Keep on the Borderlands; III

As a child they said to me, “You have no place in this atmosphere,” and they said to me, “Did you make any friends today?” and I looked away, preferring to pretend that I had not heard and hasten home to be alone once more forever.

The apothecaries were summoned, as you might imagine. I was given tests. I was measured in this way and in that way. Solutions were proposed.

The meat suit was mine.

Dinners were a hurried affair, brisk but inclined toward added value and ventures undertaken to better know my sisters and myself. “Families who eat together stay together,” Mother would often say, thinking back to lonesome nights alone with a heavy pan and mewling brethren, father heedless and her own mother bested by another spell. In her heart she dreamed of future construction.

Big would eyeball the table’s length and call out our lapses in protocol. We had done too much of this and too little of that. She would use her napkin and then use my father’s, too engrossed to spare attention on her own place and missing forkfuls, staining blouses.

Little did her best to eat nothing. Portions were separated, divided into smaller and smaller pieces, presumably to create the impression that their total volume had decreased somehow. She would tuck the odd nugget of food beneath her napkin, a floret up under the table ledge, a crust into the dog’s mouth.

I employed similar methods but with meat specifically. Only the smallest slivers could be safely secreted into pocket or sock without raising suspicion. The suit would require so much more meat than I had originally thought and I had found no other means of procurement, so gather I did hungry or no. It was a slow process and my digestion suffered for it.

Assembly took like forever and the thing basically stank. Movement was accomplished by means of metal rods driven through each appendage and waxed line cables connecting each to the series of levers operated from the driver’s recess, a pod of sorts inside the construct’s abdomen. It was simple and inelegant, driven less by clever mechanics than by the necromancy I was at last resigned to employ. That is how such things begin, I suppose. Mike and I at the library had found a record on which Vincent Price explained how such things might be accomplished and we dutifully transcribed each line, marking intonation, together planning to attack Saddam Hussein with death magic when we were better men. From Vincent’s clues I puzzled out some elementary principles, the rudiments of offhand cantrip and simple countryside nonsense, Mike having already forsaken the whole project as unseemly. And it was. With tubes down the throat and another astride my crotch I wondered again at the wisdom of this course, if it was not better to simply play alone.

I lumbered out into the company of others and they said to me, “Ambient temperature seventy-six degrees,” and they said to me, “All systems nominal.”

Camera Phone

The leg extended past my corner position to bisect the distance between where the body had begun and the chair beside me. The passage was cramped enough to cause some discomfort. Her pitch rose and fell, delighted exhalation fixated upon the squeaking visage camouflaged in paints and arching brow. Body followed leg and settled in the vacant seat while arms slapped at the air like carp to best illumine some special moment of dialogue. Then, greetings having been properly observed, it was time to consider other matters.

“Do you want to see what I’m doing for my birthday? Are you sure?”

“Uh, I guess?” replied the newly seated.

The first waggled at the phone for a moment and then held out the screen triumphantly. “This!”

“Oh, my God! It’s so big!”

“Yeah,” she cooed. “His name is…flying into New York to meet me…I’m not going to marry him, I’ve just always liked big guys…”

You can still see the hull breach where the initial damage occurred. Cracks, especially under the eyes about which foundation could do nothing. Pretty shoddy workmanship. I hunkered over the table and busied my hands.

The lighting bristled overhead, collecting the microbial plant and animal life that thrive here in teeming clouds of umber vapor. They move about under the auspice of hidden barometric pockets and unfelt winds. I often catch the others glancing up but we never discuss this. We don’t really discuss much, actually. I prefer that to the alternative. It’s okay because I belong in Halloween Town. I am necessary.

The windows behind were rimmed in frost. Beyond that the ground fell away. Crepe paper bats rotated in the squinting light.