Forenote: What you are about to read below was written about a year or two ago, in December of 2007/January of 2008 (or perhaps even later), several months before WALL•E was released. I never revealed it to anyone, although I meant to post up at least fifteen chapters (or more) of it in the Fan Fiction section of this forum many eons ago. The only reason why I’m uploading it now is because I have no idea as to whether or not I’ll ever finish it anytime soon, although I do plan to complete it sometime in the late future. I’m not asking for any reviews; I simply thought that you guys might like to read it.
This is chapter one of a fifteen-plus (15+) part novelette. Bear in mind that I had not yet seen WALL•E (the film) and had only glanced at snippets of it via trailers and the like. In fact, I don’t even think the official trailer had come out when I composed this…
Also, keep in mind that, in order to “properly” read this, you would probably have to own (or listen to) the Snowflakes are Dancing CD by Isao Tomita. You can find various tracks from this CD on YouTube, if you don’t own it directly. The music concocted within it is simply astounding…
Of course, now that I look back on this particular work of “art”, I realize how terrible it is. For example: “… barely breathed a day.” What the heck?? Well, I’ve learned from my mistakes.
A few minor grammatical errors were changed before I uploaded this of course, but, for the most part, the original piece remains intact.
By the way, this “Eventitude” is actually EVE, if anyone is wondering.
Good evening,
On my way home from church service on a Sunday evening in December, with my father and sister, the entrancing melodies of Snowflakes are Dancing, by Japanese music artist Isao Tomita, was inserted into our cars’ CD player. Subsequently, I collapsed into an envisionary fantasy…in which the intrinsic patters, colors, and other aspects of my mind voluntarily concocted a futuristic universe that was inhabited by but three entities: a diminuative, yet quirky, cochroach; a luminous petunia; and a worn-down, slightly exhausted robot…named WALL•E.
It’s not unusual for me to play made-up stories to intriguing music, but it is not everyday that one evolves into something most mysterious and encompassing as the one I brewed up on that particular Sunday. It would be a crime for me to not share it with you all, and it would also be most inconsiderate of me to not compose a compilation of images to accompany each scene in question; the latter I shall execute upon paper and then onto the screen in due time.
I present to you fifteen minutes of WALL•E, as I so spontaneously envisioned it…
"The year was 2700 – not at all a time of prosperity and ingenuity for class Earth at that time. But light is exposed from unusual places, and this one is no exception…
And God said, ‘Let there be light’…" - Eventitude
Stars parted from a sky dotted with particles unknown; clouds rose like dust from a seemingly uninhabited atmosphere; and Earth dawned upon the heavens as a rusted sphere, diseased and plagued by many years of soot, ash, and a compilation of waste materials that had long since been kissed by a ray of sunlight…or shaded by the moon and his shadow. It was the exigence. No life could be found aboard this near-deceased vessel; not one, save a single unit…
A healthy cloud of soft, powdery dust departed from a scene as dead as the wind, and unveiled from behind it a saddened figure: a ship…constructed in the shape of a cube-like rocket. One glance withdrawn from any decent individual foretold a mood mirroring despair… extinction… and sorrow, all contained within and around it. It loomed above a collage – a vast accumulation – of many things… all of which hungered for a touch of adoration that had been previously abandoned eons ago: a flabby shoe, devoid of its mate; an orphaned bicycle pump that adorned several bumps and scratches; two dented car hoods hidden amongst a mountain of trash; several sheets of aluminum foil, all of which emitted an odor that was pungent to the smell – a cockroach paused to sniff at it before curling its tiny antennae and scattering away. Life was merely a rose petal amidst a hoard of termites.
It was grim pickings for the cockroach, who soon abandoned his search for sustenance that morning and looked instead towards a firmly planted, box-shaped spacecraft that gently towered above his lowly spot. Click went an antenna. He had visited this place of solitude numerous times before, always seeing it in the same condition – worn, diminished, and rusted. The population of splinters, degraded objects, and discarded equipment there by no means equaled that of its life content, which was close to none. And yet, as foreboding as it seemed, the presence of activity was not sparse… Tire tracks, approximately three inches in diameter, trod up and down a platform leading from the ground towards the first floor of the inside of the ghostly dwelling. The path upon which they had run was well-worn and nearly devoid of dust; the particles that still remained there appeared to cling tightly onto the ground… in the hope that it would not depart from its comfortable position.
Interested, the cockroach made to investigate the bee line of tracks. A scatter here across the ground, a pitter there. It wiggled its long extensors excitedly. More pittering; more scattering. The roach’s emotional state reached a level of pure ecstasy, bobbing its head up and down in an overjoyed fashion and bouncing to and fro. Hurriedly, it jolted up the ramp which led into the craft…
A binocular-shaped pair of eyes blinked into the dusty sunlight. Eyelids closed, it shielded its pupils from an array of soot blown by an almost nonexistent wind. One eye cautiously popped open, catching a bearing of its surroundings; then the other, surveying a scene that it had glimpsed for many a year. No sign of life; no movement; no trace of visitors.
With a quick kowtow, followed by a long, engaging stretch and a motorized yawn, a cubic-like figure emerged from the interior of the ship, tasting as much sunlight as shone through the battalion of clouds above, clouds of the kind that were too stubborn to dissipate. Rolling down the ramp, the little robot busied with hunting for a patch of sunlight in which to sun himself. After ten minutes of searching, he located one – it was only two feet long in length and width, but his happiness at at least finding a patch for once was not at all deterred. Scooting into the ray of sun-tinted earth, he quietly emitted a gentle sigh of pleasure and contentment, extending from his box-shaped body a pair of heat sensors with which to warm himself.
Sun. For but two short minutes, it encompassed the aged robot with its blanket of warmth and solace as if in a fond embrace. But the loving gesture soon retreated into the darkness in but a mere glimpse of an eye – the spherical star hid its cloak, retreating behind a pillow of dust, leaving the electronic figure to stand alone… alone as it had always been… for as long as it could remember. But a slim ray of light caressed the letter ‘E’ in a signature name embedded across the lonely entity’s chest: WALL•E.
It had been five hundred years and a day since WALL•E was turned on for the first time to greet a day that would have shunned the era in which he resided now. Earth was a haven then, a place of new beginnings and opportunity. Now, however, it was merely another speck of grain in the universe which devoured it… and almost choked it.
Since that time, the human population had become careless, devoid of sensical endeavors, and left the Earth to rot in its own clothes. Waste allocation by way of specifically engineered robotic adjutants was unsuccessful, and all had been either accidentally eliminated or shut down for that period of time until Earth was fit to be inhabited again. Hence, while the human population lingered above its previous residence in pleasure, the mothering home below barely breathed a day. Its one taste of comfort was simplistic: One robot had been accidentally left on…
Albeit forgotten, WALL•E spent his mornings and evenings in solitude… vainly searching for any trace of life or motion, his only companion being in the form of a smudged, mud-bitten cockroach.
Although his age was worn, his personality resembled that of a young, inquisitive child, and his yearning for further knowledge of the world around him and the wonders outside of it exceeded that of any human. His hunger for something to do, or someone to interact with, drove him to explore literally every nook and cranny he came upon, whilst evicting and cleaning any unwanted garbage in his path along the way.
Evening. He sighed. Three out of four bars filled his solar-powered meter on the right side of his chest. It would be retirement at six o’clock this afternoon, if not sooner. Slightly daunted, WALL•E rolled towards a pile of garbage not a few yards away from the spacecraft he fondly called home.
Each pile of garbage he came across seemed larger than the next, and as he traveled through the maze of shoddy equipment, toys, and various other discarded materials, all of which ranged from the height of a truck… to a small mountain, he could just barely feel the touch of cool cement below his tires. The paths he took were the same every day, and were so worn down that dirt no longer remained on select routes.
Turning a corner, he stopped as he felt a slight tickle run up his back. Twisting his head around completely, he looked down to see a shivering cockroach settle just a centimeter or two from his neck. A look of perplexity darted across his curious eyes. What could possibly make the little bug quiver and shake in this weather? A visitor…? Interested, the robot glanced in the direction his diminutive ally had come, uncertain as to what he might see. No misty sound nor shadow of a figure appeared in the distance, however, so he dismissed it as nothing and returned to his work.
Not a foot or so away, in a trash-infested cul-de-sac, WALL•E picked up a potted plant – a petunia, in fact – that he had unveiled not a few days ago, opened up a little crevice in his back, and tenderly set the blooming flower and its pot into it. Cockroach aside, it was but the first sign of life he had seen on the planet since the human population had evacuated from the premises, and he guarded it and preserved it like a newborn child. Tapping the pot fondly, he smiled at the cockroach as best his could with a twitch of the eyes, and rolled off towards the ship, humming to himself along the way in sharp, but imaginative, blips and beeps.
One pair of tires rolled along the hard, crunchy ground like a nonstop treadmill, its owner beeping and booping a childish tune while carrying the delicate petunia on its back at a steady pace. From one’s perspective, he may have viewed WALL•E as the happiest little being on Earth. Just the seemingly plain fact that his treasure of a plant had lived to see but another day was practically all it needed to boost the perky robot’s morale. Presently the cockroach started to stare, wondering what could possibly be so hilarious, before noticing that the petunia was a tad bit taller than it had been yesterday – just a tad bit – and making to run around excitedly, jumping along to WALL•E’s sing-song tune. But then… something emerged…
The wheels, which had tirelessly rowed across the deserted area so often, now stopped in their tracks. WALL•E lifted his head but an inch… and turned. There rested a site upon which only one pair of eyes had seen before, and one which he would never see again after that day.
– Mitch
