Pieces of The Puzzle - with Everavalon

Missing from the department store's window, covered with cobwebs and dust, a mannequin with a pulse stood at the foot of my bed. It was naked and wearing my wife's pale skin but had no eyes, ears, or mouth. They were stitched closed as if by wire from a musical instrument, perhaps a mandolin cello. I was awakened by the strings of Mantovani's "Unchained Melody," as if echoing from miles away. The expressionless void of its tenor was edgy as if its voice box was out of gear. Raspy and raw, it mumbled some quips about life as a vector of disarray like some urchin, shriveled up. The skin was scorched of its verve flaking petals of dynamism from its brow. its swank was that of a crusted pearl. The room was cold and I could see my breath freezing and falling like snow. My fingers were turning blue with frostbite and becoming numb to the touch. Like a snowman, my fingers were breaking off and dripping congealing crimson blood, as the alarm clock sounded. I set up in bed with the sheets covered in blood. My fingers are on the floor, crawling like caterpillars, looking for sunlight. The devil was lurking behind these feral walls. A cool, cruel soirée of opulent dishevel and I was the star, of the show. The mannequin held out its hand and I hesitantly obliged. Curious and cautious— it rewrote every emotion with an essence of vie. As I started to rise, hands held me down intravenously feeding me more anesthesia and chipping away at my sanity while applying a coat of clear porcelain to my naked anatomy, gouging my eyes out with a spoon, and sewing the lids shut. I am thrust into a darkness not even a chasm could consider. My limbs are becoming rigid, we’re being suffocated by even the slightest of movements. The dummy’s guffaws, filtered through every cell of my body, undulating between wild howls and textured moans— until its voice fell still. Every second of silence lain felt sharp and burdensome. I could feel it pacing around me; circling me like a vulture. Its breath labored as time ticked past. Without warning, I was upraised from my idle. The only echoes in the room were porcelain cracking as the mannequin molded my limbs into a stance of mid-waltz.

As the dawn awoke I could feel my umbilical cord being cut and pieces of my porcelain body being swept up and placed in a box as if a puzzle beneath a plastic Christmas tree in the Department Store window.