A cool, wet breeze kissed Auto’s hand. With a shallow breath, he opened his eyes and squinted. A scattered light spread across the room, cut into shades of yellow and red by the stained-glass window next to Auto’s head. He felt another wet kiss on his hand and reflexively pulled away, bumping into a moist, fleshy knob. A hot snort of indignation came from a fat pig as it trotted away from Auto’s bed. Its hoofs clopped along atop the stone floor as it left the room. Auto struggled under the weight of a fur blanket as his eyes darted around him.
“Hello there, stranger!”
His eyes snapped to the far corner where a 2men was calmly sitting, holding an earthen mug in his hands. Next to him, leaning against the chalky walls, was the slender body of the auto-oboe, its harness and buckles lying in a pile on the floor.
“No,” Auto stuttered, pushing himself against the window behind him. “No, no, no.”
“Yep,” the 2men said, taking a long sip from his mug. “I saved you! Bet you didn’t think that was going to happen. You really did a number on yourself.” Lifting the mug, he casually gestured toward Auto’s body. Auto’s skin prickled, realizing that he no longer had his laboratory garments. In their place was a thick layer of pale green leaves, plastered across his lower abdomen and held together by a sour-smelling paste, which had yellowed in the sun. Auto rubbed his nose.
“I'm Liel!” The 2men said proudly, tapping his hand against his heart. “I’m a bard, musician, performer, and poet.”
Auto remained speechless, hoping this was some strange hallucination brought on by his brain before the eternity of death.
Liel took another slow sip. “Can I ask you a personal question?” He cradled the mug in his hands, leaning forward on a small, round stool. Next to him was a plain wooden table with nothing on it.
Auto glanced around again. The walls were mostly barren, save for a few slips of paper that were pinned in place with nails. There was also a small chest at the foot of the bed, but nothing else in the little room. It felt strangely impersonal yet gravely intimate.
He looked back at the 2men, Liel the singer, who had saved him. He hadn’t moved at all, waiting patiently for Auto’s reply. His clothes were more fitting of a machinist than a musician, and he looked at Auto the way one might look at an injured deer. Auto shook his head, wincing as he moved his neck. Liel nodded, understanding and compassion flashing across his face.
“Then, can I ask you an impersonal question?” He leaned back on his stool.
Auto shrugged, wishing he had a shirt.
The singer set his mug on the table and looked directly into Auto’s eyes. “Have you ever been in love? Like head-over-heels, heart fluttering, gut melting love?”
Auto closed his eyes and thought about how hard it would be to get up and leave. Where he would go, he wasn’t sure. But anywhere had to be better than whatever this was. Looking out the window, he saw a small field, golden with age brush, past it was a narrow road that went out of sight through the swaying grasses towards freedom. Auto sighed as his body ached.
“No,” he said, shrugging again as he closed his eyes.
“How I pity you.” Forlornly, Liel looked out into the adjacent room where the pig was shuffling about. “I guess in some ways you are fortunate, though. Then again, you are missing out, my friend! The emotions, the jealousy, the passion, the pain!” Liel ran his hands over his face, breathing short, energetic breaths.
“It’s nothing short of breathtaking! I say, when you feel love’s warm grip for the first time, it strips you of all other thoughts and desires. It renders you up on the altar of your own heart to be a sacrifice to the gods of time and beyond. And for what? For love has no greater plan than itself!”
“I’m sorry,” Auto interrupted, coughing a little, “is there a point to this?”
“Yes! Sorry, you see, the truth is I’m madly in love!”
“I never would have guessed.” Auto glanced around the room again in search of his shirt.
“It’s like this,” Liel began, “I’m a bard of some fame in these parts. I have been a pawn to poetry for as long as I care to remember. I’ve melted the hearts of widows, wives, and brides and entertained every soul you can imagine for days on end. Yet, the only heart I have hoped to pierce with my melodic music is the only heart closed to my affections. Poetic right?”
Auto sank a little further into the bed. “Maybe she doesn’t like you very much.” He suggested.
“How could that possibly be?” Liel jumped up, colliding against the table with reckless abandon. The mug clattered to the floor, its contents spilling over the rough stones. “I love her!” Liel shouted, “We spend our afternoons and evenings together! I brush her hair! I bathe her! What more could she ask for from me?”
Auto raised his eyebrows but said nothing, hoping the singer would tire himself out.
“You know,” Liel went on, kicking the stool out of the way, he paced across the room. “I even let her eat what’s left on my plate after every meal! I keep her so fat I can’t imagine why she’d want to be with anyone else!”
“I see how that could be frustrating.” Auto said, “…We are talking about a girl, right?”
“Yes, of course, my Rebecca is the most beautiful sow in the whole countryside!”
“Wait,” Auto sat up again, wincing as he bent his waist. “You’re in love with a pig! That pig?”
“No! Not just that pig, my friend, she is my Rebecca!”
“But she’s a pig?”
“No!” Liel said again, “She was a 2men woman! A stunning one at that! Her beauty could enslave just as it could inspire!”
Auto feared Liel might reach for his oboe, but he seemed content to pace, looking from time to time into the adjacent room.
“She died some time ago.” Liel continued, losing himself in his thoughts. “Her death devastated me. It was right before our wedding, imagine that! How perfectly tragic. How beautifully calamitous, how fantastically lamentable!”
Auto groaned.
“I assure you, it only becomes more so,” Liel stopped to lean against the wall with his forearm, lingering on a note pinned there. “With the families already gathered, the venue selected, arrangements made, and the reception planned, the wedding turned into a funeral.” A savvy financial choice to be sure, yet standing there at the altar as your bride lies in a casket, I couldn’t help but wish there was room enough for me to lie beside her and die, too.” He turned away from the wall and looked back at Auto.
“Not the wedding bed I’d imagined, yet infinitely more appealing than walking away from her right then and there.”
“That must have been difficult.” Auto said, unsure of what Liel was looking for.
“Oh, there is no greater beauty than in the things that shall never come to be. For the sloppiness of the present shall never tarnish them, and instead stay forever just out of reach.”
“But what’s with the pig?” Auto asked.
“Yes!” Liel clapped his hands together. “After the funeral, a roving doctor told me he could put her heart into the family pig, so she might live on! And so, he did!”
Auto rolled his eyes, amused at how little Reason existed outside of the Lab. “He did, did he?”
“I know it sounds ridiculous, farcical even, but it’s true, I say! At night, when I look out into the moonlit yard, I can see her still, the way the sow lies, the way she looks up at the stars! It’s Rebecca, I’m sure of it!” Grasping at the air, Liel reached for his oboe.
“I’m sure she is!” Auto said, trying to stand, panic spreading across his face. With a shudder, he fell back deeper into the bed. “But, but,” he went on, stuttering through the pain, “have you thought that perhaps you are just seeing what you want to see? Like-like a mirage of the heart?”
Liel turned back to Auto. “A mirage of the heart? That's beautiful. How poetic! If only it were true.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Auto wheezed.
“Because lately, I see that spark in her less and less. Lately, I feel she is more pig than Rebecca! I feel I am losing her all over again, and it’s ripping my heart to pieces!” With his back to the wall, Liel slid down until he reached the floor with a thud.
“Huh,” Auto said, scratching his temple and looking around, hoping something might be suddenly different. “That’s pretty tough.”
Liel turned and watched Auto, making no attempt to hide his curiosity any longer.
“Can I ask that personal question now?” he said, tugging at his beard. Auto moaned, regretting his feeble attempt to stand.
“You aren't from any of the nearby towns, are you?”
Auto’s skin erupted in a cold sweat. He rubbed his eyes and tried to calm down. “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice shaking.
“I mean, it’s none of my business. But you are not like other 2mens.” Liel looked around, then peeked around the doorway into the adjoining room before looking back at Auto. “Are you a fairy?”
Auto paused, considering his options. “Yes?” he said, choosing not to think too deeply about how this could backfire. “I-I am. How could you tell?”
A smile flashed across Liel’s face. “It was a feeling I had! A premonition that struck me! The way you appeared by the tree right when I was at my lowest point! You are here to help me, aren't you?”
Auto chuckled, noticing that his right arm and hand had been bandaged in the same leafy manner as his chest. “I’m afraid I can’t help anyone right now. Sorry.”
“No! You have to! That’s how it works!
“How 'what' works?”
“Fairies!” Liel jumped to his feet, putting his hands on the edge of the bed frame. “I found you mortally wounded in the woods, and I saved you! Ripping you from the clutches of death, I carried you back to safety. Nursed you back to health, clothed you, bathed you!”
Auto’s eyes widened, and once more he wildly scanned the room for his shirt.
“So, in return,” Liel went on, “you owe me a favor of some kind, because I have proven my virtue.”
Auto was too tired to see a flaw in his logic and, not wishing to disclose his true origin, decided that if this odd, wannabe bard needed him to be a fairy, then a fairy he would be.
Auto sighed, “What do you need from me?” he asked, sitting upright again, trying to seem more fairy-like.
“You’re a fairy!” Liel proclaimed again, as if it should be obvious to Auto what he had to do. “You can talk to animals, right?”
Auto nodded, regret filling his mind.
“Please speak to my Rebecca! Let her know how much I still care for her and ask her if she still feels the same for me?”
Auto's gaze fell to the bed. He could see his feet, two lumps under the blanket. With some effort, he wriggled his legs. It felt soft and cool under the fur; I must still have my pants. At least that’s something, Auto thought. With a shrug, he nodded. “Yeah, I can talk to her.”
“Splendid!” Liel shouted, clapping his hands. “I’ll just bring her to you, then!” Without waiting for a response, he danced out of the room, singing and slapping his belly as he went.
“Ohh, the birds are free! And the grass is young,
But sadly, I can't love anyone.
For my heart is forever bound,
To a beast that’s low to the ground!”