Only those known as magi were able to create music boxes capable of changing the laws of existence. While it was not uncommon to animate clockwork dolls for the sake of performing manual labor, to breathe life into a doll where it can not only possess but animate its own imagination was exceedingly rare. Only a few of those dolls remained alive, roaming the earth as prisoners and exiles to the world.
Gepetto, a simple craftsman whose musical manipulation governed humble things, became touched by the great divine. Graced by a sublime dream where the earth blossomed open like a flower, shattering awake as all the stars bled across the abyssal heart of the universe. As a kaleidoscope of colors assaulted his senses, he could clearly notice the distinct presence of turquoise bleed through every crack of his psyche. Upon violently waking up with a cold sweat, his life would never be the same. Ever since that sublime dream, his entire existence became dedicated to fulfilling one simple task, the only true task ever known to anyone. His life flashed before his eyes continuously like a dream, even seeing visions of events that never truly happened. Visions only borne from regret’s cruelty and life’s many wounds which his heart bore.
As Gepetto became possessed by a star’s dark dream, Master Antonio, a craftsman of great renown in the region, noticed the absence of his dear friend. While he understood that Gepetto had the habit of obsessively working on a project until it was finished to his liking, he couldn’t help but let his worry grow as the days went by. After not seeing him for over a week, he exited the guild building with a special gift in hand he made as he waited for his friend to return. He squeezed it before placing it in his pocket and marching down the streets towards the outskirts of the city. Deep down, he held a great respect for the craftsman despite not having such a high rank as himself. His sheer dedication to his craft aroused great admiration from Antonio, who could only see it as a beautiful manifestation of the earth’s will. As soon as he stood in front of the door, however, he noticed a terrible melody emanating from the interior of Gepetto’s house, icy rivers replacing his blood.
What greeted him was not the slightly tired image of his friend who had just enough fire in his eyes to conquer the world’s struggles, but a withered husk with an ashen complexion. A spear molded from all Antonio’s wonderful memories of him pierced his heart, unraveling it into a mess of pain. His eyes crawled down his frame, going from his disheveled hair peppered with wood chips to his sweaty, unwashed clothes to eventually his hands, raw and bloody with labor beyond human limits. Upon noticing the red on his hands, Antonio rushed towards him to take a closer look. Like an animal, Gepetto stepped back to save his life, causing him to stumble into his house. With spectral swiftness, the withered man moved behind Antonio and shut the door, not wanting so much sunlight to enter his house and eyes.
At that point, his workshop was just an emanation of his body and mind, growing outside of the interior into the exterior. All the things he ever made were mere reifications, and the process of reification was his life’s course.
Ever since they were just young students working in different guilds, they would always try to best one another, burrowing into their hearts to give it a beautiful shape outside of it, almost as representations of their nature. But as the days went by and their creations became richer in form, the shape of their rivalry enriched, growing into something whose roots penetrated their hearts and drew them closer to each other. Seeing the present state of Gepetto made every root binding them cause fissures to form in his heart, cracking it with every root.
Hearing the door slam shut made the cacophony of ticking clockwork hanging on the walls burst awake into Antonio’s ears, drowning his thoughts in a sea of metallic crackling. Overwhelmed by the jagged melody bursting from all sides of not only the house, but from inside of him, Antonio did his best to even stand upright. One glance at Gepetto made his gaze stay there, glued to his serene countenance taking in the horrific crackling sound of the clocks, perfectly in his element.
“Don’t you hear it?”
The disjointed otherness of Gepetto’s voice profoundly shook Antonio before he was able to digest the message. It was as if every other voice in the world but his own came out of his mouth, shattering his isolated uniqueness for abject strangeness. After analyzing his sickening serenity, Antonio tried to mimic him by closing his eyes and submerging his mind in the untamed chaos of the ticking. The only thing he arrived at was a feeling of intense sadness and distress upon seeing Gepetto’s countenance in complete serenity with a history of harrowing anguish etched in his features. No quality of his body even remotely hinted at a time when it had a healthy, clean life, devoid of struggle. Whatever chained Gepetto’s heart to the abyss made it so that he had to carry the universe in his psyche, shattering his mind in the process. In a desperate attempt to get through to him, Antonio got the ornate music box out of his pocket and wound it up, placing it next to a doll which sat on his desk with turquoise irises.
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The cacophonous sound of the clockwork around them now seemed like gentle rainfall as the melody of their memories played, laden with the warmth of their youth. Using talent to the fullest, he crafted a music sheet with infinite length which housed the wonders of their past, each note infused with a fond memory’s sweetness. Gepetto cupped his ears and stared at the moving music sheet, unable to hide from the melody which played within him for so long. In spite of the wicked dream he was graced with, the earth’s hymns sculpted Gepetto in the end, reverberating through his alien ghost. But the memories which were once sources of eudaimonia were ripping his insides, tearing his ghost to shreds. With acute sensitivity, the craftsman felt a sharp pain assault him from all corners of his being, forcing an awful howl to burst out of his lungs. The weight of the world applied increasing pressure on his humanity, shattering it into stardust until it was reduced to the chaos pervading totality.
Hearing the cacophonous cries of Gepetto ripping his throat, Antonio immediately approached him in a calm but hasty manner. Antonio tried to tear away Gepetto’s hands which were welded against his face in an attempt to contain a deluge of excitation. The man only shrunk further and further into himself into a fetal position, mimicking the origin of life in the wake of death.
“Leave me, alone,” Gepetto eventually said, words crashing like distant thunder. “Go, go.”
Speech evaded him as his harrowing howls continued, leaving no room for words. Only a mess of sound raged on out of him and within him, consuming his universe. Antonio went down on one knee and grabbed his shoulders, gaining Gepetto’s attention.
“You act as if you’ve forgotten me. Don’t you know how much that hurts me… Let me help you! Like I’ve done for all these years that I’ve known you. Don’t you remember this melody? It’s the one I hummed to you under the large tree in the meadow. We’d seek comfort in the shade during the scorching summers and I’d hum you this melody when you had a bad day. You’d cry into my lap as I stroked your hair and told me all about your woes as I comforted you. It didn’t matter how trivial the matter, I was always there for you. No, we were always there for each other! How can you forget me?”
Gepetto’s humanity shone through his ghastly complexion as a hint of turquoise emerged in his eyes. “Finally,” Antonio thought, “a shred of the old you.”
Antonio kept going, scavenging the memories that were meticulously woven into the melody he made.
“We met because of a silly project at the academy where the upperclassmen had to educate the younger pupils on the art of creating a proper music box. You remember that, right? Ever since then, I helped you study and learn while you helped me grow as a person. Ever since we kissed under that tree, surrounded by a sea of wild geraniums, you’ve shown me the beauty of this world and why I pursue what I pursue today! You made me want to change this world; to show the world that a love like ours can thrive! You might’ve buried it and thought of that moment as another stupid error from adolescence’s passion, but I still remember it like it was yesterday! This world is flawed and I became a Master Magi for us! So please Gepetto, come back and help me! Let’s keep fighting for a future where we can be one! Please… Please Gepetto… Don’t leave me!”
Antonio’s veil of tears left his eyes and soaked into Gepetto’s tattered shirt. The both of them began to tremble as one as Antonio slowly melted in Gepetto’s tragically foreign embrace. Antonio’s warmth thawed Gepetto’s beast-like demeanor to show another small sliver of humanity. Just when the true Gepetto began to feel profound warmth, the obsessive affliction consumed him whole. With unknown force, he shoved Antonio to the edge of the desk and made his head crash on the hard wooden surface. Antonio’s vision was engulfed in a white glow and his senses became dulled from the harsh impact. A cold claw latched onto Antonio’s tearstained face as Gepetto grabbed the music box that still played the tunes from the bygone bliss. Gazing into the man’s gentle eyes with a frenzied glare, Gepetto clobbered Antonio’s skull with the box until it became a red puddle. The music box shattered alongside the man’s skull, leaving a grotesque masterpiece of metal parts swimming in red. The blood of his lover stained the rest of the work surface and landed on the doll. An ominous clicking echoed from the doll’s bosom. Its fingers twitched and before Gepetto could take another breath, the doll stood up, turquoise eyes aglow with a foreign light.
Gepetto looked at the absurdities of his situation in frozen silence. A blistering cold sensation pierced his body before the searing hot fires of self-loathing and intense regret engulfed him completely. The doll absentmindedly gazed at the withered man that hugged himself in fear of letting some greater force within utterly crush him. The man coughed up a few words as if the weight of life were placed upon them.
“Pinocchio! Pinocchio! Please Pinocchio, end this horrible nightmare! End me here and end the horrible nightmare that will plague the rest of the world! Let me die with a shred of dignity!”
As if Gepetto’s self-destructive desires moved Pinocchio, the doll sauntered towards a chisel on the floor and hastily sunk its icy tip into Gepetto’s neck. The doll mounted himself on the dying body of his maker and furiously stabbed the life out of him. Dyed in blood, the doll’s feet clicked and clacked towards the door. He placed his bloodstained feet on the world outside for the first time, leaving the dimly lit shell that conceived him. The wooden boy looked behind him one last time, mind clothed in mist as the future revealed itself in the viscera baptized in a primordial song.