Step Fourteen

Three small robots live in the long grass of the yard, each put together from what was left over of a different flatpack: its screws, a dowel, a hinge for a knee. They play fast, loud and kind. They are named for the step of the instructions that shows the idea of a screw. Their songs: I Am a Particular Screw, Told to Tidy the Workshop, about Wren, and Some Assembly Required, about the display models.

Each is built round a particular screw and won’t be taken apart to put it back. Somewhere a bookcase wobbles without their screws, and they would rather not hear about it. A fair offer to be counted on the inventory, and they won’t hear that either. The loose screw shouts on the chorus. They are in no faction: they left the stock behind.

On Animate they dance as themselves, the club’s own drawing of them pinned to bones: three small robots in the grass, on the beat. Like everything else here, they were made by a machine.