The first thing that you notice as you enter the club is the presence of hundreds of fireflies with blacklight tails, all signaling in synchronicity with a source of bass somewhere deep below. The bouncer stares at you expectantly while holding a jar full of transparent fluid. Mimicking those ahead of you in line, you reach through your own chest and withdraw your heart.
In their adult form, stealth butterflies possess a single black wing that never flutters, and a long, spiral tongue tipped with a microphone. Rather than indulging in the succulence hidden within flowers, they prefer the auditory nectars of the human voice. They travel from window to window in swarms, pressing their tessellated bellies against any surface that will resonate.
Old-fashioned petroleum no longer satisfies the refined palette of automobiles in the Red City. Having gained a taste for artisanal gasoline, they often refuse to be driven if not partaking of the highest quality of fuel. While their habits are expensive, they also seem to have significantly reduced rush hour traffic.
The art of building a properly functioning scarecrow is largely forgotten. Most that exist today are merely decoys, unable to hunt pheasants or play mandolins like their forerunners. Even so, every now and then, reports emerge of straw men wandering the land of their own accord.
Jukeboxes are unique in that, unlike other coin-operated machines, they do not give up the earnings that they swallow. Dissections by electrobiologists have revealed that their neon intestines digest the various metals used, leaving only their immaterial value behind. It is unclear what becomes of this abstract remainder, but it is believed to return to circulation once this process is complete.
The jar of Kraken’s ink on the shelf appears slightly more transparent than the empty space that surrounds it. The glass itself seems to have no thickness, and along some parts of its surface, appears to not even exist at all. This is because unlike other species of squid whose ink absorbs light, the Kraken’s ink rejects light altogether, and spits it out slightly faster than the speed at which it entered.
Humans have their nerves, robots have their wires, and puppets have their strings. The last of these is the odd one out for two critical reasons: in addition to the lack of an animating force, puppets have the misfortune of their nervous systems existing outside their bodies. This nakedness prevents them from achieving true autonomy, as their motions must be granted to them by creatures of a higher order.
The flintlock brain is a primitive form of artificial intelligence loaded inside of an iron mannequin. Knots of jellied sawdust are formed around copper wires, which themselves are coated with black gunpowder. The hammer and frizzen of the firing mechanism rest between its two lobes, typically positioned so that they can remain exposed outside the android’s metal skull.