Nancy Baker was an aspiring soul
Who worked hard towards any goal.
It was deep in the dead of a summer night
When Nancy let her machines take flight.
On the same day that her creations flied,
Nancy Baker committed suicide.
The town mourned and her parents sighed,
And friends came and friends cried,
And some paid no heed to her passing,
And some just came and burst out laughing!
Time had passed and on a another day,
Her machines came back and had something to say.
They followed Nancy’s classmates to school,
Powered only by some vengeful fuel.
They hovered like still life, forever to stay;
Stagnant and somber, they never went away.
The machines just pointed their metal claws around
With their neon signs that were deafening loud.
“John Doe Killed Nancy Baker” it said,
In a bold front that was painted blood red.
“Jane Doe Killed Nancy Baker” another wrote,
The targets assigned from Nancy’s final note.
And any kid who didn’t own a machine,
Faced the apparent abuse that had gone unseen.
But many were stumped over this blame,
For some only knew of Nancy’s name.
Others had been good friends and peers,
Who had loved Nancy for many years.
But it didn’t matter in the eyes of the rest;
If they had a machine, then they were a pest.
It didn’t matter if they were incredibly kind;
Nancy said they did it, so they were fined.
No one cared if they had some excuse;
Nancy said otherwise, so it was no use.
The machines that followed couldn’t possibly lie!
So the people they followed caused Nancy to die.
And outside of school, the townspeople beat
The ones who had caused a poor child’s defeat.
The townsfolk refused to serve them any plate:
“Those kids deserve prison!” “They deserve a horrid fate!”
No pity flew in any of their directions;
They were only seen as the town’s putrid infections.
This their title ’til their bones melted to paste,
Even millennia after the machines were laid to waste.
The words lied on their tombs engraved:
“To these machines—and Nancy—they were enslaved.”
And the blame grew past the town’s attacks,
Like a heavy tumor growing on all their backs.
Because, even if they didn’t cause her death,
Nancy said they did, so they held their breath,
And sunk deeper and deeper into self doubt
With only opposition to help them out.
Their attempts at redemption were never met,
Holding themselves back by their own mindset.
Nancy Baker lived on in thought,
Like a scar too present to be forgot;
Like a wound too deep to ever heal;
Like the catch to an undesired deal.
It years and years after Nancy Baker had died,
When the town had received more cases of suicide.
Free and Unexplained 