Workshop
Chapter 8 of Gaze, written by Matt Boothman after Yanahn
While most of the printing press’s paper-thin reproductions of Willis Winter were reuniting around his unsigned contract with Gemma Jane, one copy, drifting on an imperceptible current, found himself in the workshop. A machine as red-hot ravenous as the press naturally needed regular maintenance, so naturally there was a workshop in the vicinity. Such details were necessary for verisimilitude.
The fragments of Arturo that survived the press, during his sojourn in the tower, had collated themselves in the grimy workshop. The composer had left the best parts of himself scattered around the tower to fade and, in a few cases, be incorporated into collage and macramé by later visitors. The rest of him had sulked here in the workshop, plotting revenge on the tower. His plans were still unrolled on the bench, held flat by spanners and sprockets at the corners.
Arturo had planned to destroy the Tower of Art by feeding it to its own printing press. Invert the tower in this way and it would cannibalise itself, dividing into many faded and flimsy reproductions. From one grand, eternal edifice comprehending everything that is art, to myriad two-dimensional façades.
Willis Winter would probably be the one to finally enact the plan Arturo had made and abandoned. He’d been made to feel unwelcome since his arrival in the tower. Teased, prodded, diminished and degraded. The moment the atmosphere of his visit had started to soften, from scorn to grudging respect, enough for his bony shoulders to sag away from his ears, he had been pulverised by the thundering pistons of the printing press. This man could destroy the Tower of Art and feel no shame.
Perhaps the immediate hostility to his arrival had been a premonition: that Winter would find the workshop, find Arturo’s plans, and execute on his vision.
Before the cheap paper could dissolve in its own acids, the reproduction copied Arturo’s plan onto himself, to be collated into Willis Winter with the rest.
The remains of another room are just perceptible under this one…
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