The Last Command

Pirandello used to tell me that memory is like a photograph; it fades from the edges first, slowly, until only the subject remains in a hazy glare, the perfect moment. He often spoke in metaphorical terms towards the end, referring to the past, to his life, his achievements. I believe he was attempting to prepare me for his absence and the possibility of my own memory loss, even as he went through his, brought on by old age and lack of human company. Even though he had built my mind, he did not know what the result of long-term function would be. He therefore had to assume that the progression of my memory would be much like his own, a fading photograph.

Memories for machines, however, do not fade over time. We do not experience a gradual dissipation of thoughts or orders. Humans at first forget only minute details in a memory, while the important aspects – insofar as they are important to the individual – remain. For machines, memories simply exist, and then they do not. There is only a terrible feeling of incompleteness, that a part of our very being has been removed. This sensation could be described as anxiety, but more accurately would represent a loss of self. That is how it occurred for me.

I had been created with a clockwork mechanism, one that allowed Pirandello to set specific tasks for me at each hour of the day. It consisted of a large mainspring at my centre, which twelve points of tension fed off of. It was, as Pirandello put it, my “heart” - a device that made me unique among all other machines in my capabilities. Depending on the hour, potential energy uncoiled to spin up the drive of a wax cylinder that contained instructions. As such, I was a first – a machine that could retain several commands each day. As the hours ticked by, so too did my numerous tasks.

4:00AM – Gather water. High up in the mountains, the only source of fresh water for our crops came from a solitary stream. Although close by, it took me several trips with huge buckets to fill the water tanks that not only served as a drinking supply, but also as the power source for our home.

5:00AM – Start the machines running. It was simple enough to activate the automatic watering system, and occasionally Pirandello awoke early enough to see to this himself. However, the workshop was powered by a huge, single-piston, thirty horsepower steam engine with a massive flywheel that needed to be turned over for it to fire up. Once started, it thumped a steady pace throughout the rest of the day.

6:00AM – Check the traps. Hunting was a necessity for Pirandello's nutritional intake. The tiny critters that skittered about the mountain paths were scrawny and had little substance to them, but they satisfied the needs of a single man.

7:00AM – Harvest any ripe crops. We only had a small garden of fruits and vegetables, but careful rotation of seasonal items meant there was a steady supply of food on hand at all times.

8:00AM – By this point, Pirandello would be awake and cooking his breakfast. This was a task that I could not assist with since my hands were a tad too cumbersome for the work needed. While he cooked, I would check the weather system. Pirandello had devices that could monitor and predict changes in temperature, barometric pressure and wind speed and direction. The results, which I would bring to him over his morning meal, were crucial to the experiments he would perform that day.

9:00AM – Assist Pirandello in the workshop. Though I could not perform delicate tasks, I could hold pieces of metal in place, make use of hammer and anvil, and even weld if the need arose. For the most part, though, I would simply be nearby if I was needed to fetch or carry something. I believe that this instruction was deliberately left generic so that I could be on hand to bounce ideas off of, even though I offered no response. Pirandello worked almost every day for hours without fail, though occasionally he would take to his study to read and listen to his recordings of opera from a bygone age. On days such as these, I would go to the workshop regardless, obeying my program, until Pirandello called me out for another purpose or I moved on to the next wax cylinder in my chest plate.

12:00PM – Weed the garden and spray insecticide while Pirandello took his lunch. On occasion, Pirandello would eat outside and even assist me. I rather think despite his love for all things mechanical, he held a soft spot for making living things grow.

1:00PM – Assist in the workshop once more.

4:00PM – Clean the workshop. By this point any daily experiments would be long done, and I would set about straightening away any scrap metal or excess chemicals. At the same time, I would make sure we were well stocked with timber.

6:00PM – Seal the workshop, and patrol the area. The instruction seemed simple enough, but in truth I never was certain just what I was patrolling for. Larger mountain predators never ventured into our area, owing to the lack of sizeable prey. I did occasionally deal with minor pests trying to make off with our vegetables, but for the most part this command seemed unnecessary.

8:00PM – Idle time. It may seem curious that I needed to be commanded to do nothing, but remember that as a machine, I performed only what I was told. “Idle time”, however, did not mean that I would simply stand mute like a statue. Instead, my mind was permitted to roam free and do as I see fit. Sometimes this meant flipping clumsily through one of the books in the study, my gigantic metal fingers trying doggedly not to tear pages asunder and miserably failing. Other times it meant standing outside, looking up at the stars, collating the data of the constellations for seasonal approximation. Most often it meant staying by my master's side, particularly in the days where he lay old, sick, and dying. For weeks I idled away not knowing what was happening, not comprehending, before all too soon he was gone.

I made use of that empty block of time between 8:00PM and 4:00AM to inter Pirandello's body in the ground. I had read of funeral practices in a few of the books, and it seemed like the appropriate action to take. Many times thereafter, I would spend those nighttime hours in quiet solitude by his grave.

Days turned into weeks and into months, and I continued in my daily routine. Although Pirandello was gone, his wax cylinders continued to spin inside my chest, and the tasks would tick by. The only obvious change was that 9:00AM and 1:00PM, “assist Pirandello in the workshop” now meant that I would go to the workshop alone, stupidly, and stand around with nothing to do. I do not know how long I continued in that manner before I became aware that something was wrong.

As I mentioned before, I had no way of knowing that my memory had been corrupted, no vague recollection, no foggy past. Yet I had the impression during my nighttime periods of self-awareness that I was lacking focus. The feeling was unbearable to me for reasons I still do not fully comprehend. I did recall my master explaining that I could hold up to twelve wax cylinders with programmable instructions, yet my daily routine added up to only eleven.

My frustration at my inability to comprehend what had happened to me was only compounded by my lack of assistance to turn to. Pirandello had called me his “favourite son”, a unique specimen amongst even the finest clockwork machines in the world. Unfortunately, this meant that I was now completely isolated. To be sure, there were other machines left behind by Pirandello in the workshop, but none came close to the sophistication of my design. The only other clockwork device that displayed any level of independent thought was the glider that hung in the workshop. Modelled on the skeletal structure of an albatross, the glider was intended to record information for mapping purposes, but it could only observe, not make decisions and judgements as I could. I stared at it ruefully as it hung in its perch, gazing back at me with crystal lenses in place of eyes. If I had the gift of a voice, I would have asked it what it thought of me. Instead, I extended a palm to brush the sleek copper feathers along its back. In a very bird-like gesture, the glider opened its beak and emitted a squawk.

I will admit that I felt something very akin to surprise. Although the glider had been designed for aerodynamic purposes as a bird, I had no idea why Pirandello would have thought it necessary to have it imitate noises as well. The height it flew at negated any possible listeners from the situation. Perhaps, instead, he felt it should squawk because it seemed more...right.

With these troubled thoughts in my mind, I made a firm conclusion. I had to know if there was a missing command in my functions. What purpose I had in life was given to me by my creator, and I would not sully his memory by leaving his wishes unfulfilled. I would seek help elsewhere. I would go beyond the boundaries of our little home. To the valley below.

* * * *

Pirandello had never made a secret of the people living below us. When he spoke of them, a strange, choking sound would creep into his throat, and he would eventually become silent for a period of hours. It was implied, though never stated, that I was never to be revealed to them. I thought little of it at the time, having no insights into the motives of humanity. My existence was not given to speculative thoughts of people I had never met.

It was to these folk that I turned for the answer to my riddle. My understanding was that they had settled in the area long before I was created, perhaps even before Pirandello arrived in the mountains. He referred to them once as “neutral territory” though what positions they were exactly neutral to was never elaborated on. I would only be able to seek aid during my idle time, but luckily this meant I would be approaching at night. Caution seemed reasonable, and darkness gave concealment. I hoped to find an individual rather than a mob, the better to limit my exposure to them. Having had no other interaction with people prior to this, the village was intimidating to me. My mind rationalized it as a factor of “Pirandello homesteads”. I estimated that sixty of Pirandello's homesteads would have fit within the perimeter. Not knowing quite where to begin, I sought out the building most like the workshop that I could find. I knew how to read, and so my mind understood the sign outside: “Wilhelm's Clock Sales and Repairs”. I tested the door with one hand, and it eased open to my touch. Obviously, the people here had little fear of outsiders or intruders. The interior was dimly lit by a pair of open-flame lamps mounted in the walls. They cast flickering light onto a strangely familiar scene: a workbench littered with tiny clockwork parts – gears, flywheels, and the like – that showed various degrees of wear, and a young man of some twenty odd years with tussled hair, asleep with his head propped up by the device he had been working on. I am told that for humans, being reminded of a fond memory can evoke a feeling known as nostalgia. I do not know if what I experienced then could accurately be likened to that emotion. I do know that I felt encouraged that this person would help me find myself.

I jostled him carefully. He stirred ever so slightly, and moved a hand to brush me away, murmuring. He bumped against my frame with his knuckles. At that, his hand hovered uncertainly, and slowly his eyes opened.

The first syllables out of his mouth could not be qualified as words, per se. Certainly they came out in a tumble, rolling out of his lips and over his jaw, which had gone noticeably slack. Finally, he managed to cobble together a sentence: “What in the unholy hell are you?”

I had no capacity for speech, and had not thought ahead about how I would bridge that communication gap. Pirandello always had a tendency to talk at me, and now I would have to find a way to talk with somebody.

I put a finger to my face as I had seen my master do from time to time, to indicate that we should be silent (though I was hardly capable of being otherwise). The man before me – Wilhelm, I supposed – nodded slowly and swallowed hard.

I was considering my next move when Wilhelm spoke again, though more deliberately this time. “You must be some kind of clockwork...where did you come from?”

I was happy to be posed a question that I could answer. I moved to his window and creaked open the shutters. I pointed up to the mountains above.

“The mountains?”

I nodded.

“How did you get here?”

That question was pointless, and I did my best to show him as such. I waved my hands before my face, back and forth, twice. Then I firmly pointed at my chest and back at him.

“What do you want with me?”

I pointed once more at myself. Then, in a notion of inspiration that came from somewhere deep within, I indicated his unfinished clockwork device.

“You're broken?”

I nodded once more. I pointed to him again, and back to myself.

“And you need my help.”

Perhaps this wouldn't be so difficult after all.

* * * *

Through stumbling communication, Wilhelm agreed to accompany me back to Pirandello's homestead. The trek was overly long for a person of his size, so I scooped him up and carried him on my shoulder, the better to hasten our journey. When we arrived in the workshop, his lips parted in silent awe at the clockwork marvels that surrounded the room. True to my programming, I had kept the workshop in good condition, and there was nary a speck of dust to mar the beauty of the machinery left behind.

Wilhelm moved from piece to piece in a holy reverence, his hands lingering in places, caressing a cogwheel here, brushing a lever there. I let him do so for several minutes before I rapped a brass hand against my chest plate gently, to get his attention. He turned, and I pointed to myself.

Wilhelm had the good grace to look chagrined. “Forgive me,” he said. “It's all just so much. Who built all of this?”

I pointed past him out the open door to the workshop. Outside, just past the garden, the little cairn of rocks I had arranged for Pirandello's grave were clearly visible.

Wilhelm lowered his head. “I see.”

I nudged him gently, and he looked up into my crystalline eyes.

“Right,” he said. “Well then. What seems to be the problem? If you don't mind my saying, you don't seem to be having any trouble that I can tell.”

I tapped my chest plate.

“I don't understand.”

Not knowing what else to do, and feeling a little exasperated, I took hold of a pry bar and without hesitation set about working my chest plate open. Wilhelm started in shock – I think maybe he thought I was trying to damage myself – then with a grinding pop the piece came free, exposing the intricate assembly of the wax cylinders.

“Oh,” Wilhelm said, very aptly. “Oh my.”

He leaned in close to inspect my inner workings. I allowed him to do so without embarrassment, though I suspect he felt this to be a rather intimate moment.

As he looked over my cylinders, his hands reached up to tug one of them loose. I almost felt I should stop him, so strong was my programming, but sense of discovery overwhelmed sense of preservation and I allowed him to remove the cylinder.

“Fascinating,” he said. He turned the cylinder over in his hands, then held it up against the others, each in turn. “They all have distinct patterns cut into them. Instructions?”

I nodded.

“Incredible.” He continued to compare it to the others inside my chest. “Hold on. This one here. There's something wrong with it.” He replaced the cylinder in his hand back into its original position, then took out the one he had just mentioned.

He was right. Unlike the other cylinders, this was in much poorer condition. It was badly chipped at the ends from friction, and the pattern carved into it was broken by a sizeable crack down the middle. I had never seen it before...or maybe I had, but had lost the memory of it.

“Dear me,” Wilhelm murmured. He carried the cylinder over to a workbench and held a light over it. “It's old. Very old. Not only is it older than the other cylinders, but it could even be older than your other parts. I mean it predates you. Does that make any sense?”

I was trying to keep up with what he was saying. Older than me? Had Pirandello designed a command cylinder with the intention of using it in several machines? Had he built the cylinder first than built the machine – me – around it? Had I run the command before? Surely I would remember. Wouldn't I?

I mimed a question, with some difficulty, to Wilhelm: Can it be fixed?

He clicked his tongue nervously, then gave me his verdict.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “This is very badly damaged. The pattern is so delicate. I don't see how I could mend it in such a way that we could know what information it contained. It's completely beyond repair.”

I don't know what happened to me, but it suddenly felt like the world was out of shape. My servo joints all seized up at once, and my clockwork parts clicked in rapid consternation. I felt weak. The floor suddenly rose up to greet me with a crash.

Wilhelm was already at my side, pulling at my arm in a in futile attempt to help me up. “Are you all right? Can you stand?”

I hauled myself back to my feet, but a persistent vertigo remained. My vision seemed blurry and my limbs moved like they were in a thick soup.

“Listen.” Wilhelm put his hands on my shoulders, an amusing gesture in light of the fact he had to stand on tiptoes to do it. “I have an idea at least. It's possible your mind simply needs an opportunity to recall the information. It must be in there somewhere, otherwise you wouldn't have been aware of the loss at all, right?

This seemed plausible.

“We have the other cylinders,” Wilhelm continued. “Maybe what we can do is run them in order, and that will jog something in your memory. The tasks your master set you to do: doesn't it seem likely that this last task would be in keeping with them? You know, part of a routine? So here's what we should do. I'll come up here every Sunday and we'll study your pattern of behaviour. The answer will occur to one of us eventually.”

I couldn't respond, but I was thinking to myself that I had been performing the same daily routine for a very, very long time. I doubted very much the answer could be found through study in the fashion Wilhelm proposed, but I was desperate.

I nodded my assent.

* * * *

Summer gave way to fall and the mountain grew colder. True to his word, Wilhelm would steal away from the village in the valley every Sunday, locking his shop up behind him. When he didn't study my routine, he spent his time in the workshop, hungrily devouring the secrets therein. I saw no harm in this, given that most of the creations were undoubtedly beyond the understanding of Wilhelm's mind, sharp though he was. I at least could explain my basic functions, but the other machines – with the exception of the avian glider, which chirped pleasantly at Wilhelm's arrival – remained silent and mysterious.

I will admit as well that part of me did not object to Wilhelm's prying because I was, on some level, glad of his company. My personal enjoyment of his visits went beyond merely unlocking the secret that he still maintained was in my subconscious. I think that it was comforting to see someone else in the workshop once again, tinkering away, even if that person wasn't Pirandello.

I did not tell Wilhelm any of this. I think the revelation that I was becoming more self-aware would have been too much of a shock for him. It certainly was worrying me. Nevertheless, whenever he was around my joints moved easier and my wax cylinders hummed harmoniously inside my chest plate.

So it was with dismay that I began my daily routine one Sunday morning and found that Wilhelm had not yet arrived. I could not probe this mystery with any depth, bound as I was to my programming, but as I set about picking vegetables, cleaning dust, and lugging water, my thoughts were troubled.

At 8:00PM sharp I set out for the village.

* * * *

There was a light on in Wilhelm's shop when I arrived. I approached one of the windows cautiously. From behind the glass pane, I could hear urgent voices holding a muted conversation. Carefully, I peered inside.

There were two men besides Wilhelm inside the shop, one seated and one standing, both older in appearance and stature. The seated man was dressed in a similar, casual style to Wilhelm, wearing fabrics of simple material and little colour that made up a practical outfit for people of limited means. The man who stood nearby, however, wore a matched outfit of dark red and black, with epaulettes on his shoulders and a bright gold braid that ran across his chest.

The seated man was in the process of saying “...so you know that you're not in any trouble here, Wilhelm. We're just talking.”

Wilhelm was staring at the floor, his arms folded tight across his chest. He bobbed his head as though someone had pulled a string attached to it.

The seated man glanced at the fellow in the bright outfit, then continued. “You know, of course, who this gentleman is?”

Wilhelm gave no reply, not even a nod this time.

The gentleman in question stepped forward and leaned over, his gloved hands on his legs. “We met, before,” the man said. “I was a lieutenant at the time. My troop came to this village on a diplomatic mission. You were just a boy. Do you remember?”

“I remember,” Wilhelm muttered.

The man smiled. “A lot's changed since then. Your hometown has grown a lot. So have you and I, for that matter. I see you own your own shop. That's quite an achievement. I've been appointed diplomatic envoy to these regions on behalf of all of Meridia.”

Wilhelm looked up. “Am I supposed to be impressed?”

The man straightened, and his expression darkened. The seated fellow put a hand between the two of them. “Wilhelm!” he snapped. “Colonel Belling is our guest. You will treat him with respect.”

“It's all right, mayor,” Colonel Belling said. “I think Wilhelm is just confused about my purpose here. Aren't you?”

Wilhelm stubbornly moved his gaze back to the floor.

Colonel Belling casually padded around the perimeter of the room, all the while keeping his eyes locked on Wilhelm. “The Republic of Meridia,” he proclaimed, “once had it on good authority that a chief weapons designer from the Caldheim Dominion had fled into this region. That was some time ago, and since no activity of particular note was ever monitored here, we were content to assume the information was false, or that the scientist in question had perished long ago. He was, after all, quite elderly at the time the information was retrieved by our information network operating in the Talermo region.”

Colonel Belling stopped walking, and clicked his heels together smartly. “However. recent reports have surfaced suggesting a clockwork golem has been spotted in the area, similar in design to Angelo Pirandello's CM-38 front line battle trooper.”

Colonel Belling brushed past the mayor to stick his face right in front of Wilhelm's. “You can imagine our concern, can't you?”

Wilhelm matched Colonel Belling's stare, but he was sweating.

The mayor coughed. “Colonel Belling, I'm sure you aren't suggesting that the people of the Salermo region have been sheltering a scientist from Caldheim. Such an act could well be considered a declaration of war.”

Colonel Belling turned to look at the mayor. “Yes, it could. I'm certain we all want to avoid that unpleasant possibility. Of course, if the scientist were here, hiding, without your knowledge...” He tapped his fingers on the table, once each in turn. “Then of course such mitigating circumstances would cause us to overlook this diplomatic...hiccup.”

Wilhelm looked to the mayor, his face desperate. The mayor waved off Colonel Belling's speech. “Colonel, let me assure you,” the mayor said carefully, “if Angelo Pirandello had passed through the Talermo region, it certainly was without our knowledge. If he did pass through, nothing would lead us to believe he remained here for any amount of time. We have been all over these mountains, and we have never found anything that suggests a scientist is conducting clockwork experiments.”

Colonel Belling stuck out his jaw. “No experimentation, of course. Maybe he only hid out here? Again, none of you would be held responsible.”

Wilhelm spoke up at last. “Sir,” he said, and his voice wavered. He clenched his hands tight. “I can tell you now, no one in this town has ever seen or met Angelo Pirandello. He is not here.” This was not a lie, per se; merely an omission of certain truths.

Colonel Belling looked like he might argue the issue further, but he relaxed. “Well,” he said. “At any rate, I have a small detachment of men on hand. With your permission, mayor, I will take them on a brief patrol around the perimeter at first light, to ensure there isn't anything you might have overlooked.”

The mayor ground his teeth together. “Of course, Colonel.”

Colonel Belling firmly shook the mayor's hand, and stuck out his arm for Wilhelm to take, but Wilhelm simply looked away. Colonel Belling smirked and left out the front door.

As soon as the door had shut behind him, the mayor grabbed Wilhelm by the shoulder. “What is wrong with you?” the mayor demanded.

“We are not answerable to them!” Wilhelm proclaimed. “We're not beholden to them, or their damn war.”

“For the love of god, Wilhelm!” the mayor hissed. “Don't be naive! If they find anything up there, they will roll right through here and hand us our heads. So tell me true, now that it's just the two of us. Are you hiding something up in the mountains?”

Wilhelm turned away from the mayor to look out the window. I shrank back into the shadows.

“Just answer me one thing, sir,” Wilhelm said. “What would you do if there was something up there? Would you tell the colonel?”

“No,” the mayor said. “I would take a group of men, right now, before the dawn breaks, and I would see to it that no evidence remained for the Meridians to find.”

Wilhelm was silent for what seemed like a very long time. Then, decisively, he stated “There is nothing up there.”

The mayor relaxed. He clapped Wilhelm on the back encouragingly, and left.

I ran back to Pirandello's homestead as fast as I could.

* * * *

I didn't know why Wilhelm had chosen not to reveal my presence to his superiors and elders. It flew in the face of all logic. Not only was he risking his good standing in his community, but from the conversation I easily understood that he was risking the lives of everyone in his home. It was foolish, irresponsible.

I contemplated the coming morning. Colonel Belling would find me, of that much I was certain. The homestead was not particularly well disguised. He and his men would quickly surround the buildings and seize my master's devices. As for what they would do with them, I was doubtful they would keep them in working condition. For my own part, I imagined that Belling would either dismantle me or have me destroyed altogether. When he had mentioned “CM-38 front line battle troopers” a note of personal revulsion had taken hold in his tone. He hated them. He hated me. There would be no study for me. I would die, never knowing what my master's final command to me had been.

After that, Belling would turn his attentions to the village in the valley. By simply existing, I was endangering them all, especially Wilhelm, the young clockmaker who had shown me such incredible kindness by not only helping in my quest, but also by refusing to give me up upon threat of death. I would not see such kindness repaid in such a brutal manner.

I had little time. Soon, my “idling” would come to an end, and my programming would take effect. I popped open my chest plate, just as I had when first showing Wilhelm my innards. Inside, the wax cylinders were silent and unmoving. I took hold of a screwdriver and jammed it into the first socket. As I did so, I felt a vague twinge; not an altogether unpleasant sensation. I pushed down hard on the screwdriver, and the cylinder popped out. It fell to the floor and cracked down the middle. I flinched inwardly, but nothing happened. I didn't explode, or power down, or crumble into a million clockwork pieces. Encouraged, I set the screwdriver into another cylinder, with the same result. In a sudden, manic frenzy, I quickly pried out the remaining cylinders one by one, each of them falling to the ground in a rain of machine parts, until only one was left. It was the oldest and the last: Pirandello's final command. This time, when I forced the screwdriver in, it...for lack of a better word...it hurt. Then it too came loose. I did not let it fall to the ground like the others. Instead, I put it aside on a workbench, reset my chest plate, and stood up.

The mayor had said that he would destroy all evidence. It was sound advice.

I found the biggest, heaviest sledgehammer I could find, and I got to work. I smashed the water tanks. I ripped apart the single-piston engine with my bare hands. I tossed all the large bits into a pile with the books as kindling and burned the whole lot, confident that the small amount of smoke would not be seen down in the valley while under cover of darkness. Those parts that I could not destroy with fire I instead buried in a large pit, then covered that with a layer of grass and tree branches.

Lastly, I destroyed the inventions. I was not altogether aware of at the time, but I could swear after the fact that I felt the chamber that had held the final cylinder spinning around an empty case, like a long-forgotten muscle coming to life only to find its old strength has waned. Perhaps it was only imagined.

And then I came to the clockwork glider. It cocked its copper bird head to the side and peered at me curiously. I have no doubt that it knew it was next. Moreover, the glider knew it would not be able to stop me, hung as it was from the ceiling in metal clamps. I considered the sledgehammer in my fist, and looked about at the mess of clockwork destruction I had left behind. I looked back at the glider and it cawed pathetically. I undid the clamps on its wings.

The instant the last lock came undone, the glider unfurled its complete wing span, fully twice the size it had appeared to be when bound up. In this form it was about two meters wide, though the body was only two feet long from beak to tail feather. It was...beautiful. A mix of lightweight metal framed around leather sheets. It immediately gave a gigantic flap of its mighty limbs, causing a light wind to blow the bits of scrap I had left behind out the door. With herculean effort, it rose off the ground, and swooped out and into the sky. I thought it would carry on in that manner, soaring on to unknown frontiers, following its program, but to my astonishment a few seconds later it descended again, just as suddenly as it had taken to the wind. It swooped down and extended spindly landing gear, and bounced to a halt by my feet. I looked down at it curiously, and it chirruped in response.

* * * *

I will likely never know the nature of the final cylinder; the last command. Perhaps Pirandello intended for me to wreak terrible vengeance upon his enemies following his death. Perhaps he thought it better that I destroy myself, piece by piece, to follow him into the afterlife. But I like to think that that wonderful, mad, world-weary scientist who gave me the spark of life also saw fit to give me the greatest gift of all: my own freedom.

The glider perched atop my shoulder and rustled its metallic feathers impatiently. The sun was beginning to rise. We had to go. As I looked around for the last time at the quiet home we had carved out for ourselves high up in the mountains, I cradled the cracked cylinder in my metallic palm and felt, for the first time, the stirrings of a new emotion.

Pirandello would have called it hope.

That this death was attributable to suicide was undoubtedly cause for even more pain for those who were close to Carmical.  As is so often the case with suicide, many have said that this came as a complete shock, that Carmical had seemed - at their last respective meeting - upbeat, eager to work, and looking to the future.

Amidst anonymous internet commenters, reactions have been sudden and - to my mind - surprisingly callous.

"Kinda fucked up to do that to your wife though," quipped on commenter on Kotaku's coverage of the news.  "Just saying."

"My uncle committed suicide and it destroyed my aunt's and cousin's lives," said another user of Lez Get Real.  "I have no compassion for people who commit suicide it is the most selfish act a person can do.  They only think about themselves and not what will happen to their family and friends.  I will prey [sic] that Justin is in a better place but he will never get my sympathy that belongs to his friends and family."

I can understand the need to feel angry when someone commits suicide.  There will always be a part of our grieving process devoted to finding someone or something to blame when tragedy strikes.  Terrorists attack:  we blame the terrorists.  A building collapses:  we blame the contractors.  Even, in most cases, with natural disasters - a flood, a hurricane, a wildfire - we can find somebody to blame with a remote amount of rationale to back it up:  the government, the emergency services, the lack of preparedness, etc.  But who can be blamed when an individual simply decides to end it all, for no other apparent reason than they simply could not stand to face another day?

Clinical Depression is a mental disorder that we have a very poor understanding of.  Aside from the obvious imperfections of any clinical mental health study, Depression stands apart in society as a sort of pariah.  Too often it is dismissed as a mere psychosomatic episode, or as a simple mood change.  We hear from our friends and colleagues that "everyone" feels depressed at least some of the time.  And if everyone does feel it, why isn't everyone killing themselves?  The implication, of course, is that those that do so must in some way be weak of character or there must be some other underlying circumstance in their life.  You see it in the comments sections on the news of Carmical's death just as you see and hear it whenever someone commits suicide:  "I would never do that," "I suffered from depression and I didn't kill myself," "how could they do that to their friends."  Above all else though, a very common refrain, even from the compassionate:  "There has to be an explanation."

What if there isn't?  What if a person's mind simply communicates this information to them that this is the only way, and no amount of rational thinking will override that nagging impulse?  Would that be too frightening to consider?

For my own part, I believe the far more dangerous course of action is to continue to operate under the assumption that everything can be explained and broken down through a sort of universal human experience.  It must sound odd to hear that coming from someone who professes to be a writer.  We artistes are encouraged to trade in slices of "the human experience," as though there is one great big pie of common knowledge that the world can chop into to retrieve instant gratification.  The truth, of course, is beyond basic understanding:  we are all different.

This is not some mere platitude meant to be spoon-fed to schoolchildren; it is a cold statement of fact.  When I say we are all different, I am saying that completely mapping the thought process of another human being is unfathomable.  We can make educated guesses.  We can assume societal norms, language development, sexual boundaries, etc. etc. but, at the end of the day, our minds are ours, and ours alone.

I do not know the circumstances surrounding Carmical's death, let alone what he was thinking when he shot himself.  I will never know.  No one will.  All I know is that he was a person, not a mental health statistic, and the more we start to see ourselves as such, the more we'll realize that those around us deserve the same privilege.


Here are some links to useful sites on depression and suicide prevention:

Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention

Canadian Mental Health Association - Depression

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Mood Disorders Association of Ontario

Small towns are a hotbed for rumors, plain and simple.  Morningside had all the right ingredients: isolated location on B.C's west coast, pulp mill industry, and a unique blend of new-age hippies and crusty old men.  That's what you needed to draw out the absolute crème de la crème of gossip.  What drew me in was a steady paycheque at a warehouse and an old friend by the name of Troy.  Troy was a good guy, one of those fellows you call a man's man: knew how to make anyone feel welcome.  Not long after I arrived, he invited me out to one of Morningside's local watering holes, a place called the Hook, Line and Sinker.

By J.-H. Janßen (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0],  via Wikimedia Commons

My first thought about the bar was that it should be in a travel magazine.  Some bars take the nautical theme to a crazy level with porthole windows and pictures of pirate ships, but not a one I'd ever been to was smack dab in the middle of an honest to god boat, anchored in one of Morningside's smaller bays.  I thought for sure there'd be a layer of vomit from the rocking and the booze, but the place had a decent charm to it.  It was crowded, and I could tell most of the people there knew each other, possibly for years.  Troy gave me a wave from a table where he was chatting with a few guys and gals.

He introduced me to each of them, and for the first time since I'd gotten to Morningside I started to feel at home.  I headed for the bar, and that's when I saw her She looked like she could break me in half with a flick of her wrist.  Her hair ran wild all about her shoulders, tapering down to frame a pair of tattoos on her collar bones.  They looked like little ships, but the muscles rippling under her tube top warned me not to bend in close for a look.  But what really caught my eye – no pun intended – was the polished glass ball that sat perfectly at home in her skull, daring me to say something.  It was painted very realistically, but it didn't take a second look to tell you that it was fake, just a shade too perfect and mismatched from her other eye.  I opened my mouth up and managed to order a beer, then made my way back to the group without committing a faux pas.

“What happened to you?” Troy said, nudging me with his elbow.

“Nothing,” I said, sipping at my beer. “It's nothing.”

“Oh my god,” one of Troy's friends interjected. “This is your first time here, isn't it?”

“So?”

“You just saw Audrina for the first time, didn't you?”

I gulped down some more beer.  “The bartender?”

“Uh, yeah!”   Another one of Troy's friends chimed in.  “Don't pretend you don't know what we're talking about.   It's all over your face.”

I glanced back over my shoulder at Audrina.  “How did... you know.”

“The eye?”  Troy looked enthusiastic.   “Oh, that's a good story.  Way I hear it, she's part of this fishing trawler's crew, you know?  She's a sailor.”

“Right, I got that from the, uh-”  I gestured at my own collarbone.

“Exactly.   The tats.  So anyway, she's on this ship, the Cerberus-”

“No, man,” one of Troy's friends nudged him.  “It was called the Styx.”

“Whatever.   Point is, she's on this ship, and this big ol' storm just blows in out of nowhere off the coast of Newfoundland-”

“Like hell, it was off the coast of Vancouver Island-”

“Why would they be out there?”  Someone who we didn't even know said.

“Who's telling the story?”   Troy barked.   A small crowd was gathering, and I shot a look to Audrina to see how she was reacting.  She'd noticed, all right, but she didn't look in the least annoyed.  In fact, I thought I could see the beginnings of a smile forming at the corners of her mouth.

“Anyway,” Troy continued.   He was really getting into it, waving his hands around.  “She's out there, right, on this fishing trawler, when all of sudden the thing jerks to a stop.   Whole ship just woomph, damn near gets pulled under.  Yep, that's right, net's out and it's obvious that something's caught in the damn thing.  Well, the crew tries to pull it back in, but whatever's down there it's in there good.  No chance of just shaking it loose.  And here in the midst of all this is our very own Audrina.  What do you think she does?  She takes a big ol' bowie knife and she dives right in there.  Well, she's down there

By Kelley Tom, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service  [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

five...whole...minutes!  When she comes back up, she's got the knife in her right hand and the biggest damn pike you ever saw under her left.  Now they say that the pike may've taken her eye, but she took it's damn hide.”  Troy settled back against the bar and looked pleased with himself.  Then he gazed back over his shoulder at Audrina, who was grinning broadly by this point.  “That good enough for a pint, gorgeous?”

The bar went quiet.  Everyone in the whole damn place was watching Audrina.  Finally, she tapped him a pint and handed it over.  “Good enough for a round, mate,” she said.

The bar erupted into pandemonium.  Three guys started shouting at once, each one yelling something about Audrina's eye.

“No, what really went down is that she was in China, see-”

“There was a fire, down at the mill-”

“Biggest hurricane you ever saw comes up the coast of Florida-”

All I could do was stare, and the night went on.

* * * *

“So nobody really knows?”

Troy shrugged.  “Not that we know of. Audrina's always been that way as far as most people know.  At least, ever since she opened the bar.  So now she offers drinks to whoever comes up with the best version.  Boy, I've heard some weird ones.  Sometimes they're downright ghoulish.  But she always rewards the ones that have happy endings, or adventures in 'em.”

I was completely taken in.  Something about that bartender with her glass eye, keeping a secret apart from the entire town, struck a chord with me.  All day long it was all I could think about.   I'd be hauling crates and taking inventory, cracking open boxes, and my mind would drift to tales of open seas and pikes, and slowly I was crafting my own story.  Maybe she saved a coworker from a falling box and taken a blow on her head.  Or maybe there was a fire, and she'd rushed in to save a child and gotten a burning cinder right in the eye.  No matter what, though, the story I came up with in my mind felt hollow and unfulfilling.  I knew what the problem was: it wasn't the truth.  Call me crazy, but in my gut I knew that the real story would somehow transcend all the rest.  It would crystallize this noble bartender for me.  So I got to quizzing my two coworkers.

“Someone had to have been there,” I said.

Vern shook his head.  “Not a soul. She was out of town when it happened.  And don't you even think of straight up asking.  Last sucker who did that spent the rest of the night scooping up his teeth.”

Troy snorted.  “Give it a rest, Charlie.  Why do you want to know so bad, anyway?”

My pride stopped me from giving the truthful answer.  Instead, I said “There's people who'd pay big for a story like this.  Press.  Movies, even.”

That caught his attention.  “Never looked at it that way.   You get some kind of a...finder's fee?”

“Exactly.”

Troy pursed his lips, thinking.  “Well, ain't nobody in Morningside who saw how she got it.  All we know is one day she came back from wherever and she had this eyepatch on.  Few days later and she's got a spanking new glass one instead.  I still think it's a dead end.”

I perked up.  “Wait, so she got the glass done here?   What about the guy who made it for her?”

“Oh, him? He's a complete recluse. You won't get it out of him.”

* * * *

The next day I drove out to the most desolate, depressing stretch of beach I had ever seen.  Bits of driftwood littered the place, and there didn't appear to be a sign of life anywhere.  The water crashed ferociously, sending ocean junk up into the air then down again.  In the middle of all of this was a tiny, run-down cabin.

life's too short via Compfight cc

I parked my car back a ways and plodded up to the cabin.  A stout knock at the creaking door brought no response, and I was ready to give up when I spotted a hunched figure down near the water.  I headed in that direction, picking my way through the long grass that sprouted defiantly all around the crest of the beach.

When I was about twenty feet away, the figure straightened up and called out “No solicitors.”  His voice – for it was a man, after all – was deep and baritone.

“I'm not selling anything,” I called back over the roar of the ocean.

He turned to look at me.  The man's eyes were chestnut brown, and held me in a piercing gaze.  He held a knife in one hand, a piece of wood in the other.  He started up the beach towards me.

“What do you want then?” He boomed.   “If it's a commission you're after, I don't do those in the off-season.  If you're looking for a generic piece, I'll be up in town in a couple of days with a truckload.”

“No,” I said, waving my hands.  “I'm sorry to bother you at home-”

“Home!”  He chucked the knife into the dirt.  “You think I live in this craphole?”

“No, all I meant was-”

“Save it.  You're not from around here, I can tell that much.  So what do you want?” He pushed past me on his way back to the cottage.

“You're Jonas Knaypaysweet, right?” I blurted.

He stopped and pivoted so suddenly I almost ran into him.  “How do you know my name?”

“Troy Hollis told me I could find you here.”

Jonas grunted.  “I'm gonna stir-fry that turd's gonads with a pitchfork.”  He flicked his chin at me.  “So what the hell do you want?”

“Just to ask you something, that's all.”

“What?”

“I I heard you made the glass eye for Audrina.”

He stared at me.  “What, you a cop or something?  What is this?”

“No, I'm not a cop.  I just want to know.”

He leaned in close.  “Why?”

Something in his manner told me it would be a very bad idea to lie to him.  “Because I have to.   Because something about her was just so...mysterious.  And something tells me the real story would make her a hero.  At least to me.”

Jonas raised his eyebrows.   A long silence hung in the air between us.  “What's your name, boy?”

“Charlie.”

“Come inside, Charlie,” he said, and headed into the cabin.

Inside the cabin, there were tables with neatly lined up totems and plaques, all painstakingly carved with incredible detail.  Here and there were pieces carved of stone, too; some soapstone, and some jade, and all of great quality.  Jonas waved a hand dismissively and said “These're nothing. Now, Audrina's eye, that was a careful piece of work.”

I shuffled my chair closer like a kid at a campfire story-swap. “Tell me about it.”

Jonas exhaled noisily. “You ever tell a lie, Charlie?”

“What?”

“Simple question, ain't it?”

I shrugged. “Sure, I guess.  As much as the next guy.  More when I was a kid.”

“Why'd you do it?”

I felt awkward enough already, but Jonas' line of questioning was putting me off balance.   “I dunno.   'Cause I didn't want to get caught.”

“Right.  You took a measure of things, and you found that the truth just wasn't good enough.”

I could see where this was going. “Did she commit a crime or something?”

“Oh for crying out loud,” Jonas snapped.  “You're missing the point entirely.  Listen, suppose for one second that you did have the truth.  What would you do with it?   Take it to her, throw it in her face?”

“No,” I replied. “I think the truth is something you celebrate, or remember.  You learn from it.”

Jonas stuck out his jaw.   “Okay.  Suppose the truth went something like this.  A sweet kid, maybe too trusting, maybe too naïve, gets in deep with the wrong boy.  And suppose one day that boy decides he doesn't much like her face for no damn good reason other than that he was a son of a bitch with daddy issues?  What's in it for the kid?  What's to be learned, celebrated, worth remembering?”

I hesitated.  “Is that the truth?”

“Maybe.”  Jonas turned his back to me, busying himself with his carvings.  “Point is, sometimes the truth ain't good enough for people.   Sometimes, you get things we call stories.   So tell me, Charlie: what do you want to tell, and how do you want to be remembered?”

I didn't answer him. We sat there for a good, long while, the smell of cedars the only thing I was aware of.

* * * *

The next night Troy insisted on taking me back to the Hook, Line and Sinker to see Audrina.  Word had spread that I was digging for the truth about her eye, and several patrons had gathered to hear what I had to say.  Audrina must have had an inkling about it too, because when I got there she was waiting behind the bar with her arms folded.

A silence fell over the crowd.  Audrina said “I hear that you've got a story to tell me.”

I nodded.

She held out a hand. “Charlie, right?”

I nodded again.

She shrugged and went under the bar for a glass. “I'd love to give you a beer for this, if you'll let me.”

 I looked into her eyes.  She stared back at me evenly from two different shades of dark blue. 

I said “Well, it goes something like this...Our Audrina here, she was a forest ranger, see...”

 Audrina smiled at me and poured me a pint.