#so-so

His residency in the tumble-down cottage at the back of the village was not commented upon. That rule that applies in England was staunchly observed; once something is not to be discussed, it is not discussed. I expect if old Enoch had run naked, screaming, through the streets, it would not have provoked comment. Well, in fact, that may well have done- there are always limits to any sort of social shield like that, and nudity certainly tests them.

But of course, he did not do anything so strange as that. He simply kept himself to himself, and we in turn kept ourselves to ourselves. No-one noticed anything odd or out of the ordinary at all.

This meant that, when he disappeared, it took months before anyone noticed. True to form, the discoverer was not his next-door neighbour or a concerned relative, but rather the taxman, who, upon recieving no reply to a serious of summons, paid a visit in person and found the property abandoned.

Within the cottage was found an expected mess. What perhaps could not have been predicted was the presence of a vast, shiny silver apparatus, rather like the enamelled bones of a great octopus. A halo of metal hung in the centre, and from this radiated polished metal arms that bent once and rose to the rafters. A small sky-light was poisitioned in the exact centre of the circle: at the joint of each arm was a small circular slot, about the size of a milk-bottle at its widest point.

At first, the device's purpose could not be ascertained. What Enoch had been attempting to achieve took some trawling. He had left behind a host of books, in his uniquely spidery hand-writing, but these were of limited use. He had written in strange codes that must have made sense to him, but left investigators baffled.

There were a serious of odd finds in desk-drawers and so on throughout the house. Conversion tables for values that roughly matched the height and weight of an undernourished adult male. A chart showing the phases of the moon, with so many hand-written annotations that it was difficult to see the original. And an odd lens, milky white and worn. When you looked through it, the world looked like an old movie. None of these finds, however, conclusively spelled out what the machine's purpose was.

However, roughly thirty nights after Enoch's disappearance, this purpose wpuld be made known. This time, it was a neighbour who made the discovery; Leon Jones, who, on his way to his kitchen at 11.30 pm to grab a close-to-midnight snack, saw a queer light emnanting from the upper story windows of the cottage, and took it upon himself to investigate.

Clambering though the lower window (broken by investigators and left unfixed) he discerned at once an odd odour, like the smell left after fireworks detonate. He paid it no mind, however, and carried on up to the chamber which housed the mysterious machine.

The room was lit by a dull, eerie glow, and he could make out strange sounds, now, in the gloom as well- something between the whispering of voices in an after-hours room and the sound of a finger running around a wineglass.

Leon called, "Hello? Is anyone there? The place is abandoned, you know!"

No-one and nothing replied, but increasingly the sounds grew and grew, and at length Leon advanced. What he saw stopped him mid-step.

Beneath the halo, nestled within the silver arms, a coruscating light hung, throwing sharp, staticy glow onto the walls of the attic room. The shadows flickered and wavered, like living things trying to cling to life. Leon glanced at it and winced away- shutting his eyes, weird and lurid afterimages danced, like strange undersea landscapes.

Now, rather like Enoch, Leon was an experimental soul at heart- and he had been curious about the mysterious thing from the day of its discovery. But this trait of his, normally so admirable, was on this dsy to prove his undoing.

He was not quite so foolish as to throw himself headlong at the strange emission of energy. He scoured the floor of the cottage, and soon located plucked a small object which felt satisfyingly throwable (it turned out to be a small plastic pencil-case). He hefted it in his hand, took careful aim, and tossed it toward the eerie glow, to test his growing theory that this machine was some type of teleporter, set to revolutionise the world.

There was the briefest flash, and then a violent crackle of energy burst forth from the thing, crawling up the luckless man's arm. Where light met flesh, a web of lines scored it through to the bone. Leon barely had time to scream before he collapsed, ragged, instantly cauterized stump steaming thickly.

In his delerium, the last thing Leon remembered was looking up, at the skylight above the machine, and seeing the radiant, somehow terrifyingly full moon overhead. The moonlight was falling full on the machine's upper hemisphere, and as he succumbed to the shock his mind managed, It's burning moonbeams. That's what makes it work…

They found him the next morning; by then, the machine lay dormant. It was thoroughly dismantled, piece by shining silver piece, and impounded as evidence; for all I know or care, it is still there.