the piggies come close

Marrionetta watched as Lorelei roped the struggling lever boy into the chair. His mouth was gagged with waxed cloth which muffled his screams. Lorelei pulled the boy’s hair, setting his neck backwards and dripped a sedative up his nose. Soon, the boy slipped into shallow breaths of unwanted sleep.

Marrionetta bobbed. Her head was bobbing. Her legs her bobbing. She couldn’t keep all her parts from moving around. She had become unsyncopated. Her appendages had been taken apart and put back together so many times, she was having trouble unifying. Her gaze shifted around the sleeping lever boy, seeing him and unseeing him, both together.

Lorelei offered Marrionetta one of his smaller knives. “The honors?”

Marrionetta vaguely shook her head. She believed strongly that she didn’t know what he meant even though she knew exactly what he was asking her to do.

“Joy? Mania? Which ones are your favorites again? Everybody’s different.”

Marrionetta wrinkled her brow. She didn’t exactly care about the health or wellbeing of any of the lever boys at the circus. They annoyed her, frankly. They had awkward, developing voices of boy-men, unkempt clothing, incomplete information, and they frequently broke her things and ruined her costumes. She didn’t know this one’s name, the one in the chair. He didn’t even really seem familiar.

“The high is more intense when it’s human to human. The piggies come close but this is going to be real fun.” Lorelei shimmered the knife over the young boy’s flesh, waiting for Marrionetta to state a preference.

She looked at other parts of the room. Was this really The Emerald House? How long had she been staying up here? She felt a well of uncertainty yawn open in the air around her. She felt herself pulled into it. There was a dull roar in her ears and a freezing ocean seemed to swell through her bloodstream. She felt lightheaded. Then, a moment later, she snapped back to the stinging presence of her Visigoth friend championing violence over their small kidnap.

“I don’t want anymore today?” she tried.

Lorelei shrugged, “Suit yourself.” He slit the boy’s throat. Marrionetta grabbed at her face, sniffled and crawled back into the fireplace.