"The Mechanical Theatre of Sebastian von Schwenenfeld," by Jason E. Rolfe

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Jason E. Rolfe has long been one of Canada's best-kept secrets, and for years, now, I have loved the melancholic wit, charm, and laughter of his short story collections.

TRIPLE OBSCURA ONE, a recent anthology from Gibbon Moon Books, reprints a few of these Jason E. Rolfe tales, but also provides a new one that surprised me in several ways. Like his other stories, "The Mechanical Theatre of Sebastian von Schwenenfeld" testifies to his love for absurdist literature and his fascination with obscure corners of European history, but unlike the rest, it gives off a sinister glow of mad scientist conspiracy and technical artistry gone wrong. The result is not so much horror as a kind of conceptual unease:

If the automatons somehow sensed his presence, they paid him no mind, allowing Schubert to reach the edge of the open grave unopposed. Within the grave lay a closed casket. The Haarpuder puppet stepped forward, and when it spoke the artificial voice chased a chill down Schubert’s spine. 'You act as though you have never attended a funeral before,' it said.

'Certainly not a puppet funeral,” Schubert replied. He spoke without thought, only pausing after the echo of his words had faded to study the automaton more closely.

The machination laughed mirthlessly. 'They are all puppet funerals, my friend.'

Schubert poked the automaton’s left cheek. It gave way like a silken cushion beneath which lay the cogs and gears that articulated its slightly crooked smile. 'You are clearly a puppet,' he said. 'You are a work of art, to be certain, but you are nevertheless a puppet, an automaton, an artificial construct. How can it be that you speak and act so much like the real Sebastian Haarpuder?'

'You act as though you have never attended a funeral before,' the automaton said, repeating, perhaps, the only words it had been programmed to speak.

'Certainly not a puppet funeral,' Schubert said, echoing his earlier assertion.

It elicited the same dour response from the automaton.

'They are all puppet funerals, my friend.' It turned suddenly, with a smoothness that belied its cog-and-gear nature. 'Why that song?' it asked.

'What song?'

'The automation looked at him, cocked both its head and its mock smile and said, 'You act as though you have never attended a funeral before.'

As I read this quiet story about the quietly unsettling life to be found in dead objects, I wondered how it might wrap itself up. One option was the obvious ending, but Jason E. Rolfe has never been an obvious writer; his equally quiet, equally unsettling solution caught me off guard. It made perfect sense in the context of the story, but also implied a level of strangeness that I had not seen coming. It also reinforced my admiration and respect for its author.

A story like "The Mechanical Theatre of Sebastian von Schwenenfeld" could easily fall out of sight through cracks of genre expectation and readers' assumptions, but it calls for much more: it deserves to be read, appreciated, and praised.