the great machine from hologram of baal

i was in a cafe with a girl with red hair, drinking a coconut juice drink while she had a moroccan iced tea, which looked lovely, all those dark green mint leaves floating amongst the crystalline ice cubes.  

we were thinking about a future together, something i seldom do but it seemed appropriate given we in love, she had galaxies in her eyes and i could spend my whole life just lost in them, discovering all the places i'd ever wanted to visit. my mouth was just about to say something life changing then someone pulled the plug, it all went, crazy, people started running to the windows, food fell onto the floor and wine glasses shattered, someone pointed at the crowds of people shuffling along the road. hundreds of people, mostly men dressed in scruffy clothes, they were beggars, jokers, the mad crazed poets, minstrels and circus girls, buskers and artists unshaven, weary, tired people all running past us towards the church,  the big old ornate building with the beautiful gardens and angelic sculptures towering high in the graveyard. i watched the crowd clamber over the walls and the girl with red hair snuck her hand into mine, and i felt a squeeze and squeezed back with an intense emotion and a little fear. we were uncertain what was happening but whatever it was, we were in it together, the adventurous spirit cruised through our blood and  

we ran out onto the streets and above us hundreds of mobile phones started falling down from the skies, ipods and mp3 players, they just fell and bounced clattering as they hit the concrete some broke open spilling out technological entrails but most seemed to be fine, the ones that fell in gardens and on people all appeared intact. i watched the horde swarm into a wedding party, the bride started to protest but her groom just fell to the floor and turned into a pool of liquid. 

panic on the streets, everyone running towards the church, people pouring out of shops, offices and cars, i look over at the train station as hordes of commuters pour out onto the streets, some people looked terrified, other's shocked, a woman with a pram just held her child close to her and a guy in a suit fell to his knees and put his hands in his head. 
fuck, five years i think, this is more like five hours or five minites. 
amongst all the cacophony of sound i can make out a faint voice singing out of a mobile phone laying on the floor.
the redhead points to a group of women drinking tea, they all laugh hysterically, they look strangely distorted, like old transvestites holding a tea party, caked in mascara and smudged lipstick, it's a bizarre scene, they carry on laughing and shrieking while around them hysteria rises.

i grab someone's arm, 'what's going on?'

he shakes himself away from my grip and gives me a hateful glance but no answers, runs off towards the church square, i notice the laughing ladies are beginning to walk towards the church as well.

a black guy rolling a spliff next to me picks up a phone and passes it to me, there's a song playing, the same one as before, i notice it's playing from all the ipods and phones, as they fall down the sound grows louder, being played at exactly the same time, the words are heard everywhere now just like some strange contemporary chapter from exodus, the voice of an invisible presence. i stand there listening to the haunting voice, the strange etherial music emitted from all around us.

thick black smoke starts to rise from a building across the road, cars swerve, i hear a burst of sirens and gunshots, i hear screaming, howling, whimpering, desperate expressions of helplessness, shouts of parents gathering children in their arms, cars stopping suddenly as the edge of chaos slips through their windows and doors. 
we look up and see the terrible crack in the sky, it's splitting across the fabric of the stratosphere, snow starts to fall through and the temperature drops very fast, straight into the negatives as heat gets sucked out from the mighty crack above our heads.
my mind is caught in paralysis, fight or flee, but there's nothing to fight, nowhere to flee, i do the only thing left to do. i gently take the girl with the red hair and kiss her on the lips, she puts her hands on my cheeks and holds my head steadily nose against nose and we look into one another's eyes...the day they turned off the great machine.