The pig sat on its haunches, looking up at Auto from across the room with apologetic, empty eyes. Auto shifted uneasily in bed, trying to soothe a raging itch under the bandages on his arm. Grunting in frustration, he pushed the blankets away from him. Rebecca (the pig) dropped her head and sniffed, nibbling at the spot where Liel had spilled his drink hours before.
“When do you think he’ll be back?” Auto glanced out the window. Liel had left in a rush, not wishing to intrude on Auto and Rebecca’s conversation. Whistling poorly, he had walked into the fields and out of sight, leaving Auto alone with the pig.
Auto shook his head, “This is something else,” he muttered, looking at his bandages. Some time ago now (he realized with some concern that Liel had not told him how long he’d been asleep), he was the prize possession of the highest orders of the Cult of Science. Now, he sat in a room with a despondent pig, the prize possession of a peasant bard.
Smirking to himself, he held out his good hand towards the pig, who clumsily walked over to him, happy to let him scratch behind her ear. Auto had never been allowed to physically interact with animals, the fear being that he would eat them. Once he matured, the Scientists determined that perhaps he had more self-control than they first expected from a human and, after some debate, had put a mouse in his room. They ended the experiment early after the mouse bit him multiple times.
“I guess we aren’t so different.” Auto said to Rebecca, feeling her side rise and fall as she sniffed at something under the bed. “We’re both animals, altered by people who can’t learn to let go.”
Auto shut his eyes. The heavy breathing of the pig, accented by an occasional snort, was the only noise in the room. The warm afternoon sunlight felt good on his bare back. His head still throbbed a little, and the injuries across his body were unrelenting in their dull pain. But he did feel better. “Maybe I’ll be able to stand soon.” He said out loud. “Wouldn’t that be a trick? Walking away from a wreck like that…”
The Cult of Science preached predictability and rational thinking, Reason being the greatest gift one could possess. Life itself was determined through a predictable system built on a chaotic foundation. The harmony and dependence of these two forces were what allowed nature to exist, and Reason governed every part of all life. Reason was numbers, Reason was words, Reason was everything.
And Reason, posited Auto, would suggest that he should be dead. That no one on that W.H.A.L.E should have survived. Yet here Auto was. Yes, he was bruised and broken, but he was alive. Standing in stark opposition to Reason, the sacred order, and predictability.
The Scientists proclaimed time and time again that what was unpredictable was simply not yet fully understood. The Scientists hated Auto’s unpredictable nature, telling him that he must be understood so that he could be controlled. Now, still living against the odds, Auto replayed those final moments, wondering what he had miscalculated.
He felt a hot wave of discomfort begin to crawl over his body. Like a lurking specter, it hung off his shoulders and breathed hot sparks into his ears. With his eyes shut, he could see the faces of the Scientists who were with him right before the crash. He remembered how they were all so blissful, moments before the W.H.A.L.E. was ripped in two. Sending him and the rest down to the ground to their deaths. Or so he thought. How did he survive such a crash?
Auto shook his head, rubbing his eyes until he saw spots. “I’m not being Reasonable,” He muttered. Every person on that ship was standing over him, their faces twisted in a scrutinizing, empty stare. Every inch of their bodies showed signs of agony and pain, except for their eyes. Small and shrewd, they had no emotion, only fascination.
“This isn’t Reasonable.” Auto gasped
He could smell burned flesh as their sterile, gloved hands reached out towards him. His heartbeat doubled, as all other senses abandoned him. “This isn’t Reasonable!” He repeated over and over as sterile walls rose around him.
Crying out, he recoiled from gloved hands and empty faces that reached and grasped from behind paper walls, pushing through without ever ripping. Auto kicked at them all, pushing the blankets off as he crawled along the edge of the bed. “No-no! He whispered, his eyes shut tight, “I’m not being Reasonable!” The bed fell away. Colliding with something solid and cold, his eyes snapped open.
He was lying on the floor. Above his head, the pig’s snout hovered, its glistening skin and hot breath were calming. He stayed on the floor for some time, waiting for his heart to steady. From his position, he could see a long-jagged scar running the length of the pig’s underbelly.
Auto pulled himself up off the floor and into the bed. Lying on his back, he looked up at the thatched ceiling. Rebecca nudged his knee, which hung over the edge, his feet still on the floor. He lifted his head, she had pushed her snout onto the bed, holding a corner of the blanket in her mouth.
“Oh, thank you.” Auto grabbed the fur, pulling it back up around his body.
The more he watched her, the more there seemed to be a kind of reason to the pig’s sniffing and bumbling. Of course, she wasn’t really a 2men woman, that was unreasonable.
A dull rummaging came from the adjacent room (Liel had closed the connecting door when he left to give them more privacy).
“Listen here,” Auto said in a sarcastic whisper, “If anyone asks, we had a productive talk, and, while you feel like the doesn’t understand you anymore as much now, you are still willing to keep trying. Good?
The pig pushed its pink snout into the bed again, and Auto scratched her head.
“Good.” Auto pulled himself back into the full comfort of the bed and looked at the door as the hinges squeaked, creaking open hesitantly. Auto suddenly felt very exposed and yanked the blankets up to his chin as a shudder rolled up his body. A 2men woman, with a long face and deep, compassionate eyes, stepped into the room, surrounded by a flowing cream dress.
“You’re awake!” She said, a smile spread across her face like a sunrise. She picked up the stool from where Liel had pushed it and placed it by the table, taking a moment to make sure it was just right before bending down and picking up the mug. “You must be all confused.”
Auto nodded slowly, “…Rebecca?” He asked,
“How did you—you really are magical. Yes. This is my husband’s—I mean—our pig.” She turned and brushed some crumbs off the table before sitting down. The pig clopped its little hooves as it waddled to her and licked the crumbs off the floor.
“I must say,” the woman went on, “When my husband returned three days ago and said he had brought home a fairy, I didn’t know what to think. But there you were, all cute and beautiful like a baby, with such soft features, I couldn’t believe my eyes! It’s a miracle that he found you!”
“It is.” Auto said, holding the blanket tight in his hands.
“My name is Marygold, by the way,” The woman said, nodding her head as if her name was common knowledge, “and my husband’s name is Liel, I don’t know where he went off to, but he should be back soon. He will be so happy to learn you are awake and well. That one of you is anyway.”
Auto’s head was swimming with this barrage of information. However, one question emerged without him even thinking. “One of us?”
“Yes, Liel came home with two! You and a poor man who was even more injured. Hard to believe, really. The nactu grove has always been a peaceful place, yet on the same day he comes across a half-dead fairy, he also finds a man burned alive in the remains of a Scientist’s robe! Can you believe it? A Scientist up here? In our house? It’s incredible! We haven’t had one in…” She trailed off, looking at the pig, before gazing down at her hands. “It’s been some time.”
Auto tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry to work right. He shifted in bed and winced.
“Everything alright?” Marygold asked, concern clouding her face. Auto nodded, his eyes looking out the window, tracking the empty sky. His lips tightened in a pained grimace.
Marygold walked over to the bed. “Is it your injury? Let me look,” she tried to lift the blanket, but Auto clung to it. She reached her hand out to squeeze his shoulder reassuringly, but before she could, Auto threw the blankets back and swatted at her hand.
“No!” He stammered, quickly reaching for the blanket again. “I—please don’t.”
Marygold slowly backed away, confused but kindly consenting to his demand.
“It’s okay,” she said, sitting back down at the table and patting the pig with her hand. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Auto shivered again but did his best to disguise it, adjusting the blanket and pulling it once more to his neck.
“It’s not—” He said, unable to meet her eyes. “You didn’t do anything, it’s just-I-I don’t.”
“No, please,” Marygold interrupted compassionately, “it’s a fairy thing. I understand.”
She nodded to herself, reassured, not wanting to provoke such a sensitive and beautiful being as this fairy.
Auto squirmed in the silence that followed. Marygold sat too, her eyes drifting about the room. They moved aimlessly, moving from the walls to the scraps of paper, to the pig before returning once more to Auto. He still refused to meet her gaze, but out of the corner of his eye, he could see that she was in the middle of a long battle against some rival part of herself until finally, she spoke,
“You shouldn’t believe what it says.” Her voice had taken on a new tone. Under the caring sweetness that had flowed freely before was a dark thread that sent a shiver up Auto’s spine.
Auto looked at her, then at the rest of the room. “Who?” he asked, pulling the blanket a little tighter around his neck.
Marygold nodded at the pig, who was sitting directly between them, its face pointed at its hooves.
“The pig.” She said, “You mustn’t tell Liel what she’s told you. That is, if she’s told you anything.”
Auto again looked around the room, trying in vain to find some shred of Reason in this ridiculous place. Marygold’s eyes were moist, and her lips quivered. Auto felt as though he should say something, but nothing was coming to him.
“You mustn’t tell him!” She whispered, wringing her hands together, “Please, I love my husband. People think I am mad because of it, but I love him more than I have words for. I never meant to hurt him, and so I beg you, as a fairy and as a friend, please do not hurt him!” She chewed at her nail and looked at the pig again,
“I know how you must think of me.” She continued, speaking even lower than before. “After all, how can I say I love my husband if I’ve deceived him? But I’m telling you, it’s because of my love that I did what I did. No matter what that pig might have said to you, remember that.”
“Hello?” Leil called out from the other room. “I hope I’m not interrupting,” Liel said, a twisting expression of excitement and fear crisscrossing over his face as he entered, his eyes locked on Marygold. “I didn’t realize you were home.” Liel clapped his hands together, his eyes shifting to the pig and then to Auto.
“Yes, I came home early from town,” Marygold said, standing up, quickly wiping her eyes with the corner of her sleeve. Walking over to Liel, she kissed him warmly on his stiff lips. “See how much better the fairy is doing? He’s awake and seems no worse for wear!”
“Yes, I—I spoke to him before I left.”
“Oh, he didn’t mention that,” Marygold said, glancing at Auto.
“Figures.” Liel said, pushing past Marygold and planting a dismissive kiss on the top of her head, “Him and I, we didn’t talk much. I told him about this or that, nothing important enough to recount. He didn’t mention any of it to you, did he?”
“Well, we had only just started to talk,” Marygold said, sitting again on the stool. “I told him about our other guest, the Scientist. It’s so exciting! I say we are the talk of the town. Everyone wants to come by and see them both! I say the town is nearly up in arms over whom they wish to see more! The cultists are all offended at the very prospect of Fairies existing, and the naturalists are insulted that we’d offer shelter to a Scientist! It caused such a ruckus!
“In fact,” Marygold continued, shifting in her seat as Liel paced across the room, rubbing his hands together impatiently. “Maggie and that fat brother of hers told me right to my face that I was a stain on the dress of Reason for even suggesting that we had found a fairy! Well, I just smiled at them and said, ‘Come see for yourselves, Reason permitting.’ Then I turned and walked away. I swear I could hear the discomfort in their faces, all twisted like they always are. It was such a rush to tell them off.” She looked past Auto, out the window. “It was nice, something different for a change.”
“Yes, yes,” Liel said, walking up and down along the side wall of the room, “Say,” He said, turning on his heels, “I bet the fairy is thirsty, you’re thirsty right? Marygold, darling, would you mind getting our guest some water from the well?”
“Yes, yes of course!” Marygold exclaimed, coming alive with purpose, “Silly me! I’m so sorry for not having offered sooner.” With her dress swirling, she hurried out of the room, looking back at Auto once before darting out of sight.
“Well?” Liel said, an excited tremor in his voice, “What did she say?”
Auto sat up and looked Liel in the eye. “Who, your wife—or the pig?”
“Don’t be silly,” Liel scoffed, “The pig, of course! Did you tell her how I feel? Did she tell you how she feels? Should I sit down? I’d better stand.”
Auto ran a hand through his hair and looked at Liel wide-eyed. “What’s going on?”
Liel glanced at the pig, who at this point was scratching its back against the underside of the table. “Didn’t she tell you?”
“Honestly, I don’t know what I’ve been told.”
“It should be simple!” Liel clenched his fists. “Does she love me?”
“Yes?” Auto hesitated, “Your wife does at least.”
“Wife-to-be,” Liel corrected, “remember, we never did get married.”
“Not the pig, Liel! Marygold, your wife!”
“What? Oh yes, she does. Very much so.” Liel looked to where Marygold had been sitting, “Isn’t it tragic?” His body deflated.
“Why didn’t you tell me about her?”
“Well, I didn’t think it mattered. Besides, Rebecca told you everything, right?”
“Frankly,” Auto said, pressing his hands against his forehead. “Rebecca might have told me things I wasn’t supposed to know.”
Liel raised one eyebrow and looked at the pig with suspicion.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I—I think she needs you to explain it all for her.” Auto said, saving face and regaining some of his fairy composure. “Some honest communication, for once, might be what she needs.”
Liel took a deep breath and looked at the pig. “It’s not what you think.” He swallowed hard and looked at the ceiling.
“After you died, I was vulnerable, and as they often do, a roving doctor took advantage of my mental state. He took nearly all our money.” Liel turned to Auto, his eyes glistening. “I was so relieved I didn’t care what people thought or said.” He walked closer to the bed.
“But people talk. And rumors spread. A single man. Alone. With a pig? It was madness! So, to save face, I begin to sing my love songs again. The ones I used to sing to Rebecca! The ones about Rebecca.
“I sang to anyone who would listen day and night, up and down the village streets, hoping people would think I was in love again. Sadly, my fairy friend, they only thought the worst. They believed I was in love with the pig!”
“Aren’t you?” Auto interrupted. “I mean, you are in love with her, right? That’s the whole reason I was supposed to talk to it—her.”
“No!” Leil looked insulted. “I am not in love with a pig. That’s ridiculous. I’m in love with Rebecca! The pig is just a box of sorts. For her heart. Trust me, I am not in love with the pig.” A silence fell over the room as both Auto and Liel watched the animal nudge the table leg with its shoulder. “At least, I didn’t think so.”
Auto rolled his eyes.
“You see,” Liel continued in a hushed tone, “I started to notice that the pig began to behave much like Rebecca would. How she would look up at the stars, lay her head on my lap, eat from my hand, roll around in the mud.”
“Those are just pig things Liel.”
“No!” Liel reassured him, waving his hands in disagreement, “You didn’t know her like I did. Rebecca shared many similarities with a pig. I honestly thought she’d like to be one, that’s partly why I let the doctor put her heart into a pig’s body in the first place.”
“What about Marygold?” Auto asked, looking out the open door, fearing she was about to return.
Liel’s face went red as he started to pace the length of the little room again.
“Yes, yes, yes,” he muttered, “The town was beginning to ask questions, make accusations. I needed someone to cover for me. I didn’t want to be ostracized due to my broken, lovesick heart. The true tragedy is that it worked.
“You see, I didn’t deserve to be loved again. The poetry of life should not have permitted it. I am a wretched man who lost his wife-to-be the day before the wedding. It would’ve been more beautiful if I had killed myself that fateful day. How the poets would have rejoiced! Oh, if I had only taken the path less traveled. But sadly, no. I did what anyone else would have done.”
Liel looked heavenward; his eyes moist, his throat becoming choked with sorrow. “I let the heart of my wife-to-be get put into a pig! I was a coward and couldn’t let go. Instead, I kept her with me, both prisoners of my love. And now? I couldn’t bear to let her go. Not after all we’ve been through. It wouldn’t be fair.”
He looked back at Auto, “So I’ve made up my mind to never love sweet, perfect, immaculate Marygold. Even if she’s beautiful, and loves me, and even if I want to…” Liel stopped himself.
“If Rebecca can never move on, then neither should I. Besides, I can’t risk the possibility of having two pigs! That would be ridiculous.” He sighed and looked at the many creases in his palm. “It’s a lonesome, painful life. The suffering is so great that its beauty is sometimes overpowering. There are some days when I can’t find the strength to get out of bed! The beauty of my pain has even brought me to tears! How wonderful is that?”
“It’s something.” Auto said. “But you do love Marygold?”
“That’s the ultimate tragedy!” Liel exclaimed, throwing his hands away from his body. “I’m an awful, lovesick, wretched man who may or may not be in love with a pig, and I have this beautiful, kind, wonderful wife who loves me more than there are stars in the sky, and I won’t let myself love her back. How could I? I’m bound by duty and pain to this infernal creature, this four-legged representation of my own regrets and mistakes. I’m stuck in an impossible place. A beautiful tragedy.”
Auto felt hot; he didn’t care for Liel’s appreciation of suffering. Auto knew suffering. He couldn’t think of a day when he hadn’t suffered. And there was never any beauty in it. There was only ever fear, pain, anger, contempt, and hatred, and it all boiled inside of him now, mixing and churning, making him feel sick.
“Unless,” Liel said, a sudden glimmer appearing in his eyes, “there is an even higher level of suffering. Yes! An even greater plane of suffering! One that comes after a missed second chance at redemption.”
“In the name of Reason.” Auto said. Liel paid him no mind, swelling with purpose.
“Yes, I have been given a second chance!” he continued. “To truly feel all the suffering that life has, and thus its unspeakable splendor. I must confront my wife and tell her of my true feelings. How I can’t possibly love her, not when this pig holds both mine and Rebecca’s hearts.
“She will leave me, of course, curse me out, perhaps even hit me. Oh, I would like it if she were to hit me! The poetry of it all, a physical injury brought on by my giving her an emotional one!”
“Just wait a moment, Liel.” Auto said. Feeling a strong need to stop this madness once and for all, “This isn’t a good idea.” He stammered. “Think of how this will make her feel. You can’t just hurt her like that.”
“Yes,” Liel nodded. “But one day she will see the beauty of it all. The suffering. I see it every day when I look at my Rebecca.” Liel’s gaze lingered on the pig. Slowly, his features melted, and a very weary look came over him. With a thud, he slumped onto the stool, letting out a long sigh.
“My heart hurts every day.” He said, looking at anything that wasn’t the pig. “It feels like it’s my chest the roving doctor is cutting open and not the pig’s. Quite beautiful, isn’t it?”
“You’re an idiot.” Auto said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“There is no beauty in suffering, Liel. There is just suffering. It’s just its own thing. It’s a pointless thing that only hurts. It hurts and hurts, and there is nothing that can be done about it. Suffering isn’t good. It isn’t bad. It isn’t anything. It just hurts and it makes you hurt and it never goes away. The only thing that can end it is death, but even that seems impossible to achieve.”
“You’re not a very cheery fairy,” Liel noted.
“Why did you save me?” Auto demanded. Feeling hot again.
Liel looked insulted and puffed up his chest. “Why wouldn’t I have?”
“Maybe I didn’t want to live!” Auto said, not meaning to shout. Quickly, he closed his mouth and looked again out the window. He had never actually said those words out loud to anyone. He wished now, more than ever, that he had his shirt.
“Why would anyone want to die? Life is—is—is—it’s life! Why would you want to give up the beautiful suffering, the joy of the pitiful struggle? And the pain, oh the iridescent pain!”
“That’s exactly why!” Shouted Auto, hot embers erupting beneath his skin. “I wanted to have a say, to make my own choice for once. I wanted to choose to die.”
“That’s stupid,” Liel said, rubbing his nose and looking bleakly at the pig as if he expected it to speak up too. “You don’t get to choose to live. So why would you get to choose to die? It’s the in-between where you have a choice, my fairy friend.”
The door creaked once more, and Marygold poked her long, soft face around the corner.
“Is everything okay?” She asked. A hesitant stutter lifted her last word like a butterfly. Auto cleared his throat and checked his eyes with his hand.
Liel looked longingly at the pig but said nothing. Marygold stepped in, holding a small silver cup, and walked to Auto, her hands shaking.
“Here.” She said, offering him the cup. Auto pressed it to his lips. The metal was cold, and the water was sweet. His body relaxed, the hot embers under his skin sizzled and melted.
Liel’s knee bounced uneasily, and his lower lip quivered. He wiped his brow with his forearm and itched his nose, but remained silent. Marygold stood awkwardly too, her own eyes moving between the pig and Auto, trying to ask him in a silent stare if he had kept her secret. Auto bit his lip. One by one, he looked at the others in the room before looking out the window. With a long sigh, he looked back at his hosts, and finally, begrudgingly, he looked at Rebecca.
“I’m sorry?” Auto said, putting his cup between the folds of the blanket and leaning forward, his eyes locked on the pigs. “I—I didn’t know.”
Liel struggled to remain upright and, grasping like a sailor in a gale, he grabbed at the edge of the table. Marygold’s posture stiffened as she reached her hand out, attempting to grab at the now-empty space where Liel’s shoulder was.
A pensive “uhm” slipped through Auto’s pursed lips. Marygold squeaked and Liel grabbed his wife’s hand. Auto turned to them, shaking his head with slow resolve. They were both a sick color, and beads of sweat glistened on Liel’s forehead, while Marygold trembled.
“The pig says,” Auto began, still sifting for the right words, “She says that she forgives you for everything. And that she hopes not to get in the way as much.”
“But does she still love me?” Liel shouted, crashing to his knees, shaking his fists at the pig, “Did I not do enough before? Do you still love me?” he bellowed.
“Oh, good Heaven!” Marygold gasped, stepping backward as her body weakened. Holding her hands over her mouth, she whispered, “It’s true, what everyone says is true. You are in love with our pig.”
“Of course not!” Liel shouted, looking over his shoulder at Marygold, “I’m in love with my former wife-to-be inside our pig!”
Marygold gasped again, her hands taking hold of the door frame as the rest of the strength rushed from her body. Auto watched wide-eyed, not expecting his half-hearted attempt to smooth things over to instead capsize the whole boat. Liel stood up and turned away from Rebecca, his eyes resting on Marygold.
“It’s about time I told you the truth,” he said, stepping closer. Gently, he held her forearms before sliding his hands down until they met her own. “Now,” he began, “after hearing this, you may not be able to love anymore, nor should you. You may feel the urge to strike me; I beg you to do so. You might even wish, in a moment of passion, to try and kill me. I will not stop you.” Liel glanced at Rebecca and sighed heavily, his head hanging low. Marygold stared at him, her face blank and arms limp.
“You see, within that sweet pig beats the heart of my former love, Rebecca! She was taken from me too soon, and a roving doctor put her heart into this dear pig thirteen years ago, so that she may live on.”
Marygold stuttered, her hands reaching out for nothing in particular.
“If you have something to say, please don’t hold back! Beat me with your words!” Liel screamed, shutting his eyes and bracing for the worst.
“It’s not the same pig!” She shouted, bursting into tears as she crumbled like wet paper. “It’s not the same pig.”
Liel was speechless, something entirely new to Auto. He stepped back, unable to understand. “Impossible.” He rubbed his face with both hands. “But it’s her. I see her every day!”
“Liel, Liel, listen to me! Please forgive me!” Marygold said through bitter sobs. “I didn’t know! I didn’t know!”
“What do you mean?” Liel whispered.
“I mean, she’s gone!”
“What happened?”
“Th-the” She was choked by her tears, and struggled over every word. “The town ate her!”
Liel fell to the ground with a tremendous thud that shook the whole house. The pig, squealing in fright, jumped away to avoid being flattened. Like the wild animal it was, it ran in circles along the edge of the room. Marygold let out a sorrowful wail and buried her face in the folds of her dress. Liel lay in a crumpled heap on the floor, a small hiss of air slowly escaped his lips.
Auto jammed fistfuls of blanket against his ears. Trying to block out the noise of the pig’s rampage and Marygold’s weeping.
“I—am—a—fool,” Liel whispered.
“Please!” Marygold shouted as the pig pushed past her and out of the room. “I didn’t know! I swear I didn’t know!”
“Of course you didn’t know!” Liel spurted, still lying on the floor, his eyes burning holes in the thatched roof. “In my shame, I kept it a secret. And now I have paid more than I could have imagined.”
“It was four years ago,” Marygold said. A broken scream bubbled up from within Liel’s throat. Marygold let go of the door frame and began to crawl towards her prostrate husband, gasping for breath between convulsive sobs. “You were away for the week, visiting your grandmother. And a Scientist arrived in town, to teach and heal.” Reaching Liel, she curled up next to him and lay her head on his heaving chest.
“I was distracted by the excitement in town and left the door to the house open, and the pig—Rebecca—escaped. I tried to find her, but she was nowhere. I walked into the valley along the creek, and I finally saw her on the bluffs near town. I was quite mad with fright, I know how much you cared for her, though until just a moment ago I—I didn’t care to know why. I chased her, but I couldn’t catch up, I was too small.” Marygold looked vacantly across Liel’s chest at the corner post of the bed frame.
“She wandered into the pastures of Mr. Samuel.” She continued, her eyes dead as she relived the day. “He has thousands of pigs. I couldn’t find her. And he refused to let me into the pens, and I didn’t tell him why, because I know what people would say. It wasn’t until later, at the town feast thrown in honor of the Scientist, that I realized what had happened.” She looked as if she wanted to cry more, but could not find the tears to do so.
“Where did that pig come from then?” Auto asked, looking back at the pig in question as it waddled through the other room.
Marygold looked up at him, her eyes red. “She didn’t tell you? I—I was so distraught over letting her get slaughtered that I feared Liel would never forgive me. So, I went away into the local fields the next night and brought a small runt of a pig back with me, fed her all I could before Liel returned. I even… I even cut her chest open so the scar would be the same. I didn’t know why, I just knew it was important to you!” She burst into tears again and clutched Liel’s chest.
Liel let out a long whistle of air.
“I didn’t know,” Marygold hid her face again. “I had no idea.”
With robotic motions, Liel stood and walked out of the room without a word. Through the window, Auto saw him walk into the fields beyond before he wandered out of sight. Marygold ran out of the room too, softly shutting some other door behind her further in the house. The imposter pig pushed its wet nose into the room. With sly, beady eyes, it looked at Auto as if to ask, Is it over?
~~~
Shadows consumed the little room where Auto lay motionless. The afternoon had turned to evening and then to night, and not a single sound had come from the house. Auto had, at some point, slipped into an unfelt sleep, but was jolted awake by the sudden dark of night. Listening, he half wondered if the two occupants had died from grief.
He wondered if it was truly possible to do, and if so, how much grief would one have to endure? Was it a large amount at once or a small amount throughout a lifetime? Did it build up steadily until you collapsed? Or did it hit you all at once when you were least expecting it?
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a glimmer. Rising to his elbow, he pressed his face against the tinted window. Thin trails of dark clouds were dispersing across the sky, revealing stars in their millions.
Auto had seen star charts and had been taught the nature of the planets and of their systems. He could recall in detail the mannerisms of gravity and orbits. Yet he had never seen the sky at night. Without thinking, he got out of his bed and entered the next room before he felt his body scream in protest. Beads of sweat dotted his brow, and his gut churned. The room was a sitting room, dining room, and kitchen, but it was shrouded in darkness, and Auto couldn’t make out details beyond basic shapes. Towards his right was a hallway, and to his left was the front door. It was open a crack, and a cool breeze seeped in from beyond.
Clutching the wall, he made his way towards the exit, grunting in pain as he stepped through the doorway. Above him was an innumerable display of quantity. The stars stretched across the sky in bright clusters, and the space between them was a mix of oranges, pinks, reds, and yellows. A dark blue hue surrounded it all, and between these mad streaks of dazzling power were a million pinpricks of solitary stars shining alone together in the midnight blue sky.
Auto lost himself and collapsed against the doorframe of the house, sliding down until he was just sitting on the mossy entrance, looking up at the endlessness. He felt so small in comparison to the night sky that, for once in his life, he felt ordinary. A few tears slipped from his eyes, and he did nothing to stop them, as he gazed up at the heavens.
“I didn’t know you were well enough to walk.” Liel’s voice was quiet and prudent, a stark change from the bard Auto had gotten to know earlier that day. He was sitting on a stump, a little further from the house.
“I wanted to see the stars.” Auto said in a half-whisper. A knowing “hmmm” came from Liel, who too looked up at the sky.
“Never seen the stars before?” He asked,
“No.” Auto said bluntly, “Not in real life.”
“You must be quite a new fairy.” Liel surmised, taking a long puff from a pipe that was cradled in his hand. Auto nodded in agreement. For a long while, the two said nothing and simply looked at the sky.
Unsurprisingly, it was Liel who broke the silence.
“I should thank you.” he tapped the ash from the pipe before stuffing more leaves into the mouth. “For today and all that. So unexpected.” There was a momentary flash of warm light as he struck a match and lit the new leaves.
“Oh, no worries.” Auto said.
Liel drew a long breath through the curly pipe. “I think it’s simply beautiful.” He said, letting the smoke escape in a long column. “Imagine, here I was for four years tending to and feeling guilty for a pig of all creatures, and it wasn’t even the one I thought it was. Won’t find anything more poetic than that.”
Auto guessed there was some small good in how Liel saw the world.
“The best part.” Liel continued, pausing to nurse the pipe, “I was so blinded by my grief and guilt, I never saw that right in my own home was someone who loved me more than I ever deserved. And it wasn’t even the pig! Imagine that, imagine that. And for it all to be for not? For the object of my pain to be gone for four years without me knowing? The pointlessness of my struggle is truly breathtaking.”
“That’s one way to rationalize it.” Auto said.
“It’s my way. And it works for me.”
“I suppose that’s Reasonable.”
Liel blew another column of smoke into the air, “Something like that,” he said, watching it diffuse beneath the stars.
“You never told me how she died. Rebecca, that is.” Auto said.
Liel rubbed his nose and looked down at the ground. “By her own hand, I’m sad to say.” His voice was quiet. “I suppose she never did love me. Just didn’t have the heart to say it. Or maybe it was something else. Guess I’ll never know. One of those mysteries you’re not meant to understand.”
Auto was silent.
“It all comes full circle if you think about it, little fairy. It was I saving you from a similar fate that led to me finally being free from her. Now that right there, that’s poetry.”
Auto nodded, finding no more use for words as the stars shone like candles.
“Well,” Liel’s voice had regained some of its bravado. “I am going inside. I have a wife I can now learn to love. Do you need help getting back to your bed?”
“No.” Auto said, “I’ll manage.”
“Good night then. Hopefully, tomorrow you will find something worthwhile, and if not, maybe the next day.” Liel walked into the house, leaving Auto to watch the stars slowly crawl across the sky. He remained there for hours, leaning against the door frame, looking up at the sky, enjoying the empty wonder of heaven. A door creaked, but Auto didn’t notice, not until a low, sick voice stopped his heart cold.
“You tried to kill us.” It said, drawing long, labored breaths, punctuated by a mechanical hum. “Seems you failed.”
