Monster Commute – a Traffic Novel

Monstru Pirate Radio (MPR) Interviews Chadworth Machine (CM)

Monstru Pirate Radio logo

MPR: Hello, Chadworth. Thanks for joining us today.

CM: Sure. It’s your radio.

MPR: (Laughs) Yes it is.

MPR: So, tell us a little about your background. How did you come to be an undead droid?

CM: I’d rather not talk about it.

MPR: Well, this is going to be a rather short interview, don’t you think?

CM: Okay, so I wasn’t always a robot.

I was a manling, once upon a time. A flesh-and-blood, feeling, manling.

Then, I was in a war, and everybody I knew got killed. (Except for me.) I was turned into a glowing green fire skull ghost, and I forgot about my wife, and my friends, the war, and my nation, and everything else. I just hungered for fear, pain, and sorrow, in that order.

After about 10 years of this an inventor came along, and stuffed my haunted skull into this iso-suit.

And then he died too.

CM: Happy?

MPR: (Coughing) Ummm… alright. well, that sounds a little traumatic.

CM: You could say that. (GET OUT OF THE ROAD!)

CM: Sorry.

MPR: Well, ummm… (shuffling paper) Most recently, you were on the “Top Ten Unpatriots of the AUTHORITY” list. What has that been like?

CM: I guess you could say that I like a challenge. It’s been fine, though the CrowNots have been getting a bit closer as time has gone on. It’s fairly exhausting.

I really want the listeners to know that we’re 100% innocent.

MPR: You realize that’s what all of our guests say, right?

CM: This time, it’s true. All I ever did was offer Toni Oni a standard coal bribe. That’s it. He went and stroked some CrowBot General and heated up the pot. Now, Beastio and me are wanted men.

MPR: What about your wife, Baba Jaga? She seems a bit angry with you, too.

CM: Wouldn’t you be mad if the love of your life went and joined some stupid war against your will, for what became an empty cause, and then got himself mostly killed?

I deserve that lady’s wrath, every ounce.

MPR: What’s your life like, today?

CM: I just sit behind the steering wheel of a rickety old van all day, and hope that today she doesn’t give out on me.

MPR: You mean like how you gave out on Jaga?

(Sound of radio hitting wall, squelch, and then white noise)

MPR: Oh! We’ve got a bad connection.

MPR: We’ve been talking with Chadworth Machine, a highway pirate and an independant member of the Authority Resistance.

MPR: Next up: stew that you can cook on the engine block of your car!

MPR: This is MPR.