The Morlocks were Right

“Maybe the Morlocks were onto something,” said Lawrence. He flipped through the TV stations. At each flip of the channel, each News program described the chaos, death and vast troubles of a crumbling world. He thought about H. G. Wells as the TV screen images changed from commentator to violence, to political unrest, to plague stories, back to a commentator.

H.G. Wells envisioned a race of underground dwellers, The Morlocks, who survived by eating the surface-dwelling Eloi in his book, The Time Machine.  The Eloi were human cattle, bred purely to sustain the Morlocks while the Morlocks ran all the underground infrastructure, machinery and crop production.

The Eloi were Human. The Morlocks were once Human. Humanity split in two through tragedy, necessity and chaos. Of course, that tragedy was nuclear war. Still, the chaos was familiar, for Lawrence anyway. He looked at the bag of Cool Ranch potato chips to his left and wondered if it would be funny if it read, “Eloi Chips – Now more Ranch!”

                Lawrence closed the bag of chips and stood up from his sofa. He stretched his arms up toward the ceiling. “I’ve been sitting too long,” he said to the empty room. His back felt cramped and sore from all the sitting he’d been doing. He wasn’t exactly a pro athlete but he wasn’t completely out of shape. Shape being a relative term as far as he believed.

                He walked from his living room to the kitchen and put the potato chips away in the cupboard and looked out his kitchen window. Trees were rustling in the summer breeze, someone in the neighborhood was mowing their lawn and the growling law mower echoed through the houses. It was such a contrast to the fires and plagues reported on the news to the near idyllic peacefulness of Lawrence’s neighborhood. A bird flew past the window, flirting for another bird it seems. Performing acrobatic stunts in great loops before landing back in the tree, next to its object of affection. Seemed so normal to Lawrence.

                “How can the world be crumbling with all this beauty around,” asked Lawrence.

                He went to his refrigerator, felt the coolness on his legs, grabbed a cold beer. He opened it and took a long refreshing sip. He tossed the bottle cap toward his garbage can.  Lawrence looked at the pile of dirty dishes in the kitchen sink and considered washing them. It would only take a few moments to do. Yet, he resisted. It seemed like such a mundane task at the edge of the end of the world.  

                “Would the Morlocks do the dishes, or would that be an Eloi task,” wondered Lawrence. Most of what he remembered about The Time Machine story was from the 1960 film adaptation. He’d seen it when he was a kid and remembered falling in love with Yvette Mimieux. She played the beautiful Eloi named Weena. Lawrence was hooked on blondes ever since. He had read the book at some point after seeing the movie, but the movie imagery stuck with him far more than the book did.

                “I think the Eloi were too dumb to do dishes,” said Lawrence, “they didn’t know anything about the world. The Morlocks provided them with everything. Yeah, I guess dishes were a Morlock task.”

                Lawrence put his beer on the counter next to the sink and turned the faucet on. He got the dish soap and squirted it all over the pile of dishes. Lemon scented soap filled the air and a few small bubbles floated up. Lawrence popped them.  He took another sip of his beer as the sink filled with soapy water.

“If only the world could be cleaned up as easily,” thought Lawrence.  He grabbed the sponge and began.