Beep - Matthew took two wires and touched them together - beep beep - and the machine began to huff and whirr with hard thought. He replaced the floorboard.
Beep - Matthew moved the cupboard away from the wall, a gap large enough for his arm - beep beep - he reached through and after a little searching his fingers found the switch. there was a buzz, followed by clicks.
Beep - below the sink there was a panel with three small bulbs that shined a solid red - beep beep - Matthew took a wire from his pocket, he attached one to a fastening below the lights, and one into a socket in the corner of the cupboard. The lights began to flash green.
In the walls and the floor and in the air the flat was full of electronic clicks and whirrs. The hairs on Matthews arms stood up and he raised a small smile. This was the work of his life so far. Though the achievement of this machine would pale in significance once it fulfilled its purpose.
He sat down at his computer, and he began to set problems for his home to solve. He would not stand up until it was dark outside. It was six in the morning, and the remnants of the dawn chorus still made themselves heard against the oscillating resonance of the machine.
---
At the wedding two years ago he had wondered at the beautiful bride. The chestnut shine in her hair that seemed to curl and twist in impossible grace. The day must have been designed to make him ache, because each moment brought only more longing, envy and dissatisfaction.
He ate a grape, and put a piece of cheese on an oatcake. He drank some red wine. He was feeling the eye tightness of an afternoon of drinking in summer sun. He let his head droop onto the shoulder of the friend beside him. They shrugged him off “Have a glass of water Matty, maybe some fresh air, they haven’t even had their first dance - you can’t sleep yet.”
Matthew followed the instructions from his old friend obediently and poured himself a glass of water before stepping outside of the marquee. It was turning dark. The view stretched for miles. You could see in the distant west where the sun still illuminated the sky. Above the stars were already bright white points pushed through the dark ceiling.
He stood there for some time, sketching invisible lines between the stars, building himself new constellations. One a curl of auburn hair, another a perfect blue eye, another a pair of welcoming lips. Without hardly thinking he figured a story of a bride made undying as the night sky. The sky became so luscious and wanting as he wove a denser tale for himself, here was the woman that he had hoped to meet that evening.
Grasped by sudden nausea he made his way towards the porta-loo. It only seemed to grow further away, so he veered towards the hedgerow that marked the edge of the field. He felt secured by the gloom there as he emptied himself in a series of full body retches. He rose to his feet and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He found chewing gum in his pocket and turned to return to the marquee, where the band were testing their sound. He felt amazing.
The bride and groom circled the room to a flimsy tune. Matthew followed them adoringly, the groom had been his friend and hero since they had been at school. The bride had never been real, too much, too glossy to be true. Matthew had never broken the enamel surface to learn anything about her.
His eyes passed to the other women who watched the pair dance. He swayed - unsteady but in time to the tune. He considered each in turn, old and young, he wondered who would love him, given the chance. As people joined the dance floor he turned away to get a drink. A whisky to cut through the gruesome fuzz that filled his body and mind.
He found a place to sit down where two smiling people engaged in conversation. He watched them curiously. Where was the unrequited love that ruined their evening? Where was the lust that made them petty and foolish? And where was the thick layer of alcohol affecting their movement and speech?
He didn’t know these creatures - Matthew believed, that a person at a party must be riven by self doubt and self hatred compounded by alcohol. This is the only way it could be. He listened in to what they said, which could only be revelatory and strange.
The one called Jim explained that he was a scholar of ‘complex systems’. He explained that in Stockholm he spent his time figuring out different ways to create ‘models’ some kind of means to make a machine predict likely outcomes from a given scenario. The other, called Fiona, who was an anthropologist, asked how you could possibly account for human behaviour in such a way. “For one thing it presumes that we are rational actors, or at least our rational actions are based on individual motivations no?”
“Erm...” Jim replied, and said the thing that would blow Matthew’s delicate mind, “Well - I think you’re right, thats true, with many models, but I think we can build models that incorporate that. Models that allow for irrational behaviour, for complex networks of influence. I think we could make a model that would tell you an awful lot about something as intangible as love.”
Matthew froze and hardly listened when Fiona replied leaning towards Jim and smiling; “But not everything about love.”
Matthew knew that the two of them were deranged. But as he steadied himself on the table to stand up and head to the bar he also knew that there was something worth remembering. With the last few hertz of computational power that his mind retained he stored away that conversation so that he could use it again.
---
Beep Beep.
Beep.
It had taken two years, but now the machine was finally calling in response to Matthew’s enquiries. He had built it in the walls and beneath the floors of his flat whilst his flatmates were out. They would be away for two weeks now, the lovers. So he alone occupied his machine.
He had finished building the behemoth six months ago. A system to help break every barrier that lay between Matthew and a person to love him. It had taken him another six weeks to complete its programming. When his flatmates were away he would turn it on and work all hours, or sometimes he would just let the machine watch him as he went about his day. He needed the machine to understand him, what it would mean to be able to love him.
He had taught the machine how to reach out into the internet and learn what it could from the patterns that replicated themselves again and again. Boy meets girl... and so on... The machine learned to find the data it wanted and soon it was able to start churning through the variables and constants that meant a relationship would live or die.
The machine just wanted Matthew to be happy, Matthew had made it that way. Altruism born of selfishness.
Beep.
Now it was singing out to its maker who woke with a start. He had fallen asleep with the thrum of the machine around him. He went over to his computer, the hidden door to this whole operation, and he saw it flashing eagerly with news.
Matthew had not been sure exactly what he would do given the information he asked for. He had set the machine going the night before with a request for a list of names of women that could love him given the chance, and that he might love in return.
However when he looked at the screen, for all its triumphant beeping and flashing it just said “Negative”. It had trailed the internet for evidence of women that would be a perfect lover for him and it had found no body. Not a sausage.
---
Fiona woke beside Jim. She had been with him for two years, she knew that he had bought a ring, and she knew the cheesy proposal that their trip to Paris would bring. She was pleased.
He woke and looked at her, he loved her absolutely - he was sure of it. He farted and drowsily asked her to go and run a bath. “If you made a model for us, she said, I don’t think it would be able to account for the fact that I still love you.”
“And why is that?” he asked innocently.
“You are an oaf, we disagree about politics, and my family hate you, there’s three for starters.”
“Love is the most complex system” he claimed in a grand tone, “but I can imagine a model that could account for it, if it could know that the most correct solution might also be the most flawed.”
---
Beep beep. Matthew began to re-program the machine. He would rewrite it and ask it again. He would repeat until it brought him someone he loved, he just had to get the model right.