A wire frame in
the shape of a man was left to rust within the confines of a cold, metal chair.
Although the chair was equipped with wheels, The Frame’s fundamental moving
parts were corroded by years of neglect, leaving It stationary. Nothing more
than a forgotten piece of furniture.
Its upper casing
held a crack and perpetually trickled a thick fluid that gathered in puddles on
the floor. The casing also housed two trembling orbs that recorded intermittent
waves of passing shapes and colors. The Frame often directed these orbs to the
faded blue garments of the caretakers, which seemed to glow against achromatic
walls. The flashes of blue circled the room, constantly tracked by the orbs,
distributing pills and commands to the fidgeting collections of yellow-clad
occupants.
Occupants who
penetrated The Frame’s exterior with sharp glances and tremulous gestures. An
occupant who, like The Frame, was tucked into an anonymous corner. Bound to the
spot by the tall, steel rack from which it dangled, a knotted pouch of skin with
swaying extremities, its deflated head bobbing as if by force of electric
pulse. Another occupant who would put his eternal march around the borders of
the room on hold, just to pause in front of The Frame, exposing his chest and
the gaping hole that began at the base of his neck and spread down the length
and width of his ribcage. Rimmed with freshly coagulated blood, this opening
revealed that his trachea and both lungs were removed. The quick sparkle that
graced his eyes marked the time that passed before his shirt was properly
adjusted and he was once again traveling the predestined rectangular road from
which he never strayed.
Following the
activities of these occupants and their caretakers, The Frame noticed the medication
rounds occurred at scheduled times. They fit a pattern. It appeared as if each
motion – from the twitch of an arm to the herding of irrational cattle to their
sterile feeding grounds – revolved with utmost precision around a singular
clock. The pacing occupant marked off disjointed seconds with each step. The
Frame absorbed the depths of time, realizing much of it had been lost in
medicated haze.
The syncopation
of events pumped distant, yet familiar images through The Frame and out into the
room. Images flashed into sounds carrying the scent of textured phrases. It
was once again able to hear the hum of mechanical apparatus that never ceased to
spin behind Its orbs.
This noise gave
rise to an assemblage of palpitating colors and shapes that began to encircle
The Frame. They synthesized with, then devoured the chairs that enclosed It
until the quaking lines gradually slowed and their details became crisp. Two
forms emerged from this chaos, the first of which moved only with the labors of
his breath, and like the pacing occupant, was left with no skin upon his chest.
The line of his mouth mimicked the crack that split his breastbone, divulging
the absence of a heart. The other man sat solid, lacking any remarkable
features aside from his statuesque poise and lips that curled into vacuous
smirk. His mouth peeled apart, as did the eyelids, to release a thin, black
smoke from each of these three otherwise empty portals.
A sudden noise
like low scraping at the far end of a long steel corridor stretched from the
crack in The Frame’s upper casing, revealing itself as a vent once used to
transmit thoughts in audible wavelengths. Reactivating the rusted gears that
poured a reverberated whir through Its tubes, It tried to articulate this
vision, but found these interior pipes clogged with the debris of inertia. Its
attempted communiqué fell out in clumps of obscure, hollow grinding.
Two caretakers,
concerned with The Frame’s unusual behavior, rushed to Its aid. The first
caretaker slowly, but firmly, tugged at the top and bottom edges of Its vent,
while the second dropped in two pills and a small cup of cool water. The first
caretaker snapped the vent shut, forcing the pills down a moistened channel.
The Frame had achieved what it had seen some of the occupants manage before. It
broke the pattern.
The first
caretaker immediately began to jitter with youthful anticipation, breathing
heavy and feverishly jerking his head to one side. Closer inspection revealed
to The Frame that this man’s eyes were missing, his head containing only vacant
hollows that dribbled slow, crimson tears. His accomplice did not seem to
notice, instead gazing off through the distance at the sun as it set behind
solid walls. The hands used only an instant before to intoxicate The Frame had
splintered away and hemorrhaged at the wrists.
Its orbs lost
focus and the contents of the room slowly shifted into a unified blur of color
and motion as the caretakers wheeled It from the designated position. The Frame
slipped into peaceful dreariness watching each pattern melt away into this
incomprehensible new cycle.
It occasionally
regained consciousness; though only for transitory moments, as the caretakers
paid particular attention to its orbs and were quick to administer progressing
degrees of medication. A single yellow pill became two blue pills became a
green pill and a small cup of white liquid three times daily. The Frame was
left a broken, leaking contraption, a lay figure beneath the unspoken demands of
Its caretakers.
Clocks spun
incessantly around The Frame’s muted awareness, the pacing occupant rotating
with the clicking numbers. Its provisions steadily became more substantial,
less prescribed. When the caretaker’s rounds brought them to The Frame, It was
careful to let the drugs dissolve within the vent and seep out as sediment in
the river that ran along Its figure. When the caretakers finally wheeled The
Frame back toward Its customary place, a blank television caught Its attention.
Its orbs searched the dark grays of the screen and picked up reflected details
of a skeletal man standing at Its side; thin, pale, wrinkled and bearing nothing
apart from shame. Where the mouth should sit, there was only seasoned skin, the
jawbones beneath left to creak with desire.
Returned to Its
comfortable corner, The Frame regained focus and locked Its orbs onto the legs
of splintered chairs and the bars fixed on the windows. It searched for
familiar faces in dirty floor tiles, but only eyes of thick dust gazed back.
Back through The Frame’s fogged orbs. Back into the vacillating contrivances
that lingered within Its upper casing. Back to the most intrinsic, yet least
accessible element of The Frame’s existence.
© & ™ 2003 Josh Smith