Story: No More Wires

[Case Scenario]

This is actually based on a commercial. You can see it here. I don't often write stories, but I just thought that the marionette seemed incredibly sympathetic. So I threw this together and... well I can't even tell if it's any good or not, that's up to you. But input is appreciated.
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The wires weren't ugly.

She'd heard what he said. And she knew that he meant well. He wasn't even talking about her… wires. It was nothing to do with her at all.

Dylan was talking with his friend about their new television, the one without cables or anything, and Walter (the friend) had said that it was good because wires were ugly. And he was right to say that, because television wires sure are. Ugly, that is. But her wires weren't. They weren't even very noticeable. Anyway, they weren't actually "wires" at all. They were strings.

So there was no reason to feel bad. None at all. They were just talking about the fancy new wireless TV. An inanimate object. A machine. Not her.

Dylan was already stammering out some kind of response, all flustered. He'd made the connection just like she had. He was going "Well, I, I mean, some wires are…" It was silly. He didn't need to cover for her. She wasn't a child, or a puppy, or a… a porcelain doll (ha ha). She wasn't so sensitive that she'd burst into tears at the slightest reminder of her condition. She was past all that.

"Some wires are what, honey?"

She just marched into the room, perfectly steady now after months of practice, and dove into the conversation. Best to pretend that she hadn't been eavesdropping. And she hadn't! She was simply taking a few moments to steady herself in the next room to make sure that she had the tray well in hand so she didn't spill anything. Walking was still a little bit of a chore… at least when she was carrying things. She didn't have good balance. But she was learning.

And she shouldn't have been thinking so much. It was too easy to lose focus. As she greeted the boys she nodded at Walter (it was a friendly nod, and definitely not just the bobbing of her head as she comically trotted into the living room) and she felt one of her eyes wink, the lid sliding lazily down the smooth surface of her glass pupil a second before the other one followed. She hated when that happened, the uneven blinking. Her face would turn red if it still could. But it was alright. Walter probably hadn't even noticed. No one did. Just focus on keeping one foot ahead of the other, keep that lemonade in check. She wouldn't want to have another accident.

Dylan was such a sweetheart. He started talking suddenly about how "great" wires are. She wouldn't go that far, of course. Given the choice, she'd much rather do without them. The strings, that is. They weren't wires. But she just murmured politely. He didn't really think they were "great" either. In fact he still seemed afraid of them whenever he saw her.

She shouldn't have thought that. Dylan wasn't afraid of her. He loved her.

Walter, though, was clearly unsettled by her appearance. He'd done a double take. She'd forgotten that he hadn't seen her for a few days. She startled people sometimes when they hadn't acclimated to her presence. But that was fine. She'd become used to people's reactions. They didn't mean any harm. She'd be startled too if she was still a normal person and she saw a big puppet… a big marionette coming towards her. Who could blame him?

She saw him glance up, like they all do. Trying to discern their origins. She still did that too sometimes. And she often wondered just what she would see if she could follow them all the way to their endpoints. If she could determine the source of that tugging sensation, constantly saving her from gravity's merciless pull.

But there was nothing to see. They just… vanished. Faded away like beams of light going too far. Every doctor (or scientist, rather) had a different idea. Some said that the wires - no, the strings, that they went to another dimension entirely. That was interesting. Others said that they were an illusion. They didn't feel like illusions to her, and Dylan had run his hands along them plenty of times, sending strange vibrations through her limbs. When he got to the parts where they faded he said they just sort of wiggled like smoke, his hand passing through them like mist turning to snow turning to ice. It felt weird, he said. She wished she could feel them too.

She liked to think that if she could follow them all the way up they would lead her to a vision of herself, her own soul, her own face smiling down on her. Her real face, with pliant skin and imperfections. She still moved how she wanted to, didn't she? If she wanted to raise her arm, her arm was raised. If she wanted to move forward, she was lifted towards the desired direction. She didn't want to consider that someone or something else might be… "handling" her.

Oh, but there she went again, off on one of her little tangents. She was always thinking a mile a minute these days, wandering away on silly pointless lines of thought. It was amazing how quickly her mind worked now.

It felt like she was panicking, all the time. Going crazy. Frantic. But that was wrong. She was doing just fine.

The tray crashed into the table with a clatter, lemonade splashing out of the glasses she'd spent ten minutes filling with the utmost care, both overturned in a sloppy mess as her hands flopped awkwardly, the wrist joints allowing a greater range of motion than they ever gave when they were made of skin and bones.

Maybe they didn't notice. She lightly hummed as she scrambled to maneuver herself. Their voices were raising behind her. She wished they would calm down. She just wanted to fix her little mess so they could all have lemonade.

So the boys could have lemonade. She couldn't have any.

But they kept on talking, almost yelling, it seemed, about how wires weren't weird. She wished they would stop talking about wires. But it was fine. She'd managed to get the glasses upright already, one of them even still had ice and liquid in it, and her fingers were inserted very nicely through the handle of the heavy glass jug. Now she was going to pour. It was certainly a unique experience, manipulating objects through balance and leverage rather than with muscles. Why were they both still talking about the wires? Didn't anyone want to help her with the lemonade? Not that she needed any help. That's right, she'd told Dylan many times that it was important that she do these things on her own. Self reliance was a crucial part of learning to live with a handicap.

She kept humming in her gentle, pleasant way. They would babble, she would croon. The rest of her might creak and clomp but she still had her voice. Often since her change she'd felt profoundly thankful for that. It was a lovely voice, she thought. No one could say she wasn't a perfectly real and living human being so long as she had her voice! She wished that the boys would start talking about something else. They kept going on about the wires but she knew they were just talking about her. That wasn't fair. Here she had a beautiful home that she'd like to show off and all Dylan and Walter could think to talk about were wires. She didn't want the world to revolve around her curious disability. But no, she was the one being unfair… it had only been a few seconds since she'd come into the room. It felt like ages but it had just been a few tiny seconds. They'd smooth over this awkward patch and they'd have their lemonade while she settled herself into a chair and watched them enjoy their drinks. It was alright.

Maybe they could talk about something pleasant. She wanted to know how Walter's family was doing. It had been a long time since she'd seen them. They used to be closer. But that was her fault. She'd become something of a homebody. All the more reason to make Walter's visit pleasant.

She dipped her upper body over the tray in a best estimate as she began the pouring procedure, her right arm hugging one of her foot strings. Her unused hand dangled in the air like a dead thing. Everything was an operation, every motion a balancing act. She wobbled and swayed as she glanced back towards Dylan and Walter, just a little self conscious. Not that she had to feel as though she was performing for anyone, it wasn't a show or anything, but she was naturally a bit embarrassed by her clumsiness. Who wouldn't be? Her eyelids blinked unevenly as her head swiveled back to see the juice rushing out of the pitcher far too quickly, gushing at the tray like a waterfall. The ice, the slices of lemon, all of it vomited out and the glass overflowed and the tray was a pool of yellow and Dylan was becoming slightly confrontational and Walter said "I didn't say 'weird!' I said… 'not weird.'"

No, it was weird. He could say it. She didn't mind people being honest. It had certainly been very weird when it happened. The strange lights. The wind, the feeling of flesh and bone and nerves and cells and veins all losing purpose and quitting, a complex human body becoming simple, like a little child drawing over an important work of art. Familiar freckles, moles, even scars fading away under a cruel cosmic eraser. The wires materializing through her, stabbing into or out of her body, black whips hanging her as if she were wet laundry. A cork bobbing up and down in space. Her body warping and shrinking and expanding like a cartoon, a silly cartoon, a balloon cartoon blowing all out of proportion. A weird wobbly stick figure with stick legs and stick arms and a face that could still emote, only that's horrible because puppets don't do that, at least not on their own. The neighbor's children were crying when she came. She had hoped that they might like her. Don't children like puppets? Pinocchio was a puppet. She liked that movie a lot when she was a little girl. A little girl made of flesh and bone, drinking lemonade under the sun, the beautiful sun that would warm her face. What was that noise? That was weird. Was Walter still here? She has to pour the lemonade. Is there an Earthquake? Why is everything jittery? Is she shaking again? She hopes she's not shaking, because when she shakes she looks funny, like one of those things from the old puppet show with the fancy cars (the ones where the puppets had faces that could emote, but they looked horrible). Would people laugh? It's not supposed to be funny. It means she's having another breakdown, and she can't stand the thought that the jittery puppet looks dumb and funny when she's crying and screaming. But more than that she hopes it isn't horrifying, because she's seen shows with puppets shaking like that and it frightened her. Something about their shaking. They looked horrifying. Horrifying. Like monsters.

Now Dylan's holding her very carefully, trying not to get in the way of her wires. There's glass everywhere. She must have had a fit. That's too bad. She was doing so well, too. Walter's gone. She understands. It must be horrible to watch a puppet shake and scream and cry and flail her puppet arms. Or maybe it was funny and Dylan kicked him out. She hopes not. He and Dylan are friends, and she doesn't want for Dylan to lose friends. She doesn't want him to lose anything because of her. And it must be so hard living with a girl who's not really a girl but a… a thing shaped like a girl. A man has needs, and she doesn't blame Dylan one bit for looking at her with a little less love every day. Just look at the mess she made.

She wishes she didn't think so much. Maybe she does it to prove to herself that she's still alive in her shell. She asked one of the researchers how she could think without a brain. The lady made a joke that she didn't think was funny.

The afternoon is ruined but she calms down quickly, sniffling and putting on a good face while Dylan tells her that it's okay, it's not her fault. She doesn't quite like the sound of that. Why shouldn't it be her fault? She's in control of herself. She's not helpless. But she can't clean up the glass. Dylan has to do it for her. He does most things.

She's still thinking that night in bed. Her heels idly click together. She wears the same blue dress she always has on, the one she was wearing when it happened and which changed along with the rest of her. It had never been a favorite article of clothing. The skirt was much too short for her tastes. But she had wanted to be beautiful for Daryl that day so she'd decided to be daring. Now she ponders wearing it forever and ever because it's as much a part of her as the threads of her hair. The softest pieces of herself... But that reminds her that at least her platinum locks are still very much like human hair, another small thing for which she is thankful, and it cheers her up a little. At least, they said it was like human hair, the testing people… it occurs to her that they might simply have told her that to spare her feelings. After all, plastic fibers can be "like" human hair. It's not like it grows or anything. She almost cries again at the thought that her hair might not be very human after all.

When she rests the wires go a little slack. They're still taut enough to let her move in her sleep, but she has to be careful or else she gets tangled. She and Dylan had made an attempt at… something a few weeks after the incident. But they just couldn't figure anything out. The strings kept getting in the way and there simply wasn't much point. That was okay, she said. They'd just wait until she was herself again.

She doesn't really believe that'll happen anymore. She thinks she'll probably always be this way. She turns towards Dylan, who's sleeping with his back to her like he always does now, the sheets wrapped around him like armor. He can take them all because, naturally, she can't sleep under the covers anymore.

Not that she's sleeping at the moment. Sometimes it's hard. She turns back and stares at the ceiling, at the strings vanishing into the air above her as she listens to Dylan's steady breathing. His body gently rises and falls. She wonders if she'll live forever, or if her materials will rot away. She asks herself if she might be destroyed in a disaster, or if she'll just fall down motionless when her strings are severed by some accident. She imagines being buried alive, still conscious but unable to move without her strings, mourners bidding farewell to the doll in the box, all secretly happy that now they can remember her as she once was. Then she thinks (or possibly dreams) that maybe she'll fall asleep tonight and wake up in her real skin again, and Dylan will love her and they'll kiss and have children together and Walter's family will visit them for a barbecue and she'll serve them all lemonade and they'll all drink and eat and she'll show off her wonderful new dress that she brought at a store which she didn't cause a scene in that she drove to in her car, and she'd look up at the sky and let the sun warm her face and there would be no wires in the way.

No ugly, ugly wires.


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[Aahz]

Well written and rather sad.

[catfish27]

Very nice. Some years ago, a writer came up with a collection of short stories based on TV commercials called "Stories from the Tube." This would have fit right in.

[Case Scenario]

Originally Posted by Aahz

Well written and rather sad.

Thanks! I'll probably use this as a first draft and spruce it up some more.

Originally Posted by catfish27

Some years ago, a writer came up with a collection of short stories based on TV commercials called "Stories from the Tube." This would have fit right in.

Hmm. Interesting. Thanks for pointing that out!

[EToaster]

Very enjoyable, and thank you for bringing the commercial to my attention as well.

[scidram]

This story is wonderfully written. Extremely poignant. Hadn't seen the commercial before reading it, and now I see it everywhere.

But apparently, there's another one with her:

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/marion...directv-157039

It takes place in the bedroom.

[Case Scenario]

Originally Posted by scidram

This story is wonderfully written. Extremely poignant.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by scidram

But apparently, there's another one with her:

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/marion...directv-157039

Yeah, and there's another one with a puppet son. It just figures that they'd follow it up and spoil my idea. Now I don't even feel like posting the second draft. But that's the fate of most fan fiction, I guess.

[Esquire]

Because the commercial wasn't creepy enough on it's own before I read this.