smirk, and then inevitably to laugh. Not this time though. She just looked him in the eye and smiled at him “That’s a lovely name”. Not through any skill of Steven’s, in fact by doing what he usually avoided doing, he had achieved his aim of putting her at ease. She was at ease and was struck by the man with the unbelievable name who sat behind the desk in front of her. He wore a brown three piece suit and no tie, his hair was parted on the left hand side and combed very carefully over a hairline that was ever so slightly retreating from the site of the endearingly large eyebrows he sported. The two of them sat quietly for just a moment as the large clock on the wall of the office let out a couple of click clicks in the softly loud way that office clocks do.

“So…” clearing his throat and shuffling the papers on his desk “you’re Dorothy right?” she nodded confirmation “and what can we do for you here today Dorothy?”

“Well, I’ve had this idea”

“They usually do when they come here” he was on autopilot, one of his standard lines to help move things along. The thing with working at the patent office is that everyone who comes to see you thinks that they’ve had a flash of genius. Almost always they haven’t. It’s actually quite difficult to invent something new and worthy of the legal protection of a patent, most people haven’t even bothered to look up whether their “brilliant” idea has been thought of before, or already exists, or even if it’s readily available at the corner store. So Steven spends most of his time speeding up the meeting so he can more quickly get to the part where he tells the applicant that they can’t patent whatever their idea is. But he doesn’t feel like that today, he wants to hear Dorothy out, he’s regretting his reflexive sarcastic response. “Sorry, carry on. What is this idea?”

Initially she’d felt relieved when she met Steven, he seemed like a quiet and straight forward person like her, maybe a little bit shy, but that was also like her. Now though, he was being short with her and she wasn’t sure he was going to be the best person to hear about her invention. Although, she did have the feeling that maybe he was putting on the gruff face. It was probably all part of the job, and she’d come all the way down here, she wasn’t going to stop just because the nice man at the patent office wasn’t as polite as she’d like. Forge on, deep breath. “Well… you wont laugh will you?” her confidence has left her again already, she looks like she might actually cry “I mean, I’m sure you hear all kinds of silly ideas, and this one’s silly too. But it works, I’ve thought it all through. I’ve even built a prototype”

This was a good sign for Steven, almost all of the successful applicants had made some kind of plan or prototype. At the very least they’d done their research. “No, no, don’t be shy. You’re right, I do hear some silly things, it’s all in a day’s work here. And I pride myself on my professionalism” The extra height in his posture wasn’t a show to put Dorothy at ease again, he really did feel pride. “Well, I’ve invented… I’ve made, well. It’s a Love Machine”

Click click click click

Clearing his throat and looking down at the papers on his desk, Steven asked “Ah… Dorothy, sorry, Miss Boulder. What exactly do you mean by Love Machine?”

“Please, Dorothy’s fine. Well, I guess it’s exactly what the name says. It’s a machine, about the size of a jewellery box, and well, it’s for making someone love”.

“I… see…” Steven Steven’s wore an expression on his face that made it quite clear to any observer that he did in fact, not see at all. He clearly had no idea what Dorothy was talking about but was determined to push ahead. “And how does this Love Machine of yours work then?” Regaining himself slightly he pulled out a form with a series of check boxes down the right hand side.

“Well it’s hard to explain really. Do you know about… Does your office deal much in the field of replicable anomalies?”

“I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about” And he was afraid, he didn’t take her for a crazy. How could this lovely woman in front of him be another one of the weirdos who wanted to patent their latest imagined magic trick?

“Hmm. Look, I know what you’re thinking. I thought it was crazy myself. But it’s all very sensible when you break it down to rational pieces. The problem is that there’s so many of the pieces.” She was sure she could convince him.

“Well. Perhaps you could show me how it works? That often helps to clear things up” Something about the idea intrigued Steven “who is it that is compelled to love? And what is it that they love? I mean, how do we know if it’s worked?”

“It’s a two person thing really. One person, the operator, holds it from the back and opens the box up towards the subject. The mechanism begins to move when the box is open and when the subject looks into the box they then… They then feel the effect of the Love Machine.” Dorothy was on a roll now, she felt confident, or at least she felt how she imagined confident people must feel. She took a deep breath to fuel her explanation. “When the subject looks into the box they will fall in love with the operator. It really is a Love Machine Mr Stevens”.

“Please, call me Steven” Gr, why did he always have to bring up his name. “And have you tested this machine?” He was intrigued now. He couldn’t tell you why, but something about the idea appealed to him. Love, he thought, what a nice idea.

“Yes, well, no. No I haven’t tested it yet. It’s just that, well I haven’t found someone to try it on” Dorothy blushed, just a little.

“Well, do you have it here?” Steven’s curiosity was stronger than his belief but there was something else in the mix as well. And hope is a strong force. Dorothy for her part was almost shaking. She couldn’t remember how she thought her trip to the patent office would go, but she’s sure her imagination hadn’t conjured up a scene like this. “It’s right here” she reached into her large handbag and pulled out what, from the outside had all the appearance of a jewellery box “I converted my jewellery box. Now my bedside table’s a mess of rings and old necklace’s I haven’t worn for years” Dorothy had never been the kind of person to get chatty when she was nervous but now she had forgotten to be shy. She placed the altered jewellery box on Steven Stevens’ desk and looked across at him. He looked back at her with an enquiring tilt of his head “Perfect. Well, do you want to show me how it works?” Dorothy leant forward, faced the broken clasp at the front of the box at Steven. She took a nervous gulp of breath, closed her eyes and opened up the Love Machine towards him.