First One Alive
by Annika Shunn
She didn’t realize the world was so dull. It was hard to look at behind the clay covering her eyes, and the constant pressure of fingers. Tools, waxy on her new arm, her new ear. When she got her ears, there was music.
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There was his voice, as well. After the first few noises he made, touching her pouted and still lips, she tried to ignore that. So there was music. The music made her dream of things that weren’t dark.
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He cleared the clay from her eyes. Or, eye. She didn’t know why he did it so slowly; one moment he gave her a fingernail, the next an eyelash. Her body, formed in red-brown patches.
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He cleared one eye and the first thing she saw was a stained, oily mug balanced on the corner of a table. It looked back at her and said it was ready to jump and shatter. A hand scooped it up like a savior and her eye followed of its own volition, now connected to the little ceramic mug.
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He looked at her over the top of the mug. This was a man, apparently. He had soft hair, split down the middle and curled gently around his face. His eyes on hers made her feel like the mug, right on the edge of the table. She could fall and crumble at any moment. It was not pleasant.
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Then he spoke.
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“I see you.”
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She wished for the clay to return to her eyes.
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He was not always there in front of her. There was brighter light, stuttering through the caked window grime and when it was present, he was not. He would be across the room. He was a naked sprawl on the floor-mattress and he would snore.
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Since her eyes came to be, she found she could look wherever she pleased. But her body wasn’t finished yet, and besides it was heavy with clay and very grand ideas she hadn’t thought up herself. This was the best sort of space to be in.
She could look at the floor and its swirled dirt. She could stare openly at the piles of plates with their rainbow of malignant colors. Spilled playing cards and discarded, stained tops. She wondered when she would get to stain anything.
After he saw her open darting eyes, he began talking. She had her ears and had to listen but her mouth stayed still, only slightly pursed.
“You’re going to see the world. I’m going to take you outside and you’ll learn to walk. I’m going to take you to a carnival and you’ll have cotton candy. Everyone will want to know who you are because you’re with me and because you’re so beautiful.”
She didn’t know what cotton candy was, or a carnival, but she wanted to go. If she was to be his pretty mug, she would walk beside him and let him drink whatever he needed, so long as she could see something other than him.
The beauty of her red face didn’t matter much, even when he brought her a mirror. Even when she looked, she saw a monolith of red clay and his fingerprints and the tiny cracks forming against the air conditioning. She didn’t care about this supposed beauty but she wanted to know everyone.
There of course came the night when he stepped back and gave his toothy smile. Every finger and toe, finally in its place.
“Let’s go for a walk.”
He held the door open as she stepped off the table.
It was that sprinkled dark he loved to work in. The humid air outside made her clay skin feel like knitting itself back into a smooth surface. Instead of the harsh light that he usually put beside her face, they walked through orange pools and the off-set blue of night.
In her songs, she’d heard of nighttime walks. She assumed that everyone would be out, letting the humidity perform its magic. That they would recline on the grass and wait for morning dew to bury them in the flowers. She thought maybe someone would ask her a question, the right question as they lay in the dirt, and her mouth would finally agree to open.
He put his hand on her shoulder and they slowed, lingering by rusted railing. They overlooked a large pool of silver stripes, wavering slowly. “It’s dangerous out there. I know you’re going to stay with me, but if you ever find yourself alone, don’t go.”
Her mouth remained shut. Making a promise was not the answer to opening her lips. He turned and began back the way they came. When she followed him back, she saw red footprints going the other way. She looked out at the silver and wondered what it would do to him.
And at his studio, as she went to get back onto her table, ready to stare at the sameness, he took her hand and brought her to his mattress. He whispered about being alone and lay down next to her, naked again.
He began a new sculpture. A life, he said. He would tell her how he wanted to recreate the success they had together. He showed her reference pictures of what he was making: small and furry, floppy ears and a wagging tongue. A real dog might bite, he said, running a hand down her shin. She wondered, if the dog he was making wasn’t real, what was she?
There was a chair with a sturdy back and while he worked and ate and worked and talked and talked and talked, she sat there, pushing the lines of it into the bare clay of her back. Something akin to a tattoo. She heard they were painful and that’s what she wanted. A pain of her own.
In the day as he slept, he put an arm around her. When he got hot, her clay got slippery and parts of her would disappear. He would add them back on but the clay would be a different shade or too dry.
“You’re still beautiful,” he would say, recreating her waist. She didn’t care about beauty, she just wanted to remain whole.
His experiments with the dog weren’t working. He’d added its eyes early, wishing to see them dart the way hers had. Yet they remained stagnant. Empty. The frustration was palpable, nightmarishly obvious as he threw slabs of clay on the table. Grunts and huffs and an ugly atmosphere that made her push her back harder into the chair.
As he slept, she slipped from beneath his arm. Her waist wasn’t too slick, leaving the sheets dry and only slightly redder than usual. The day was bright, trying to wave at her through the window. She left as quietly as she could.
Of course, this is where she found the people. The belief she held in their existence had nearly melted, but there they were. They walked the path she normally walked with him. They swished their skirts and adjusted slipping sandals. They enjoyed the light, the slightly sticky heat that she treasured so much with greater intensity now.
She took the path to the railing. As she walked, she noticed how they looked at her. Heads and wide-brimmed hats swiveling like him on his sculpting chair. Their expressions were different from his. Was this the look he was talking about when he said they’d call her beautiful? It felt like his arms as he slept; tight, unpleasant, taking and taking.
At the railing, she paused, looking for her silver stripes. Today, they were gone. It was all blue, the same as the sky above her. It shivered the same way but there was no darkness the way she had expected. She recalled the way he had told her it was dangerous. Yet this replacement had to be something new. It had to be safe. She made her way down.
The stares continued as she moved between clusters of people. Some brandished little objects at her, their third eye for her every move. She’d seen a similar one in his hands, as he posed her for photos. She wasn’t sure what they would want with photos of her.
The blue looked so inviting, foamy on the edge of the land. As the sand met the water, it became dark with every pass, every lap. This is where she stopped, her clay sinking into this gray space. The water lapped up again, pouring over her ankles and nearly-buried foot.
Here again was that slick feeling she got as he slept. Only it was greater, more insistent. It was pulling parts of her out and away with it. She tried to lift her foot but all she could do was watch the water move back and forth, stealing her clay. She started to understand where he might end her beauty.
“Hey! What are you doing out here?”
His voice seemed to stifle the water, which pulled away as he ran to her and picked her up. They could both see that most of the clay that made up her feet was gone. There were deep divots in her shins and calves from the spray. She didn’t know how long she’d stood there, but he made it seem like an eternity. And more than that, an intentional destruction. He carried her back to the studio while her clay dripped a red path behind them. He made her sleep on the table.
A few nights later, she sat in her chair, staring at her new feet. They were a muddy gray compared to the deep red rest of her. It was all he had available and he told her how lucky she was that he even had that. She stared at the seam bridging the different shades and thought about the seafoam that was there only a few days ago.
“No way,” he said. “There’s no way!”
She tilted her head to look. He was on his little phone, fist-pumping the air. He met her gaze.
“Mina Gode wants me on her show. Her people saw clips of you at the beach online and they want to know everything about the man and his living clay!”
She had no idea who the woman was, who her people were, but she found herself out during the day again. The set for the show was cold, the air conditioning turned high. She felt her clay drying out. She felt like crumbling in the plastic-wrapped leather chair.
He left her like a little fake dog to sit and stay on the stage while he talked with the production team and assistants. He had infinite words and they were all going to boil up and out and spill all over the audience filing in. She stared at his cleaned up outfit and de-greased hair.
Someone tapped her on the shoulder. They held out a cheap black dress. She took it and red clay spread where she touched. She held it up and looked at them.
“The network has a no-nudity policy. Even with art,” they said.
As they walked away she was granted a horrible awareness of her body, or what was perceived as a body. That she was made naked and lived that way was a shame, a flaw. He came over just in time to help put the dress on. He half-heartedly muttered about hiding his art but the excitement was clear, regardless.
This was his big day. The audience was full of women with angry, squinted eyes and tight mouths. They eyed her discolored feet with suspicion.
“And what does she think about that?”
She looked up. The Mina woman was talking and so was he. She didn’t realize they’d even begun.
“She doesn’t speak but we understand each other really well and she would agree that people thinking this is a hoax is ridiculous.”
“How can we truly believe this is a living sculpture and not just a woman in makeup?” The gaggle of women nodded, frizzy hair bouncing in unison.
“I can prove it,” he said.
A production assistant brought out a bowl of water, like the one he would use to hydrate her skin. They set it on the table between them. He reached for her hand and she gave it to him. Her skin was so dry, so prepared to crack open and show her hardened core.
He placed her hand in the bowl and began massaging the clay. The water turned murky, powdery. Her clay was more than hydrated there but he kept massaging. Then he wrapped his fingers around her wrist.
His grip tightened. He pressed harder. More of her clay slicked against his hand and into the bowl. She looked at him. That was the face he wore when his clay dog wouldn’t blink. Then, he pulled. Her hand snapped away from her wrist, leaving a muddy edge.
The audience applauded. Her hand sunk to the bottom of the bowl, fingers sticking up. Reaching out to come back, reattach itself to her wrist. Mina was laughing, getting up to hold him around the shoulders like a proud parent. And him, smiling like a god in the arms of his people.
She stared at her body part in a punch bowl while the crowd went wild.
The dog sculpture was too small. He had officially decided. She was on the bed tonight as she watched him smash in its face for scraps. He blared angry music, which seemed to make him smile more manically. She stared at the empty space under her wrist.
He’d promised to make her a new hand. A better one, with slimmer fingers and longer nails. She’d be happier with it. She’d thank him. Tonight, he began shaping the clay into a ball. She knew in the morning it would have fingers and built-in rings and that it would be hers but it would not be of her.
She rose to a new face on the table. It was a new woman and her eyes weren’t open yet. The lights were on and the sun was away. There was just a spotlight, directly angled on the fresh sculpture. It was a pretty face.
Just beside it, silver-edged, he had one hand on the table. His head hung down and the other hand pumped with a violence that made her look away. It was familiar; he did this beside her at night, onto her, melting her clay further with his impatience. But he was bent beside this new face of his own design, and he looked ashamed of his desire.
She rolled over and was glad her clay would stay whole tonight.
She woke again and this time there was daylight. This time, he was beside her, naked and sprawled in his usual fashion. She got up from the floor mattress without a sound. The new face seemed to beckon her.
Upon closer inspection, she realized she knew the face. She’d seen it in the mirror, in the photos he’d taken of her. It was her face. Only this version of her had an open mouth. This version looked softer, with bigger eyes. She looked younger. Even with the changes, it was clear they wore the same face. She wondered if she had once had an open mouth too.
Beside her second head was a bowl filled with murky water. The logo on the side read The Mina Show. She looked again at her new self.
The clay was a patchwork mess. For the most part, it was the old concrete gray of her new feet. That was all he had left in the studio. But the new ears, the new eyes, the brand new pouting mouth were all red. She could still feel the snap of her hand breaking from her wrist, still see it sink into the bowl. She thought of the little scrap dog.
She heard the sculptor sigh in bed. The springs groaned as he rolled, still asleep. She turned to join him, to pretend that this was just one of those dreams she’d heard about on his radio, when her leg brushed against something.
Beneath the table was a thick plastic bag, the kind that held big blocks of clay, kept them workable. She pulled it out, trying to keep it from crinkling too loud. The block inside was smaller than the rest. It was a runny red.
All over her body, things had changed. There were pocks and runs everywhere. Her waist had become inches smaller than the day she stepped onto the table. He had filled every crack, built in every chip with the gray standard clay. She had never wondered where these missing pieces went. The mattress creaked. The bag dropped from her only hand. This was how she disappeared: slowly.
In the same way he had built her, he unwound her. All the little parts of her joined the red-runbag, then joined the new her, a slow birth on the table. He started with her feet because she had tried to run. The new her didn’t need feet anyway, not yet.
Next were her arms because she had tried to crawl away. She wished he’d started with her ears so she didn’t have to listen as he reassured her. “Women sculptures often don’t have arms, anyway. It was strange that you had them in the first place.”
He took and took with deliberate scraping. He used his cutting wire sometimes. He kissed her other times.
When he put the last of her in the bowl, she was dreaming of the water marring her feet. She dreamt that she hadn’t stopped at the edge. She didn’t want to be made anew, younger, prettier. She wanted to dissolve.
He was staring down at her but she was searching the ceiling for some remaining beauty. She didn’t realize the world was so dull.