Darkness Ad Infinitum

by Regalado, Becky

  The assortment of bones on the table sent a cold shiver through him. They were small and dull and off-white. Dried sinew and tiny shreds of black flesh clung to some of the larger ones; the femur and skull, a shoulder blade. He had bagged hand and foot bones so as to keep them together, and released them now in a clattering pile like druids’ rune stones, beginning to arrange the tableau as if it were nothing more than a jigsaw puzzle. He had once studied anatomy and bone structure and human physiology for his sculptures. It was this knowledge he used now to reassemble the skeleton. Some bones were missing—a rib here, vertebra there, lower jaw hopelessly crushed when his shovel had broken through the rotted coffin lid—but it was only a matter of hours before he had something on his table that he recognized.

  It was an almost complete child’s skeleton.

  He took a battery-powered drill and fitted the smallest bit he could find. It looked no thicker than a toothpick. With whining monotony, he set about drilling holes into the ends of each and every bone, sending tiny puffs of foul smelling blue smoke into the air. He was fastidious, clamping each in steady fingers, blowing gently to send the smoke spiraling away from his eyes. A faint burning smell began to surround him, and he worked on. The bones in the feet were drilled now, and he moved onto the hand, and vertebrae. He used a slightly larger bit to drill the leg and arm bones, and the complex machinery of shoulder blade and ribs and collar bone. The rib cage was almost completely intact, apart from the missing rib, and he set this down on the floor as he worked. As each hour passed, tiny drifts of browning bone dust appeared at the ends of each cluster of bones.

  His excitement grew as each bone was holed, and he began to relish the sweet burning aroma as drill met bone. The sound became the soundtrack to his work, and when he had finished, the last vertebra drilled and placed back with its brothers, he stood back from the table, unaware that the drill was whining redundantly in his hand. He stayed that way, eyes scanning the skeleton over and over to spot any missed bones, until the battery died and the drill fell silent. He dropped it and kicked it absently away from him.

  From under the bench, in between sips of steadying wine, he sorted through a jumble of boxes and settled on two. The first contained wire—yards and yards of hair-thin silver wire, wrapped fastidiously with strands of spider silk so that they shimmered like dull moonlight. It had taken months of painstaking and ultimately painful work to collect the silk from his battery of captive spiders. It had to be spider silk. This was one piece of lore that he truly believed, and the book was specific about it.

  The second contained a lump of wet clay about the size of a football. It was this he brought to the table now, along with a book detailing human anatomy. His skilled fingers worked quickly to separate a piece of clay and draw it into a rough cylinder, about an inch thick and eight long. With it, in between long consultations with the diagrams in his anatomy book, he fashioned a rough flattened semi-circle. He drew each end into a paddle about twice the width of the rest. He moulded the piece into a rounded V, and set it next to the skull for sizing. With further modifications and trimming of excess clay, he fitted the piece exactly to the skull.

  He had made a jawbone.

  He removed more clay from its box and set about creating a rib, the missing vertebra. He was soon satisfied, for he was an accomplished sculptor. He removed the clay pieces carefully and walked with them over to his kiln in the far corner. His hands were stained with the clay, calloused and sore from hours of painstaking drilling. He placed the pieces into the kiln, watching for a moment as the haze of fire shimmered around them. The smell of hot clay surrounded him. He washed his hands and changed clothes, throwing the clay-streaked shirt and jeans into an uncomfortable heap next to the kiln. He allowed himself a short sleep.

  Hours later, the pieces fired and cooled, he sanded their jagged edges and drilled their ends. They fitted into place perfectly, as he knew they would, and a short frisson of excitement ran through him.

  The skeleton was complete.

  He began to thread the silk-wrapped silver wire through each and every holed bone. He snipped each piece to size and loosely twisted their ends together. The purpose of the wire was not for strength. It was not to hold the skeleton together, although he hoped the silk wrapped wire could bear the skeleton’s weight for a short time. Rather it was a symbol of completion, a tying together of spirit and bone; locking the loose pieces so that they might know they belong together, and behave accordingly. As sweat ran through the mask of dried clay on his face, his tears joined it; tiny tributaries swelling like a river in a cracked river bed. He wiped the moisture away, smearing the clay like claw marks under his eyes and across his cheeks, red ochre where his fingertips had cracked and added their own moisture. He noticed neither the pain nor the tears as he worked. He merely fitted bone to bone, knit them gently together as they had once been. He thought of those times, and the tears came harder.

  When the final wires between skull and clay jawbone were secured, he moved a second table into place alongside the first. On this he slapped down great chunks of wet clay, relishing the earthy smell, the living quality of the mineral. Fresh spatters of brown water coated him. He fashioned a rough silhouette of a human body, arms and legs and torso about three times their natural width. He pressed a large disc into place where the head should be. He offered up a silent prayer and slipped his hands under the skeleton, one at the knees and the other under the fragile puzzle of vertebrae below the skull. He hefted the wired bones off the table, and had a moment’s panic when the head lolled backwards comically and the legs clattered towards the floor. The wires held, however; and, its feet kicking in the air, he transferred the skeleton to the second table, laying it lovingly onto the clay silhouette, as a father might lay a sleeping child into bed.

  Next he filled a large bucket with water and set it next to the skeleton. Immersing his hands in the blessedly cool water, he let them sit there for a while, absently rubbing fingertip against fingertip, scrubbing the blood and grime away.

  Okay, he said softly, and the words echoed around the dusty room.

  He removed his hands from the bucket and, still dripping, set them about their work bringing the soft clay silhouette up and around the collection of bones. He filled the hollows in the rib cage and between leg and arm bones with rough blocks of clay. Hours he spent kneading and moulding and knitting edges, filling gaps, adding here, taking away there. He gently turned the body over and began to work on the back, cleverly shaping the muscles in the back and neck, rounding the clay at the back of the skull, remembering the tiny flat spot just above the nape that he loved. Turning again, he set the body down, heavy now, its heft just right; the still wet clay falling as it should, legs turning slightly out, hands resting palm up. He worked on them now, separating fingers, moulding knuckles and joints, carving delicate lines and creases. Toe and fingernails were shaped, the minute curls of excess clay from his knife falling around his feet. He roughed the body into shape, content to have the idea of it just right; but the detail he forewent in favor of the tiny outfit of clothes hanging from the door. These he would dress the body in once dry.

  At last he could do no more, and sat back heavily, the table and its body lying at face height. He gasped at its likeness, despite the blank face. He ran a hand across its chest, cupped the narrow chin, and, with a fingernail, described a rough mouth and the position of the eyes. He teased a rough pyramid of clay from the middle of the face and shaped absently into its nose. He could do no more and fell back, exhausted. From his jeans pocket he drew a picture. Its edges were torn and crumpled, but the face staring from it was crisp and clear.

  His boy.

  He slept where he had fallen, the clay on his hands drying to pale ochre dust, the body above him hardening slightly in the dry air. He dreamt no dreams save for the face of the boy, and the sound of screaming.

  It seemed when he woke that he had been gripped by fever anew. He rose and almost instantly started his work, as ea
rly morning arrived without acknowledgment. With an array of shaping and cutting tools, he set about the body’s face. With memory alone he teased and shaped and moulded. The nose that he had roughed out the night before became exact, the small bump on its bridge so lifelike he bent to kiss it as he had so many years before. He worked tirelessly, cupping the shape of cheeks with his moistened palms, creating tiny flaps of clay that he pressed into place over eyes that stared into his with uncanny reason. He went as far as to scratch tiny lines at the corner of the eyes, extracting signs of life almost absently. The tiny, full mouth; pointed chin with its smooth dimple; high, full forehead. All these features became reality in his hands. With strands of clay rolled into straw thicknesses, he began layering the dome of skull with hair, each layer subjected to a barber’s scrutiny to ensure that the strands lay just right. He created the flick of fringe that half-covered one eye, and turning the body carefully, let the longer strands at the back just reach to the body’s shoulders. He looked at the face, and with a calculated flick, opened the mouth like a wound; remoulded the lips and added the impression of teeth within. Stepping back from the visage, he let out a coughing cry, hands covering the lower half of his own face, muting his shock. He reached suddenly to remould the ear lobes, but let the knife fall, content.

  It was perfect.

  His son lay on the table before him, androgynous from the neck down, but utterly right and beautiful above. The sculptor spoke his name over and over, and his sobbing words grew slowly quieter, and night fell once more.

  As the sun burned away a ground mist, a sweet smelling breeze blew in through the recently opened door. He dressed the figure quickly, allowing the soft folds of cloth to mask any imperfections in the moulding of the body. He had slept well, and changed into clean jeans and a shirt. He rescued the book from the floor and smoothed the pages.

  Almost subliminal in their placing, the symbols he had searched for were in the middle of the book, scratched with faded ink into one margin; one truth, one death. To mark his son with the first would bring life. The second would end it. He had practiced their curling form over and over, until he could draw them in his sleep.

  He swallowed the dregs of his third coffee that morning and held his shaking hands up to his face. With a huge effort, he willed them to calm, and they did. The father became the sculptor then, all thoughts erased except for that of rendering the symbols perfectly. He turned once more to his clay son, smoothed the hair as if it were living, feeling, and hearing the soft rasp of dry clay under his fingertips. It wasn’t until he saw the first drop of moisture on the face, sinking like rain on a cracked river bed, that he realized he was crying.

  He selected a knife from his tools, and laid an elbow next to the face, cupping the hand holding the knife with his other. He breathed deeply and held it. When all sound had ceased, when all he could sense was the slight pressure and throb of blood in his ears, he lowered the knife to the forehead and watched, as if he were a mere observer, as the tip scratched into the clay.

  אמת

  Truth.

  The symbols came easily. Indeed, they seemed to form themselves, the knife cutting into the clay like it was fresh and soft. Tiny parings muddied the edges, and he blew on these absently. It was done. The last thing was to feed them. His blood was the only choice, obviously; and so he used the same knife, heedless to the clay-soiled tip, to part his skin on the tip of his thumb. Seconds passed until blood welled into the cut, spilling silently. His mind still blank other than thought of his task, he pressed the wound onto the symbol on his son’s forehead. He felt pain then—almost a sucking sensation—as the dry clay eagerly sought his fluids.

  It happened very quickly. A slight hum filled his ears—the sound of electricity, perhaps—and he felt a thrumming under his hand, still pressed to his son. He lifted his hand quickly and stepped back from the body, rigidly upright, eyes wide with shock. He’d known it would work, prayed for it; and yet now he was chilled to the bone with fear. A finger curled. The fabric of the figure’s garments shifted and settled. The sculptor moved nearer, clutching the knife tightly, breath rasping faster and faster, nostrils flared. An eye opened, the sound like one stone scratching across another. Another eye. The perfectly rendered eyes, complete except for color (why hadn’t he thought to add color?), turned and moved and rolled in their sockets. They found him suddenly, fixed on him, blinked slowly, and stared.

  The sculptor let out a cry, fell to his knees, and moaned his son’s name. The body sat up on the table, dried clay falling from it like leaves, as if they had been playing in an autumn garden. The mouth opened noiselessly. A heartbeat later, impossibly, almost silent but not silent, it breathed. It reached to him, flexing its fingers, working them like it was trying on new gloves. It smacked its lips silently, discovering the configurations of its face, learning movement and sound and form even as it shifted its bulk to the edge of the table. A further icicle of fear pierced the sculptor’s spine as the boy raised one hand and made a fist. Slowly, exerting utmost control, it extended one finger and pointed to him.

  daddy?

  came a scratching question. The body shifted nearer the edge of the table until gravity took hold. With no knowledge of balance or of the mechanisms needed to stand, the body pitched helplessly onto the floor and lay silent. A soft mewling sound broke the stillness.

  The sculptor moved quickly to its side, all fear gone. He moaned the boy’s name over and over, convinced he would find the body hopelessly broken. But whatever magic had brought tragic life to his sculpture, it seemed also to have brought a physical sturdiness; for even as he reached the body, it was pushing itself into a sitting position, limbs and face and body intact.

  daddy

  it said again, confident this time, its voice still no more than a scraping whisper. The sculptor reached his hands to cup the boy’s cheeks, chilled anew at the pulsing warmth beneath the clay. He pushed the fear aside, closed his eyes, and bent to plant a kiss on the boy’s forehead. If he had expected the kiss to land on soft, pliant skin, perfumed with fresh air and the exertion of play, then the reality could not have come as more of a shock. Gritty powder coated his lips, and he tasted the alkalinity of clay, the earthiness of the boy’s flesh. He moaned again.

  The boy moaned with him, a helpless

  wa wa wa wa wa

  and the sculptor ran his hands across the waving hair, so lifelike to touch, but smelling like the earth it was. He kissed him again, this time knowing the feeling and so relishing it. His son, born again.

  As he drew closer, folded his arms about the boy, the sounds he was issuing suddenly became clearer.

  wa wa w . . . w . . . wh . . . wh

  why?

  why?

  why?

  why?

  why?

  The sculptor sat back, unable to think as the boy repeated his desperate question again and again. In all his planning, years and years of searching, never had he thought that this would be the first question the boy would ask. Tears streamed down his face, and as he reached out, the boy backed off, shedding dust and clay particles as he went, backing up, backing up until he reached a wall. He continued to push with his legs, and in doing so, learned the mechanism of standing. The sculptor stood with him, and moved to stand in front of him, imploring the boy with eyes and gestures and words, to come to him, to let himself be held and to be a son again. The boy’s eyes flickered around the room, landing on the sculptor’s face, the table, the chairs, the window, the open door, the open door

  the open door

  the open door

  Before the sculptor could gather his wits, before he had chance to move, the boy pushed roughly past him, knocking him aside, and crashed through the open door, morning sunlight highlighting the contours of his exquisite face. The sculptor let out a shout of fear and confusion, but ultimately he was too late. The boy had gone.

  Time passed of which the sculptor had no recollection. The air seemed muted and grey, sounds muffled
. Indeed, solace could only be found in darkness and in such a state of drunkenness that he felt nothing but the burn of cheap wine. Even the hollow pain in his chest seemed diminished. For a time after his creation had fled he had raged, hurling tools and lumps of sodden clay about the room, erasing any sign of his work, erasing any sign of the loss he had faced twice now. His son. His poor son. Panic fluttered constantly at the edge of his mind, his hands shook, and sounds issued from his ragged throat that bore no resemblance to human noises.

  What have I done? he cried to the room. My son!

  He began to piece together anything that might help him find the boy. He read and re-read Earth, Risen, hoping, searching desperately for some nugget he had missed. Where might he have gone? Who may have found him? And all this was affording the sculpture sentient thought. What if it was mindless, nothing more than animated clay? What if there was none of his son left? But the first word from its mouth had been daddy. Surely it must be his son. It must be. He took a drink of wine then, and another followed, and another after that. Bottle after bottle was consumed, and the sculptor began to dream that none of it had happened. Darkness turned darker, sound failed him, and he lost his fight with sleep. But even sleep could not protect him from images of moving clay, great lumpen faces with stretched maws, grasping hands, tearing, pulling. And always the questions.