It's kind of a funny story, Girl Operated by a Clock had been waiting for me on the deck of the zeppelin for years. She’s bad at piano; her hands are incapable of rest and relaxation. Wind blows through her hair, which reminds me that I forget if she wanted me to bring my fiddle. I always have the case on me. She turns at the smell of fresh blood and her smile ticks up to 2 o’clock in the morning. “Oh, you, brought your, instrument.” Her voice cannot be louder than a whisper, it took years for me to hear her with my eyes open. I say, “I cannot see myself without it.”
How does the ocean stretch for so long? After being out of the city everything below us seems expansive and finite. I lean over the balcony to catch sight of any gulls. Girl Operated by a Clock says, “I, fell in love, with a girl, made of organs.” I am squatting down to open my case, but I manage to look up at Girl Operated by a Clock to try to smile. My smile is a little too wide as usual, I hope it shows in my eyes. I say, “You’ll have to settle for me. At least, for this afternoon.” She looks befuddled and says, “It, is morning. Will you play, for me?”
I nod, placing my fiddle where it is comfortable on my body. My fingers press onto the string. They get cut, blood dripping out in a steady stream of thin streams. Girl Operated by a Clock places a hand to her chest. “I thought, you played, the cello,” she says, looking hurt, but not broken. I nod and start playing to avoid responding.
Despite my best intentions the notes come out haunted. They lurk around grabbing scraps of paper and turn themselves to sheet ghosts. I worry I will fall asleep standing at this rate, or worse yet not sleep again for days. I, like her—like everyone—have come here to rest. Maybe that is impossible at this altitude as I have never moved more than a few miles from the sea. I miss the smell of the sea, everything is under salted here.
“Wake up! Body, wake up!” Girl Operated by a Clock is shaking me, her hands dig into my shoulders. I had forgotten I had eyelids to close, but I blink one eye at a time to return to this moment. Her hands pull off me; blood dripping off them. She looks at me red handed, but all I can think about is the next note. It comes out flat. I smash the fiddle into the ground. It pushes into the surface of the deck and launches back up. Smashing into my face. I lay in the pool of blood and hope Girl Operated by a Clock’s romantic interest is smarter than me. She’s fussing over me, but I close my eyes.
Three and two-fifths of a second later I’m on the ship's medical wing. The room is glass and only glass. I stare out the window down at what they tell me used to be Europe. It’s a hotel called the Grand Napoleon (it’s Waterloo there forever) now. My blood seeps over and covers my vision. Whatever, I don’t have time for warlords or waterparks right now. I don’t have time for anything in this solitude. Girl Operated by a Clock whispers, “Are, you awake, Body Without Skin?” I roll over to look further away from her. She says, “Do, you, not like, that name, Body?”
“Have I ever?” I mutter. The floor is opaque with my blood now. I hear Girl Operated by a Clock’s feathers ruffle as she sinks down into her seat. I say, “It is whatever, forever.”
“You, know, it’s rude, to ask, a question, to a question,” she says. Pain like nails hammers into my head. Hurt is infrequent these days much like everything with me. It shouldn’t hurt to be rude. Down there where acts of cruelty run rampant, it doesn’t hurt for them to do it. They’ve inflicted more pain than I did, but I am as guilty as the pope being rude to Girl Operated by a Clock. She says, “You… feel guilty, for them don’t you.” I see only red and am obvious. I push myself up and walk out off the wing. Her voice gets lost to the terrible sounds of cannon fire.
The grand reception of the zeppelin is cramped and contains a singular couch. Marionette Executed via Cannon, who I hate, is sitting on it. Oh brother, I do not want to deal with him today. I try to eloquently adjourn my time here, but he hears the sin of femininity clip-clomping from my foot bones. He turns and chortles, “Ah, Body! Mon homarde! Come sit your pretty ass next to me so we may engage in conversation or better yet, frisant!” My legs are weeping so I sit down on the opposite end of the coach.
“Mon homarde! What is wrong? Are you pent up and horny? Are you still bothered by not being touched? I dare say a woman such as you shouldn’t be, but I have grown huître in my lack of frisant! Your meat will do” Marionette Executed via Cannon beckons with his whole arm. I’ve never wanted to bleed out more.
Why had I listened to my father in coming here? It’s been nothing but altitude sickness and embarrassments. Perhaps I always belonged here, where lightheadedness is constant. How sick am I, going up here, acres above human nature, to relax? We are born with hammers; then, when you get teeth, we all try to bash heads in. Others or our own. I don’t know why this is the case, but it is true.
Marionette Executed via Cannon beckons still. I say, “fuck you.” He says, “This is what I am asking mon homarde. Are you saumon?” I want to leave as fast as possible so I consider only doing hand stuff. But I’d rather not touch him at all, so I say, “I don’t want to have sex with you, Marionette Executed via Cannon.” I get up to leave, but an urge to hear him out washes across me.
Marionette Executed via Cannon says, “My family has conquered the world three times. Each time they came and kicked us out. Disposing the natural order of things. Then we did it again and the cycle repeats. What I’m trying to say, mon homarde, is that you will never be rid of men like me. You might as well become a sadist to your own desires.”
“Homard means lobster dipshit.” My foot bones carry me away from the curses to my bloodline. He won’t follow through with them. How could he? He is only a puppet.
When I’m upset I go and do laundry. The recent reinvention of the washing machine has made this escape short. Whatever. I throw my blood-soaked rags in the metal coffin and shut the window. They will come out as clean linen fabric that I will have to sew back into clothes. Everyone is born without skin, my struggle to figure out how to grow it isn’t unique.
The machine’s thunking dims as I enter a hall to lean out of the zeppelin's window. The air caresses against my meat. It’s painfully exposing. I close my eyes and let it all in. Girl Operated by a Clock whispers, “Am I, too subtle, for you?”
Eyes closed, I say, “I think the world is too nuanced for me.”
“Then what, do you think, you will do?”
“I don’t know. I think I am pretentious.”
“You are, but I, love you, anyways.”
I turn and look at her. The ticking at her core is so loud and annoying. But at this moment, I don’t mind it at all. She is reaching out a single hand to me. Girl Operated by a Clock says, “Will you do this for me?”
And I say, “I want to stop bleeding.”
