Unwound (The Symphony of Brass and Bone)

by Yolanda Olson

  I looked back at the task at hand and taking a deep breath, I grit my teeth as I slid it between the lock and the chain and started the painstaking task of trying to pry the two apart. I grunted with effort and immediately reminded myself that I had to be quite. Any loud sound would bring Mother to my door to find out what I was doing. Taking a deep breath, I bit my lip as hard as I could and gave all my effort into relieving the chain from the lock that was holding on to it so dearly like a devoted love.

  With one final yank, the lock finally gave way. I stood there breathing heavily for a moment as I let Mother’ s tool drop to the ground. Shaking away my fatigue, I quietly undid the chain and pulled the somewhat broken doors open slowly. I don’t know why but I steeled myself for whatever I might find in there. I reached a hand in slowly, without looking, and pulled out the first thing I was able to get my hands on.

  It was book of some sort which I could tell because of the shape. Curiosity got the better of me, because Mother would never allow me to have a book so I creaked open the door a little more and I pulled it out. It was covered in dust so I blew it off and examined the cover. Emblazoned on the front of it was “ three two five seven”.

  Something about that number seemed to bother me for some reason. But I set the book aside. For now it wasn’t of importance to me. Pulling open the doors as widely as I could I study the contents that Mother had so desperately protected and found myself wondering why?

  Inside was a pair of dark pants, a dark shirt, and an over shirt (or at least that’s what I had assumed it to be) made out of materials that I had never seen before. Mother would never use anything that wasn’t alive at one point to make things.

  I pulled the clothes from the closet and quickly dressed myself. Everything fit so well and so comfortably, almost as if they were meant for me, and even though I loved her dearly, I knew she would never be this kind to me or any of the others. If any of the others would have survived anyway, I thought to myself again.

  As quietly as I could, I closed the doors and looked around for the book which had caused a curiosity to rise in me.

  Picking it up again, I held it for a moment in my hands wondering why that number sounded as familiar as it did. As I shrugged, I opened it to the first page and almost dropped it. Inside was a sketch that Mother had made that she had named three two five seven. I stared at the picture for a moment, my mouth dry, because I knew what it was.

  I studied it in disbelief.

  The cogs and wheels on the first diagram with a detailed explanation of what she intended to do with them. I knew them well. I heard them with every breath I took. When I laid my head down at night to rest, I would feel them slow down.

  Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to continue examining the book.

  On the next page was the second diagram; a myriad of words and a semi constructed being; more so than the first page. The chest of the being was a gaping wound, showing how the inside would be put together. The eyes closed in a peaceful silence.

  I ran my fingers down the tracing of three two five seven.

  I pulled the book closer to my face and squinted at some writing that had been scrawled onto three two five seven’s “arm”.

  I began to shake.

  The shape of the body was so oddly familiar.

  I flipped to the third diagram. The strong hands that had been attached to three two five seven were so haunting. Scrawled next to the out turned hands were the words to let me know where she had obtained them. “Butcher’s hands”, was scrawled out on either side of the drawing on three two five seven.

  The fourth diagram detailed the face. The strong, young face that had been so lovingly pieced together. She chronologically wrote of how she had manipulated the stitching so that the scars would never show on its face. It took her 11 days to get the face looking “ normal and perfect” she wrote.

  The eyes, they struck me the most; so dead and unfinished.

  One eye was open and showing no signs of life. The other did not exist. In the hole that should be an eye socket that housed a beacon of vision was a small series of cogs.

  I felt the world starting to spin underneath me.

  It was almost as if she never intended on finishing me.

  I took a deep breath to steady myself and flipped through the pages until I reached the last drawing she had made in this macabre how-to book.

  Gasping, I let the book fall from my hands. I didn’ t care if she would be able to hear it or if it made a sound.

  The last page was the most haunting. It detailed all the materials that went into three two five seven. It named the most grotesque things imaginable and the most common things only a genius like Mother would think to put together.

  The smile. Oh God, the smile I had seen in my “youth” so many times when I looked into the mirrors. When I didn’ t mind looking into the mirrors. When they didn’ t taunt me the way they do now.

  Smiling back at me on the last page was what Mother had deemed “My Masterpiece.”

  I wanted to kick the book away from me. I didn’ t want to face the truth of what I was seeing. I didn’t want to, but it was so taunting.

  I picked up the book again and stared at how she had colored in the teeth on the yellowed paper so brightly and white. She had once told me she had picked the son of a dentist when she was thinking of the perfect smile she wanted to give the perfect boy. She told me how she had sedated him and began the painstaking task of carefully removing each tooth so that they wouldn’ t break or be marred in anyway. She told me how she had to fish through the blood that came pouring out of the torn gums to get the teeth by the root. She told me how the medication she had given him had worn off and how every time he yelled out in pain, she would laugh just a little bit harder. She told me that he had no chance of escape because of how tightly she had fastened him down to the dentist’s chair making sure that he could not so much as move his fingers. She told me of how she was determined to give the perfect smile to the perfect little boy she had so desperately had failed to create so many times before.

  Those were the kinds of stories Mother would lull me to sleep with.

  Not ones of heroes slaying dragons for a beautiful princess.

  Not ones of where the world was in Utopia.

  No.

  Mother’s bedtime stories would be of how she destroyed things, unknowing, beautiful, and innocent things, to create me.

  Shoving away from my mind the nightmares I suffered as a child because of her stories, I forced myself to look at the finished diagram again.

  I felt the air leave my body because I knew what I held.

  I knew who he was. I didn’t want to believe her stories, but now I couldn’ t deny them. Not with the proof in my hands. I locked eyes with the diagram and I couldn’t fight the horrible truth anymore.

  Smiling back at me was three two five seven.

  Three two five seven was me.

  As I wished at this moment that I had been given the ability to produce tears for the betrayal I had let myself feel of trying not to add much merit to Mother’ s stories, I could hear her laughter echo down the hall and the sound of her drills whirring soundly into the night.

  I decided not to leave at that moment. The horror of what I had finally found to be true kept me stuck in my place. I couldn’t bring myself to sit or lay down. I couldn’ t even bring myself to look at the book anymore. I just held it and wondered if I had brought this upon myself. Maybe this is what happened to bad boys that tried to leave her. They would find their way into their own closets, drawers, or trunks hiding the truth of what they were. Maybe it drove them mad. It was enough to make anyone mad. I had spent the night standing in my same spot wondering if mother would care if I found some way to dismantle myself, but I knew that would be a cowardly thing to do. I couldn’t, for the sake of any that would come after me, leave without being able to help me. Spare the rest, don’ t make any more Mother, I thought silently to myself.

  Forcing myself
to move, I tossed the book onto the bed. No matter if I left now or years from now, that’s not something I would dare leave behind. If this was the only way she would know how to put something like me together, then I would make sure she would never be able to do it again.

  I couldn’ t help but chuckle to myself. Such a slew of defiant thoughts I had been thinking lately. Maybe I could find it in myself to do it then. Maybe I could find the will power to leave her.

  My only chance for survival depended on it.

  I’ll do it today. I won’t stay here any longer, if she even sees me in anything other than the tattered pants she gave me to wear, she’ll torture me again.

  I let the medley of tortures Mother had used against me play through my mind like a deadly sonata. How I had survived them all was a miracle. The most brutal was the time she tied me down in a murderous rage when I was sleeping, and used an unstitching tool on my body. I woke up screaming in pain to which she just pulled harder and more crudely. I hadn’ t done anything to deserve that that night and to be honest I had never done anything to deserve any of the vile and cruel things she did to me.

  While I had laid there in pure agony as she unstitched and then stitched me back up again, I wondered what horror she had faced that made her what she was. What horrible things had been done to my mother? Who had done these things? How did she survive them still somewhat intact?

  Yes, while she took great pleasure in hiding in her rooms and building things, she would have days where she would be almost normal; days where she would enter my room and sit with me and just talk. Those days were very rare, but those days where the ones that I held onto when I convinced myself that she was still worth loving and respecting.

  Sometimes she would even tell me how proud she was of me. She would tell me that even though she created me that she was proud of what I had become and was becoming.

  I could feel my insides flutter with a soft sadness as I thought of those days. Not only were they very rare, they were long gone.

  Stop thinking of things like that or you’ ll never leave her, I thought to myself. Finally stirring from where I stood all night I made my way to my bed ignoring the stings of pain from the makeshift carpet and sat down next to the book. I put my head in my hands and sighed deeply. I had to do it now because if I didn’ t, I never would.

  I stood and turned toward the window that she had used to shelter me from the world. Sliding my fingers into the cracks I took a deep breath and pulled on the first plank as hard as I could. I had to catch my balance as I almost fell back. It snapped easily in my hands. I stared at it in disbelief wondering how she had used nails to hold it in place I was able to pull freely so easily. Letting the shattered pieces of wood fall from my hands, I reached up for the next plank and gave it a soft tug and it too pulled freely quite easily.

  It seemed that without meaning too, she had given me some kind me so extra strength. If I had dared to try to escape sooner, I would have known this. She never would’ ve kept me tied down that night had I tried to fight her. She never would have tortured me; ever.

  As I ripped each piece of wood free and the sunlight began to pour in through and illuminate the room, I couldn’ t help but wonder how easy it would be to find her and squeeze the life out of her.

  When the last plank was free, I stood there breathing in the fresh air and staring into the crisp, blue sky pondering this idea. I dismissed it after a moment though. No matter how hurtful she had been to me if I killed her, I ’d be no better than her.

  Grabbing the book from the bed, I hoisted myself up onto the windowsill and for just a moment, the thought of killing London crossed my mind again.

  London?

  Had I dared to think of her as anything other than Mother? While the thought somewhat frightened me, it also gave me an exhilarated sense of freedom. If mentally, I could start disassociating her as my mother, then I would never care about what would happen to her or think about her ever again.

  Yes. Her name is London, I forcefully told myself, and London is not my mother. London is not my keeper. London has no control over me.

  I tucked the book into the waistband of my new pants and looked down. It looked like I was at least four windows up. Maybe she never told me stories of castles because she lived in a home almost as big? No; she wasn’t that thoughtful. She never told me those stories because she knew I would then find a way to escape this prison I had been kept in since my “ birth”. That was one thing I knew she couldn’t risk.

  Looking down again, I took a deep breath and leapt to the ground below.

  Two

  I had never run before but I had seen it done on those nights when London would come into my room and watch movies with me. Before I was completed into a full torso, she would take my upper half, place it in a wheelchair, and cart me down to the main hall. She would then lift me and set me on the couch and turn on the television. I recognized the motion I was doing because of that sole reason.

  I had just robbed myself of so much. Surrounding London’s home was a lush forest of trees and animals I think, that I had never gotten the pleasure of seeing. Some of the animals ran with me, others ahead of me. Almost as if they were trying to help me escape or shield me from her if she were to see me.

  There were a great deal of different lives around me in those trees and I had never known them, nor did I give myself the opportunity to do so as I ran.

  As quickly as my legs would take me, I pounded the ground underneath me and ran until I could feel myself begin to tire. It wasn’ t tiring really, it was my insides; I felt them starting to tighten up and that’s when I decided it would be best to stop and rest altogether.

  Sitting on a bench I felt my waistband to make sure that the book hadn’t fallen out during my escape. It was still there.

  I couldn’ t help but smile. I had done something, that if any that had been made before me had dare tried, were probably dismantled because of it.

  I shoved London and any thoughts of what the repercussions those before me and what repercussions I would probably have to suffer if she found me. Leaning back on the bench, I decided started to watch the humans as they went by. Some were in small groups, others were alone, but all of them seemed so full of something I longed for.

  Never mind that; you’ ll never have it and if you let yourself think about it, you’ll torture yourself more than she ever did to you.

  Suddenly I had the feeling that I was being watched. Glancing around me I saw a little male human standing no more than fifteen feet away from me holding a balloon in his hand. I knew what it was from when London celebrated the years I was alive. She called them my birthday and said that balloons were part of the celebration.

  That lasted two years.

  I smiled uneasily at him. Upon seeing my smile, without hesitation he came over and sat down next to me.

  “What happened to your eye?” he asked curiously.

  “My eye?”

  “Yeah, it ’s like a hole,” he said reaching out to touch my face.

  A hole? I wasn’ t sure what he was talking about. Then it dawned on me. In my clumsy need to run away from London I hadn’t taken any care to cover the part of my face that was unfinished.

  Quickly, I put a hand over the left side of my face and looked away.

  “Don’t hide it,” he said tugging on my hand, “I think it looks cool!”

  I turned back to him doubtfully wondering if he was lying to me, but the sudden big smile on his freckled little face told me he was being truthful.

  “Okay,” I said putting my hand down.

  I decided to take him in. He was average size for a child I would assume. Light brown hair, golden brown eyes, a smattering of freckles around his nose, and when he smiled you could see that at least two of his teeth were missing.

  “My name is Jared, what’s yours?” he asked as he tugged as his balloon string.

  I wasn’t prepared for that question. I wasn’t prepared for human interaction at all,
but least of all to answer something as simple as what my name was. Instead of answering him, I tentatively reached over and gave his balloon string a tug.

  He smiled that big smile at me in return, and then stood up.

  “Mom and Dad said I shouldn’t talk to strangers so I should go before they come out of the store,” he said pointing across the street, “ But don’t leave yet. I want to go in there and get you a present for being so cool.”

  Before I could protest, he got to the edge of the sidewalk, looked both ways and took off like one of the animals I had seen in the forest straight into the store. For just a moment I felt like running away. London had once promised me a present, which was the night I had woke up screaming in pain as she unstitched me.

  My leg started to shake. It had only been a few moments but I could feel myself start to panic. What if this was a trap? What if London was in there? She was smart enough but was she fast enough to catch me?

  I felt a small tap on my shoulder.

  “Here you go,” he said holding out a small article.

  I hadn’ t even realized that I had closed my eyes in my fear of London coming out of the store to drag me back to hell.

  Grabbing my hand, he turned it over and dropped the present in it. I started at for a moment. It seemed to be a black patch of some sort with some kind of thick string attached to it.

  “It’ s an eye patch, I won it out of the claw machine,” he said proudly. “For me?” I asked softly. Nodding, he grabbed it from my hand and fastened it over my eye, adjusting the string so that it would sit comfortably around my head.