Piece of Cake

“And don’t forget to pick up my cake!”

Helen’s voice was shrill even from a floor away. Renold sighed and walked out to his truck, trying to keep the list of things he had to get in his head. Not only did he have to stop and pick up a variety of parts to fix the leaking sink, he also had to pick up some groceries and medicine.

And now she wanted her cake on top of it?

Renold gingerly climbed into the truck. At nearing eighty years on this earth, he found going out and running errands took more and more effort each time. His hips ached and feet and hands were cold no matter how many layers he seemed to wear.

Renold drove through the snowy streets down to the hardware store in town to pick up some drain cleaner, a few lengths of pipe, some washers and bolts. Next door was the grocers, where he picked up the fixings for a big pot of ham bone soup and his next batch of insulin.

Then was the long trek to the bakery to pick up Helen’s blasted cake. She wouldn’t settle for just any cake, store bought or made at home. No, he had to go to a small, ornate bakery twenty minutes away on the other side of town. He wasn’t sure who was the bigger fool: her for thinking the trip was worth it or him for making it despite knowing better.

Ah, the joys of marriage.

He pulled up to the bakery and entered. Just like they did every week, the young girls on staff welcomed him in. He had been coming here like clockwork for over a decade now.

“Good morning, Mr. Irving,” the girl at the register said as he came in. He couldn’t remember if her name was Naomi or Kelly, his glasses too fogged up from coming in from the cold to fake it and make out her nametag.

“It’s certainly been a morning. Nobody knows how to drive in this weather.”

“Well me about it,” she said. “I had someone take off my mirror the other day trying to change lanes into me.”

Renold did a good job feigning alarm. “I hope you’re okay.”

“Yeah, thankfully they were quick about getting back into their own lane, and I was quick about noting their license plate. But once there’s snow on the streets you better believe everyone’s going to lose their minds.”

“Anyway, can I get a piece of your cheesecake, to go?”

“Certainly,” she said, heading over to the glass display case and pulling out the cake. “You sure you don’t want anything for yourself?’

“I can’t,” Renold said. “With the diabetus and all.” He pronounced it with all the Brimley-esque nobility he could, mostly because he knew the young girls here thought it was funny when he did so. He was rewarded with a smile and a small laugh for his trouble.”

“We have sugar free stuff, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” he said. “But you wouldn’t sit a starving man in front of a banquet and tell him he can have a saltine, would you?”

“Of course not, but … oh,” she said, his comparison dawning on her. She shook her head. “I can only imagine. Why come in here, then?”

“The missus insists this is the best in town, and heaven knows that after fifty years I’m pretty sure it’s just the liberal application of baked goods that really keeps a marriage together.”

The girl cut off a slice and boxed it up like they did every week. “Well, your wife at least has good taste,” she said, giving him a big grin. He had the good taste to look a little embarrassed.

“Thanks,” he said, paying for the slice of cake. “Have a good day.”

“You too,” she called after him. “See you next week.”

* * *

Renold sat all the bags he had brought on the kitchen table. From the floor above him, Helen’s voice called down. “You got my cake?”

“Of course,” Renold said loudly, trying not to let the frown on his face show in his voice.

“Bring it up!”

“I will,” he said, looking at the bags before him. “Give me a second. I have to put this stuff away.”

“Don’t take too long,” she said, her voice drifting off. Renold got to work putting all the tools out for when he’d need them later. Then he got out his syringe and gave himself his scheduled dose of insulin. Once he was done, however, he didn’t immediately pack up his stuff. Instead, he looked at the things spread out on the table. And he popped open the lid to the drain cleaner and dipped the needle into the liquid, pulling up the plunger and with it some of the noxious looking blue liquid.

He turned and opened up the box with the cake. The needle slid in, so tiny it wouldn’t leave a mark. Renold depressed the plunger in a few spots, little drops of the cleaner that quickly diffused into the cake. He had been doing this long enough that he knew just which type to buy that it didn’t taste funny. She certainly hadn’t noticed by now, and he expected she was far too gone to at this point.

That done, he tossed the needle in his hazard bin and washed the syringe well. It wouldn’t do to have traces of that cleaner in the syringe when he used it. That stuff was dangerous!

His medical supplies safely put away, he grabbed a fork and took the box containing the cake up to Helen’s bedroom. Soon she would be happily eating her weekly treat, then she’d lay back down feeling ill and he could have piece for a few hours longer.

Cake really was the glue that held a marriage together.

Departure

The final convoy was ready.  A thousand souls in a number of trucks and busses, all set to begin their trek to the East.  The previous convoy had left several days ago and with it a sense of accomplishment had fallen over this group.  They had done it.  The hard part, in many ways, was over. 

“Governor,” the driver of the main bus spoke up, “we’re ready to depart at your word.” 

Ramirez nodded.  He had a hard time thinking of himself as the governor who had been sworn in years before, back when his biggest worry had been providing jobs for the booming population of his state.  That seemed like a trivial concern, now.  There wasn’t a state left, his population dead or fled or worse.  But everyone still insisted on calling him governor.  If that’s what they needed to feel better, who was he to dissuade them? 

“Give me a second,” Ramirez said.  “I’d like to say a final word to the Major and his men.” 

The driver nodded and Ramirez climbed down from the bus.  He looked at the convoy stretching behind them, a wide fairground that was jammed full of every variety of passenger and cargo vehicles. It could have been a state fair or big music festival.  Ramirez wondered if people would ever have something like that again. Instead the razor-wire fences and sentry scaffolds gave it the grim look of a prison camp. 

Major Hayes stepped forward as Ramirez approached.  “Governor. Is anything wrong?”

“No, no, nothing wrong,” he said with a thin smile.  “We’re just about ready to go.  I just wanted to take a moment and talk to you and your men before we leave, if you don’t mind.” 

“Sure thing,” Hayes said.  He turned to the speaker system panel and pressed a button.  The PA system they had set up all over the compound crackled to life.  “Hayes here.  I have the Governor here on the line, he wants to say a few words before the last train pulls out of the station.”

Several of the other soldiers who were nearby gathered around Ramirez.  They had been here for weeks now, gathering resources and preparing the convoys. Each departure had been painful for this young circumstantial family, but this one had affected both sides most of all. 

“I just wanted to say a small piece,” Ramirez began, “since nobody knows if any of us will ever meet again in this world. In the past few weeks we’ve all been through hell and back, seeing the worst nightmares of our society come true.  It is enough to try a man’s soul.

“We all grew up watching movies about these exact situations, every time following the same tired clichés.  People turning to madness.  Paranoia.  Scientists being evil or lynched by panicked mobs. And a military that can’t be trusted. Soldiers turning on citizens.”

The soldiers all shifted uncomfortably.  The integration of thousands of civilians and a bunch of on-edge soldiers had initially been rough. Ramirez knew it, the soldiers knew it. But it had been an unspoken tension until now.

“But we all know, despite the events of the past few weeks, that real life isn’t fiction.  We’ve been organized and efficient.  We’ve acted like people, not animals.  And despite all of the trouble the remnants of California have caused all of you, each and every one of you has acted in the most honorable way.

“When we leave, you’ll have nothing left but your own self-reliance. But I don’t doubt that it will carry you.  You have been a shining example of the best we have to offer, of the power of humanity in the face of these monsters. 

“You are all heroes. You are all the good guys.  Never forget that.  Without you, none of us would be here right now.  There are no words for the gratitude I feel. In many ways, you all have become the saviors of humanity, or at least this small sliver of it.

“There’s no telling what’s out there. But hopefully, someday, we’ll meet up again.  Good luck, and godspeed.” 

The soldiers nearby all snapped off a salute as Ramirez turned off the PA.  Major Hayes turned to face Ramirez, extending his hand.  “Good luck to you and yours, Governor.  Remember what I told you about firing a weapon.”

“I hope it won’t come to that.”

“So do I,” Hayes said. “Let’s hope your road is clear.”

“If it isn’t, we’ll find a way.  That’s all we have left to do,” Ramirez said.  He motioned towards the lead bus, the heavy plow that had been welded to the front of it.  With a smile, he nodded to the saluting soldiers, turned on his heel, and went back to the bus.  With a blast of the horn, the motor started up, and soon the entire convoy was the deep rumble of dozens of engines. 

Major Hayes watched as the convoy slowly began to roll out, though the whole thing would take hours.  He instead turned and headed back into the main compound.  Even left alone, there were still the mass of things coming out of the woods. There was still the pile of bodies they had to burn, thousands of mangled human forms, each with a gruesome rifle shot in the head. 

There was no time to be nostalgic for the people who had gone.  Even during the end of the world, there was plenty of work to be done.

English Class, 2598 CE

The students all filed into the Grade 6 Pan-American Literature class.  The timer on the front screen counted down to the beginning of class, the numbers duplicated on each station.  The students talked softly amongst themselves, but as they sat down their talking ceased as they switched back over to the text communications they’d been having in the last class. 

As the numbers ticked down to zero the instruction unit came to life, its dimly illuminated face taking on the vague appearance of a human face and animating.  Its arms came up, and it made an electric noise not entirely unlike clearing its throat.  The students all quieted. 

“Good afternoon, children,” the instruction unit said. 

“Good afternoon, teacher,” the children repeated back out of habit.  None of the teaching units had names because none of them were distinct outside of what class they were teaching at any given time.  But the social ritual had to be upheld all the same.  It developed good manners for the units out in the world that were distinct.

“Today’s lesson is brought to you by Amazon,” the unit began, “with over twenty billion locations on Earth and Luna, Amazon is the galaxy’s largest known retailer. Expand your horizons, take an adventure, all from the comfort of your own computer.  Amazon.” 

The students perfunctorily listened as they continued to type on their workstations.  They had heard this advertisement a thousand times before.  Amazon was the only company that bothered advertising text-novels anymore.

“Now then,” the unit began as the ad ended, “this weekend’s reading assignment was the last part of book two.  Today we’re going to have a discussion about the implications of this book before we head into book three tomorrow.”

There was some groaning from the students, especially the male students.  This was to be expected.  This was a gender-biased literature choice, though within acceptable parameters. 

“Who would like to open discussion?”

One of the boys, a more aggressive type who sat near the front, spoke up first.  “This book sucked worse than the last one.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Nobody acts like that.  She’s just moping around the whole book.  It’s stupid.“

“Now, now,” the unit said.  “It’s not stupid.  You have to remember, this took place in an era where emotional adjustment was done naturally, and often with near-disasterous results.”

“Naturally?” Another student chimed up, this one of the more curious girls.  The teaching unit turned to address her point. 

“Before we began to account for the mood swings of human beings by more harmonious chemical alterations to environment and diet, people were left to deal with their emotional states on their own.  This proved dangerous, especially among adolescents.  There are reports from that time of children not unlike yourselves or unlike the characters in this book indulging in self-mutilation or even suicide.”

The children seemed disturbed by that.  The teaching unit made a note of that, though a certain level of emotional disquiet was to be expected.  The intensity of feeling was one of the reasons this unit was only taught to students once they had reached a certain level of emotional maturity. 

“I like the book,” one of the other students said. 

“Of course you do,” the first boy said.  “You’re a girl.  Lovey dovey stuff is what you do.”

“Now, now,” the teaching unit said.  “We’re not about to indulge in gender stereotyping.  Certainly there are those among your number, Stephen, who would also claim to enjoy the book.”

The boys all looked around for a moment, waiting to see who would step forward and claim to enjoy their material.  Finally one of them spoke up.  “I enjoyed the book,” Daniel said.

“See?”  The teaching unit went on.  “One must remember that such themes as unrequited love are universal.  We could go all the way back to Shakespeare if you wanted to get particularly ancient.  A thousand years ago people were writing the same stories we read and respond to today.”

“But this would never happen,” one of the other girls said.  “I’d never jump off of a cliff for a boy.” 

“You say that now,” the teaching unit said, “but who can tell what will happen?  People do very peculiar things when their infatuations aren’t indulged in.  If you’d like more information, I suggest you watch the film adaptation of the material.”

The students universally rolled their eyes.  The one thing they hated more than ancient Pan-American literature was ancient Pan-American films.  Getting them to sit still for two hours for a non-interactive, flat visual presentation was nearly impossible.  The teaching units had given up even trying to show films to students before their Sophomore year of high school, once the less-intellectual students had moved to more vocation-centered schools. 

“Don’t discount it so readily,” the teaching unit said.  “The films were well-received by fans in their time. They were considered by many to be one of the more successful literary adaptations of the new millennium.  And they can also be seen through your Amazon media subscriptions, free of charge.”

The students shrugged in indifference.  The teacher paid it of no mind.  It was required to work the sponsor in at least three times during the lesson.  How well received the marketing message was was for consumer sociologists to decide. 

“Either way,” the teaching unit continued, “never doubt the impact of romance in human interaction.  It remains a cornerstone of modern media.  This book isn’t that different than Xenthia and The Man With No Body.”

Many of the students nodded.  Stephen, still obviously not engaged in the lesson, spoke up.  “Yeah, but this doesn’t have any space battles.”

“There were no space battles back then, idiot,” one of the girls said. 

“Hey, at least I’m not gaga over a bunch of make believe,” Stephen retorted. 

“Children,” the unit said, its volume increasing to get their attention.  “Do not argue.  We will discuss this in a civil manner or you will both be sent to the administrator for behavioral reprimand. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” the students said. 

“Good,” the unit replied, turning on its wheels and gesturing to the screen where it pulled up the relevant pages of the document.  “Now, if you’ll look at the files on your workstations, we’ll begin with the first part of your assignment for this weekend.  Let’s start with the miscommunication between Bella and Edward, shall we?”

The students listened as attentively as could be expected.  Classical literature was a low-investment class for many.  The teaching unit did its job admirably anyway.  This was education that had to be done to instill culture into young minds, it didn’t mean they had to like it. 

The class continued.

Waterdrops

The faucet continued to leak, despite his best efforts to the contrary.  He had tightened both knobs as much as he could to no effect. He had under tightened them, to the moment before they would start producing water. That didn’t help either.  Instead the only sound in the bathroom was the steady drip drip drip as the faucet contributed its percussive commentary in the otherwise silent bathroom.

He watched the drip from between his knees, the only part of him other than his face that broke the surface of the tub.  Under the water, the sound of the faucet was all-encompassing, the heartbeat of the water, a pounding rhythm that served as the counterpoint to his own inaction.  For every drip, he’d take a breath, until the faucet seemed to be dictating the rhythms of his life more than his own heartbeat. 

At first he was so fixated on this constant reality, narrowed to a single sound and motion, that he couldn’t begin to process anything else.  But over time, as the sound grew more insistent, he heard the knocking that came from outside, the alien sounds from the great beyond, a sharp erratic rat-a-tat of someone insistently knocking on the bathroom door.

He rose above the water slightly, ears exposed to the air, cold and bereft of the womb-like comfort of the bath.  And indeed, here in the open space, the door sounded loud and shrill.  He longed to sink back into the water, but knew that he couldn’t fully retreat.  No, the invasion would continue until he finally relented.  Better to face it. 

“What do you want?”

“You’ve been in there forever.  I need to use the bathroom.”

“Then use the bathroom,” he said.  “I don’t care.”

The door opened and with it came a blast of cold air from the outside.  He instinctively sank into the warm, inviting water.  “Shut the door,” he snapped.  She shut the door behind her. 

“How can you stay in there so long?  Doesn’t your water get cold?” 

He didn’t answer her.  She was questioning him just to nag, not out of any sense of genuine curiosity. He had done this enough that she was well familiar with his ritual of slowly draining off the water and refilling it with fresh, hot water when needed. 

He heard her move over to the toilet and sit down.  He didn’t bother opening his eyes.  There was nothing new to see here.  He did keep his head above water enough to clearly hear her, should she speak.  He felt that was enough consideration. 

“How long are you going to be in there?”

“No idea,” he said softly, a monotone murmur as he tried to focus on the drip of the faucet.  Hard when she was speaking, when he could feel her pointedly looking at him.  He wasn’t ashamed of his nakedness, that would be silly at this point, but the focused attention disrupted the calm watery dissolution of self he was seeking.  “As long as it takes.”

“As long as it takes for what?” 

He couldn’t begin to put what he was seeking into words.  So for a long while, he didn’t answer her.  She didn’t seem too interested in hearing an answer anyway.  But finally he spoke up, raising a hand to gesture to the faucet. 

“The faucet leaks.”

“Well, you should probably fix it,” she said. 

“That’s not what I meant,” he said, trying to compose his thoughts.  “I lie here and I can hear the dripping of the faucet, but each drop doesn’t really amount to anything.  I can’t tell that the faucet’s dripping.  It’s never enough to make the tub overflow.  Each drop is singular, eventful, but in the end it amounts to nothing.”

“What are you even talking about?"

“You asked what I was waiting for,” he said.  “That’s my answer.”

There was a pregnant pause.  Silence.  The sound of the faucet dripping began to fill his thoughts again, a small, insignificant plok plok here above the water.  He opened one eye, squinting against the light, looking over at her sitting on the toilet looking at him and through him, lost in her own thought. 

“Haven’t you gone yet?” he asked her. 

“I’m getting there,” she said.  “You make me nervous.”

“I know,” he said.

“I’m not talking about nervous about using the toilet in front of you, either.”

“I know,” he said again.

He could almost hear her mentally grasping for a response. He let her writhe on that answer, closing his eyes again.  He hesitated a moment, seeing if she’d say anything else, but then slid back down into the water again. 

The numbness, the warmth, as welcoming as his oldest friend.

The drops of water, loud again, the steady tick of the clock of the universe.

15 Fictional Character – A List

So there’s this list going around about the 15 fictional characters that most struck a chord with you.  One is supposed to make the list off the top of your head, but man, I’m really bad at that.  It did take me less than fifteen minutes, but I agonized over a few of the choices here. 

It’s a solid list, though perhaps some people would question how a list could contain both Hannibal Lecter AND Winnie the Pooh.  Or debate with me that Miyamoto Musashi and Hunter S Thompson were both technically real people.  I approached both through fiction about them, so I feel it valid to include them here.

The 15 Fictional Characters List                                                      
in no particular order

1. Captain Jean-Luc Picard – Star Trek: The Next Generation
2. Laguna Loire – Final Fantasy VIII
3. Hunter S Thompson – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
4. Leonard Shelby – Memento
5. Winnie the Pooh – The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
6. Randall Flagg – The Stand
7. Cyrano de Bergerac – Cyrano de Bergerac
8. Batman – Batman: The Animated Series (and other representations)
9. Usagi Tsukino – Sailor Moon
10. Hannibal Lecter – Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal (books especially)
11. Calvin and Hobbes – Calvin and Hobbes
12. Odysseus – The Odyssey
13. Miyamoto Musashi – Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa
14. Charlotte – Lost in Translation
15. Daffy Duck – Looney Tunes

Feel free to reply with your own list, or link me to your list in the comments.  Would love to see what other people have down for this. 

Split Screen: The Bicycle Thief

This is the first in what will likely be multiple articles from me and Elizabeth Ditty. We both watch a lot of movies, and often we find that we disagree on certain vital points in movies. So instead of just agreeing to disagree, we've decided to make it a learning opportunity and explore our opinions in writing. Spoilers for the film in question follow, of course. Also, be sure to check out her companion article here on her blog.

---

“The Bicycle Thief.” Few titles so easily conjure up foggy ideas about what classic foreign cinema is and represents. It is the mystery behind the curtain, an ancient tome that is daunting and remote in the weight that has been given to it. Those who approach it, almost always believers in the power of cinema as art, do so with a sort of hesitant respect reserved for these sacred cows and the old testament notion of ‘fearing God.’

This is compounded all the more by the implication that these classic films are somehow different than the films we see in our day to day life, not just that they are particularly well shot or well acted but that they have some other, intangible quality that keeps them on the best of lists and quick on the lips of well-studied critics and cinephiles.

Unfortunately, this is perhaps the worst way to approach “The Bicycle Thief.”

The story of an impoverished man and his son seeking work in post-war Italy, “The Bicycle Thief” is a film about simple people with a narrow, minimalist scope. There is little subtext, a deliberate avoidance of much of the possible social commentary, and a single-minded devotion to the modest plot. “The Bicycle Thief” is, at its heart, more parable than modern narrative.

The anchor of the film are the two main leads, Lamberto Maggiorani as the father, Antonio Ricci, and Enzo Staiola as his son, Bruno. The director, Vittorio De Sica, believed that every person was able to play one role well, and that was to naturally be themselves. As such, both performers were not professional actors. But instead of hindering the film, their honest and graceless performances lend weight to the film that it wouldn’t otherwise have. The father looks as though he worked his entire life because he had. The son is not precocious and clever in the typical cinematic way, but feels wiser than most movie children because he is an actual child who lived a normal life.

Which is why it’s so crushing to see both characters wrapped up in the tide of the plot. The titular bicycle is Antonio’s only chance of getting a job, putting up posters with his son in order to buy food to feed his family. But the inevitable happens and the bicycle is stolen, leading to a slow spiral of despair as father and son search Rome for the one hope of their salvation.

It is that desperate search that takes up most of the film, with the two characters descending deeper into desperation as the chance of finding the bicycle slips through their fingers. Yet in doing so, we are brought closer together to them. They are a perfect father son pair, a father painfully aware of his son’s opinion of him and of the necessity to provide and be that figure of support. The son trying to live up to the desires of his father, even when those desires are impossible for either of them to meet.

It is the genius of the film, then, that their is never any resolution to their task. The bicycle is forever out of reach. In the final scenes of the film, the father attempts to steal his own bicycle, continuing this cycle of deprivation and suffering. But it is the one redeeming point in the father's life that he fails to steal it. He is, to the end, a good man. And sometimes the worst things happen to good people. It isn't satisfying, but it is life, and that is what The Bicycle Thief captures so perfectly on film.

Transmutation

The girl winced as the old man tightened a screw. “Ow!”

“Well, if you would stop cringing so much, maybe I could do my job the right way.”

“I’m holding as still as I can! We’ve been at this for hours.” The girl sighed, trying to stand up as straight as she could. Her legs hurt and her back was fairly screaming in agony. But this was the price one paid. The old man had told her that this would be a long, tiring process.

“How do you think I feel? You stand here, I do all the work,” the old man said in his thick European accent. “This is delicate work.”

“I don’t even understand how you can get that to work,” she said, trying to peer through the mirror at what he was doing. Even with the extreme angles the mirror provided, she had only the dimmest idea of what the old man was doing. She had seen the sketches, vaguely remembered how it all went together.

“It is very complicated, little girl,” the old man said. “Do you know how a clock works?”

“Well, no,” the girl answered, furrowing her brow.

“And that doesn’t bother you?”

She was a girl concerned with things that were beautiful and interesting. Clocks were old and musty and utterly beyond her. “Of course not. So long as they work, I don’t care one whit.”

“Then hush up and let me do my work. I know what I’m doing, and I promised you that when I was done you would have what you wished for, didn’t I?” He tightened a screw, and the sound of intricate metal pieces sliding into place clicked loudly in the quiet workshop. The girl felt a pinch, and took in a sharp breath.

“That’s natural,” the old man said. “Well, as natural as this can be, anyway.”

She just nodded absently, trying to think about something else. They had been here for what seemed like days, her standing in front of the mirrors and under the lights, the old man working behind her. She would have felt unsafe in a dress that exposed so much of her back but the man seemed too ancient to muster any sort of passion. He was as dusty as the old machines he kept.

“Hold this,” he said, handing her a piece of wire. “Be careful you hold onto the leather. The wire will cut you if you let it.”

She nodded and took a hold of the grip he had fashioned. The old man took the other end of the wire and began to work it through the pulleys she knew were back there but could barely see. He was very insistent that she keep out of his work while he did it. But she remembered the armature he had shown her, how the wires would keep the structure together, allow it the freedom of movement she wanted.

“Very good,” the old man said as he took the grip from her hand. He wound the wire around the anchors that they had worked to graft over the past few months, small metal eyelets that had been inserted deep under her skin, screwed directly into the bones until the muscle and skin had grown back over. It had been the worst part, aside from this.

“Everything looks accurate,” the old man said. “Exactly as I had planned.”

“You’re … you’re done?” After all this time, all the pain and the strain on the underdeveloped muscles that had barely been needed in her shoulders and back before, suddenly it was done. It didn’t seem so bad. She had worn dresses more difficult.

“Yes. Would you like to give them a try?” The old man stepped back, looking carefully at his handiwork. If anything was going to give way, he was going to be there to fix it before the whole armature fell apart. 

The girl nodded and flexed her shoulders. It was just a graceful roll, as though she were shrugging off a coat, but the anchors held and the wires pulled taut and the pulleys began their task. From behind her on either side unfolded the slender metal structures, all slender spines and a spider web of wires and gears. It looked incredibly fragile, but she knew better. Even a young girl like her could tell when things were built to last.

She continued to shift her shoulders, wincing as her muscles pulled in unusual ways. The anchors, at least, held firm. She barely felt them, they were so integrated into her now. But they pulled where they needed to, and slowly the wings unfolded. They spread out to either side of her, the top of the frame rising up above each shoulder as everything slid into place for the first time. 

“Very good,” the old man said softly, barely a whisper. “Everything looks wonderful.”

“Yes, it does,” the girl said more to herself than the man. The mirrors made more sense now, giving her a perfect view of everything opening up now that she was bent forward more and he was out of the way. The clockwork wings were a marvel, more beautiful than anything she had ever seen.

“How do you feel?” The old man seemed a thousand miles away to her. His voice could have been of an ant, crying up to her as she walked by.

She flexed her shoulders again. The wings spanned wide, and then closed with a whisper. She felt the wind, saw the dust kicked up around her, and grinned.

“I feel light. I feel … free.”