Uriel's Machine

June 13th

Father made me write a journal. He said I was getting in the way of business and that my brothers could not babysit me all the time, that they had work to do to make sure that the family was safe and happy. I always disliked the term family and so does big brother Luu.
Hello Mr. Journal, my name is Uri and I’m very pleased to meet you. Well, not really, I was just taught to be polite to new friends by father. I don’t want any friends though; I have seven brothers to play with.

My brothers are very hard working and only Luu ever plays with me. Father says that as a teenager he is in his rebellious stage and that he will calm down soon and be as responsible as Gab. I doubt Luu would ever change. And I wouldn’t want him to. Luu takes care of me and ‘Ara, plays with us and makes sure we never get in trouble, he always takes the blame for our mischief.

But I should continue telling you about me right? Well I’m the youngest in my family, I am also the only one not allowed outside yet. It makes me sad because I hear Gab’s stories about how pretty it is and how nice it is to feel the sun on one’s face. I have a fixation with __________ names into three letter words and with taking apart and rebuilding small _________ my brothers bring me from the outside world. I am __________ to play __________ fire. For ____________ that really __________

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I heard a loud explosion and a shout. The translator probably blew up again and Felipe is demonstrating his frustration. I can hear his footsteps as he stomps in my direction. The lab door slams open.

- Again, this piece of shit blew up again! Henrique, how many times is it going to almost obliterate half of my face before it works correctly?

- It’s a delicate machine and you do not need to hold your face so close to it while using it. It has a built-in speaker and does not need any further handling aside from placing it on top of the book’s console.

- Henrique if I don’t stand close to it all I hear is some brat speaking in gibberish.

I give my employer a cold stare. I do not like his tone when referring to the voice that hums out of the machine. It is but a child expressing his thoughts.

- …I suggest you let me fix it and go take a break.

Felipe leaves the room without a word. This pleases me since I am in no mood for bickering. Which is a bad thing if you work for Felipe Salazar, who’s speech consists mainly in bickering with everyone he encounters to the point that he has gotten his nose broken more than once. It doesn’t make him any less attractive though: strong jaw combined with nice deep cheek bones, dark skin, a bit of stubble, green eyes and short dark brown hair. He’d get lucky here in Italy if only he learned how to keep his mouth shut on some occasions.

For instances when he called my former employer a capitalist slut who made her living due to her 24/7 open legs policy.

She was a 50 something year old who managed her son’s cyber café.

I got fired for punching Henrique in the chest. He hired me because "People don’t usually go for the heart because they’re afraid of the consequences of killing another human being. You should work for me kid, the pay’s good and it will look great in your resume".

Now I’m stuffed in a makeshift lab 20ft below the surface somewhere in Vatican City with a man a decade older than me and a poor intern that has no idea what he has gotten himself into.

- Are you finished yet?

Felipe is back and stands behind me literally breathing onto my neck. Such impatience, it borders on rudeness. Disregard that, it is rudeness, Felipe is made of crude humor, bar fights and rudeness.

- Just a few more minutes and it should be fixed.

- I don’t have your time Henrique. I can’t have that thing crap out on me every time I try to move onto recent entries.

- Maybe the book wants you to listen to it orderly.

- Like I give a fuck about what it wants, just fix the damn translator.

I stay quiet at this. Felipe works for the Church and I work for Felipe. That is that, if I get fired again I might as well leave the country because Felipe would make my life hell.

Fabiano who has been sleeping on a futon in the farthest corner of the lab room seems to have awakened and observes Felipe with a predatory glare and a smirk; the beginning of a fight.

- I hear bitching; did Felipe run out of smokes again?

- Screw you and the shitmobile you came in intern boy.

- I'm just here to cooperate and gain experience old man. Calm your ink jets.

- You don’t even know what we’re doing here! And ink jets?

- That’s because every time I ask you to explain you flip your shit at me!

- Ask Henrique then!

- That’s what I plan to do.

- I can’t imagine why you didn’t do it sooner except the fact that you’re a lazy bitch.

- Says the guy that sulks in dark rooms as Henrique does all the work.

- THAT IS ENOUGH. Fabiano stop, do not defy your boss like that. Felipe he is only a child you don’t need to speak to him so harshly. Here, the translator is fixed, Fabiano sit next to me, I will explain.