Into the Heart of Stone

It would be some time before I felt the box move again.

A day maybe.

Perhaps two.

After the first few hours, I realized the futility of trying to track it in any exactness. There was just no way of doing so.

When I was eventually picked up, I could feel my captor's footfalls as they made their way down the stairs to the lower floor of our house.

From what I could gather, we headed out the front door, where I was placed inside of a vehicle.

The banging and bouncing left me in the odd position of being grateful for the packaging I had so recently struggled against.

After a few moments of silence, the ignition caught, and the vibrations of the motor coursed through me.

I could feel myself pressed side to side as we twisted and turned down the roadways.

The climbing and descending roll of the engine passing through my tiny form.

I found myself drawn into it.

The steady drone pulsating.

Pushing.

Pulling.

I was actually enjoying it.

Immensely.

It would be so easy to lose myself to it.

A quick stop pressed me against the front of the crate; The jolt enough to remind me that staying focused was probably in my best interest.

Instead of picking back up again, the engine hummed for a moment and subsequently vanished from my awareness.

Again, the motions of being carried could be recognized though the layers that cocooned me.

It wasn't long before the rythmic motion stopped. A final thump indicating we had made it to our destination.

Soon after, the box was jostled as the lid was unfastened.

I could feel myself being lifted from the crate, and was set down nearby.

Slowly, the cotton was unraveled, letting more and more light peek through.

As the final layers were stripped away from my head and face, I came to realize the magnitude of the situation I was in.

The hand, that flit past my view, was not Sethra's. Was not Allie's. Was not anyone's I could recognize readily.

It was as strange to me, as the place I now found myself.

Between the uncoiling, I slowly pieced together what I was seeing.

Every wall I looked upon held a different picture.

Girl after girl being transformed into a wide variety of objects.

Statues.

Robots.

Even furniture, like me.

Their wide eyed expressions a mixture of pleasure and surprise.

As the last of the packing came away, the woman unravelling it stooped a little, her eyes meeting my own.

They took me in appraisingly, flashing a touch brighter as her lips were drawn into a tight smile.

"Yes" she said. "It is very nice to meet you Sweetie."

The smile grew slightly and played across her glowing green eyes.

"I am glad Sethra decided to lend you to us. I think you will like it here as one of the exhibits."

She fussed with my position a little as she spoke. Centering me on the table, and turning me this way and that.

"My name, if you were curious, is Monyca. And this is the Gallery Lapideus."

She turned and looked across the room and returned her gaze to me.

"Welcome to the Gallery."

Her words had a certain edge of finality to them that said I was not the first addition to it's collection.

And that I would certainly not be the last.

--Continued in Part 2.
Be sure to visit the gallery if you have a chance.  http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Doll%20Works/35/216/23

Breakfast at Tiffany's Part 3

Sethra turned and departed after placing the crate uncerimoniously on the floor.

I traced her footfalls into the distance, as she made her way back down the stairs.

I fought back a pang of guilt as my body ceased shaking, somewhat grateful for the break in the incoming vibrations.

She returned with a bundle of packing material, and tossed it on the bed.

There was something about the way she moved today.

Purposeful.

Deliberate.

I was becoming increasingly more unsettled as I watched her.

As she separated the cotton into pieces, it became apparent why she was making me so nervous.

Not once since her arrival did she look towards me, or at least, where I was looking from.

Her eyes were taking me in, in my entirety; The spark of recognition that usually played across them, was absent.

I waited dutifully for her to greet me.

.. and waited.

But it would never come.

She finished pulling apart the material and made her way towards me.

Carefully, she unscrewed the cap and lifted off my shade.

The urge to writhe my way to freedom was overwhelming; and unnecessary.

No matter how I fought to struggle, her hands continued towards the bed, my shade gently grasped between them.

All I could do was watch in silence, as it was gingerly placed atop a pile of packing material, the excess wrapped around it and stuffed inside.

When Sethra finished, I could feel the packing surround the dome as it rocked lazily on the bed.

I pleaded mentally, knowing what was to come.

Soon thereafter, her outstretched arm sailed towards me. The touch of her giant hand almost causing me to pass out completely.

A few moments later, I found myself placed on the bed, ready to join it's fate.

I stared, searching for some sign this was all a big practical joke, but her gaze remained steadfast upon her work.

Without hesitation, her fingers quickly worked the packing material around me.

Around my base, and around my stem.

Tightening here..

Stuffing there..

She continued her way up past my body and over my wooden face.

More and more until I could feel it was enclosing me completely.

I could barely feel her hands around me anymore.

A few more layers and nearly all traces of light were vanquished.

The packing pulled and constricted as she lifted me up. Gravity twisted and turned as she examined her handiwork.

Satisfied, she slowly lowered me into the crate.

I could feel her add more packing and felt her place my shade inside to join me.

It had all happened so fast.

I sat, caught between stimulus and disbelief.

Alone. 

Shocked into stillness in the muffled silence.

Only when the lid to my box was being secured did the moment finally catch up.

It was true.

..I was a lamp.

The mental blockades of denial came crashing down, unable to maintain their validity..

..I was a lamp.

..I was a piece of furniture.

Breakfast at Tiffany's Part 2

Breakfast at Tiffany's

When I came too, my brain was alight with a flurry of new sensation. I could barely concentrate.

I floundered between the incoming waves of stimulus to take in my surroundings.

I was no longer in the work room. I had been moved to our bedroom.

The length of the mattress extended off towards the far wall.

The familiar wood of the night table peeked out from beneath me.

Hanging overhead, a hemisphere of what looked to be colored glass, sat obscuring my view.

My subconcious mind struggled to escape, even before my forward thoughts realized what I was seeing.

It looped over the possibilites again and again, trying to make some sense of it.

Trying to escape the truth of what it was seeing. What it was feeling.

The lampshade hanging above me, was my own.

I could feel it. It's surface. It's imperfections. It's shape circling behind and beyond my peripheral.

The wind from the far window passing over it's surface.

Just like the metal sphere that I became. That became me.

Each tick of the clock created new connections. The separation between it and I pared down to nothing with each passing second.

I could feel my legs, and how they blended with the base they were affixed to.

How my arms extended up, beyond my view, the bulbous form of a lightsocket where my hands should be.

I could feel the grooves where a bulb would sit, and the protrusion of what felt like a switch.

Like a blind mans fingers upon a new face, my mind traced over the contours of my body.

Piecing it together.

Shakily repeating in it's disbelief.

...I was not a lamp.

Time and again I would search for some way to prove the sensations false, and fail.

...I was a not lamp.

...I was not a piece of furniture.

But no matter how many times the phrase was repeated, it did not change what I was feeling, or where I now resided.

In our room; on our bed table; holding aloft a lampshade like a prized possession.

The urge to close my eyes, to black out what I was seeing, was only met with stillness.

The failed attempt only serving to reinforce that which I was denying.

Sethra, as always, had spoken words of truth.

I sat there, for some time, teetering between shock and disbelief. My mind wrestling against what it was seeing, unable to fit it's current experience into a pre-existing slot of expectation.

I flipped back and forth between the benefits of acceptance, and the urge to fight the reality in which I was now ensconced.

The center of the problem, I believed, was that acceptance was winning.

The sensations that my new form was pumping into my conciousness, were stripping away all remnants of my old self.

The input was simply stronger. 

Like a dream of a better place, the memories I grabbed at just didn't seem as real as the moment.

And the moment, as I was to learn, was far from over.

Before I could acclimatize, I was made quite aware of my body shaking. Lightly at first, the approaching vibrations coursed through me with increasing strength, eventually demanding all of my attention.

The footfalls crashed against the ground. Crashed against my mind. Each one more pronounced than the one before. 

Heel toe.

Heel toe.

Each approaching step growing louder until Sethra entered the room, a wooden crate nestled in her arms.

...Continued in Part 3

Absence makes the heart grow fonder...

Or so the saying goes..

I apologize for not updating more recently. Life has grown busy over the past month, and I have not had many moments to spare.

Things are falling back to their normal swing, and I will be updating more frequently.

Thank you for your patience!

<3

Lita.

Breakfast at Tiffany's

The coming days were spent tinkering.

Each time the system was turned on, the familiar buzz of electricity would drown out my dreams and drag me back into waking.

I wish I could tell them what it was like.

Perhaps the system would be reset with less frequency.

I am thankful they were here however. Sethra and Dr. Alex, were making rapid progress and I loathed to think where I would be without them.

They no longer relied on notepads. Allie, as Sethra now calls her, routed their keypad input into the camera feed at some point. It was much easier to read than the hasty scribbles that they had been using.

Sethra created a  speech-to-text algorithm that captured what they were saying and parroted it along with the video feed. I could not see who said what, but I could still make out what was said. A tiny microphone serving to capture what was said in my vicinity

As time passed, and less adjustments to the system were required, the camera was left on for longer periods of time.  I came to see why such rapid progress was being made. Often, Sethra and Allie would work until one of them passed out, the other continuing until morning.

My fate seemed a shade less determined while in their care.

Or, at least, it had.

I knew my inability to communicate would become somewhat troublesome. I did not expect it to occur quite so quickly.

From what I could tell, it was early morning. When my system booted the sun was barely peeking through the windows.

Sethra leaned in with a happy wave, and spoke.

"We have good news for you Sweetie." She glanced over at the Doctor. "Allie has made something of a breakthrough."

Allie peered into my view with a smile.

"Please do not be alarmed Sweetie. This may feel a little odd. But we need to communicate with you and this is a step in that direction." Sethra bit her bottom lip as she punched a few keys on the pad.

"If this works Allie, you are a genius." scrolled across my view before I was shut down.
 
After a number of system resets, I awoke to a bizarre sensation.

I could feel my body again. But it was not my body. It was round. Spherical. I was round.

Sethra's manicured hand reached down and adjusted my perspective, the source of the sensation sliding into view. 

As the camera was rotated, it came to rest in front of a microscope. A shiny, metal, sphere, resting in a petri-dish beneath it. 

As my perspective and the sensation collided, more of the connection poured into my conciousness. I could feel heat as Sethra and Allie peered closer and the wind of their breath on my surface. I could feel the shallow liquid in the petri dish surrounding me. I could feel I was made out of metal.

What had they done to me?

I tried to remain calm, while they worked. I knew I wasn't a chrome ball. I knew that wasn't me. But the sensations fought to prove me otherwise.

"Brain function is registering Sethra."

"Turn it off for a moment?" and with that, the sensation abated.

"Brain function is not registering the input."

"And on again?" And again, the sensation returned. My cold metal body once again relaying it's plight from beneath the microscope.

"It appears to be working Sethra."

"It does. Allie, you are amazing."

"One final test then." scrolled across my screen before my brain exploded.

A moment later, my head was swimming. A wave of sensation drowning out the video feed. As it faded, I could see a set of rubber tongs being pulled away from the metal sphere.

Allies shoulders bounced as she laughed with delight.

"It works Sethra. It works." she rocked on her heels as she called her over to look at the displays.

A few more prods with the tongs and I was lost. The sensation of touch, after being absent for so long, sent me spiraling.

I think I may have passed out, for when I came too, the sensation from the sphere was absent.

As my mind calmed enough to pay attention to the feed again, I could see Sethra and Allie seated nearby, adjusting a variety of controls on a computer.

"There. That should do it."

"Threshold is set?" Sethra inquired.

"It appears to be. She did not lose consciousness. The system performed within expected parameters. As requested, the threshold will automatically decrease if abnormal brain activity is detected."

I shuddered. Those were expected parameters? All she did was touch me with a set of tongs.

I tried to call out, to tell them what happened, but it was futile. I pleaded mentally in the hopes that something, anything, would ping on the readouts.

"Allie, you are a wonder. It seems so obvious now. I don't know why we didn't think of this sooner." she embraced the Doctor and made her way over to me.

"Sweetie. We did it. Allie managed to cultivate some of the nanotechnology that has been linked to your nervous system. She managed to filter some out with the bio-filter on your pod, and appropriate some of their functions. If we can not get rid of them, we may as well make use of them. Since they operate on a frequency already attuned to your body, we simply piggy backed and amplified the signal."

It was starting to make sense. As frightening as that was.

"It was a simple matter of coating an object and relaying the new coordinate system into your own system." The Doctor chimed in. "It is troublesome, however, that we can not get them to run concurrently."

Sethra smiled, and continued.

"With this, we should be able to coat nearly anything, and relay the signal. The Doctor and I have discussed this at length, and both agree. This is a wonderful opportunity."

A what? An opportunity? Were they both insane from lack of sleep?

"You had expressed an interest in being treated like an object. It would appear we are presented with the opportunity for you to actually experience it. In a way most don't even fathom. A rare chance indeed. " Sethra tapped at her thigh pensively and looked at the Doctor. "Please make field arrangements while I get everything set up here."

For what seemed like the hundredth time, I watched her finger arc towards my off switch.

Continued in Part 2.

Out of the Void

It was not long before I acclimatized. I drifted lazily, lost in the haze of the past few weeks. Bit by bit, wandering through the events that had transpired.

It was slow going, but I could feel my mind reconnecting with my body. It became apparent when my body was awake, or asleep, and my ability to track time was starting to improve.

I was feeling more energetic as well. Thoughts were coming faster and with more precision. Emotions rang through with far more clarity.

I was starting to see myself again. Feel myself again.

As my mind awakened, I did the only natural thing I could, and attempted to return to the world beyond. As I tried and failed, time and again, I came to see the consequences of my journey thus far. The last step into wakefulness continuing to elude.

It was during one of these failed missions, that word finally arrived from the outside world. I was not prepared for it's message.

As I readied myself for another attempt, an unfamiliar sensation began to sweep through me. An electrical hum, that poured into my awareness like a swarm of angry locusts. It grew until it was all I could feel. It ballooned beyond that, until my thoughts were but a whisper in the background. It grew and multiplied until it was all I that I was.

A singularity made of lightning and pain.

It took me in it's grip and refused to let go, squeezing until darkness descended.

When I finally awoke, it was to a familiar sight. Sethra was standing next to her workbench, idly working on another of her projects. I could barely contain my excitement.

It was over. It had all felt like a terrible dream, and it was finally over.

When I tried to speak and found I could not, I learned it was only just the beginning.

From what I could gather, all other senses but for sight were unavailable to me. Sound was nonexistent. Touch also gone. Even the view of the room remained unchanging. I was locked staring forward, unable to shift my eyes.

I sat there helplessly, for what seemed like hours, until Sethra finally turned towards me. She was speaking with someone just outside my view, and it seemed like she finally knew I was there.

She quickly turned and left, my eyes unable to follow. When she returned, there was a pad of paper in her grasp.

A quick glance in my direction, and she started scribbling on it's surface, holding the page up in front of me when complete.

"Hello Sweetie. " The pad held aloft in my view.

"There is much to discuss. To tell you. Please try to remain calm." She flipped the page after holding it up for me.

"I am sorry." she paused to add more. "Please, understand, we did the best we could despite the circumstances." She looked saddened as she marked down the next page.

"Your body has, despite out best efforts, effectively shut down. Your nervous system refuses to take input." She was visibly shaken, her shoulders heaving in disappointment.

I wanted to reach out, to hug her, let her know it would be okay. That it wasn't her fault. The privilege was not to be granted however.

"The technologies you've been exposed too, especially those that override your own movements, have damaged the link between your mind and body."

The magnitude of what she was saying spread through me like a winter chill. The meaning of the words before me almost too much to digest. I read them again and again, in the vain hope they would change.

"The Doctor says it may not be permanent, but it is best to seek alternative measures in the meantime."

There was hope. At least. Why did it still fell like I was being tossed into a pit?

"Your body is in stasis for now. We have created a bio-filter that should, at least, give you a fighting chance. It will however, take some time to do it's work."

She paused. Her hands shaking as she formulated her next thoughts.

"Until then, we have devised a fairly nominal way for you to interact with the world. It isn't much, but for now you should at least be able to see again. We are working on a system that will allow for senses beyond sight, but the tech is highly protected."

As the moments passed, her countenance began crumbling under the weight of it all.

"I'm so sorry. Sweetie. I'm sorry. I love you."

She barely held up the page before running off, covering her eyes as she finally gave in to the emotion of the situation.

As she fled, a stray tear flew off a fingertip, and onto the camera lens.

Into the Void

I awoke, not to my reflection, but to a reflection of myself.

It was but a moment before the room faded. An unwavering fog descended, dissolving the walls like a snowball in the sun. The thrumming of my heart; the sound of my breath; the tickle of the sheets on my toes; All fell silent in it's wake.

I am unsure how long I remained, blanketed in such a stillness. Time seemed to stretch and compress of it's own free will, dodging any attempt to latch on.

Sound was non-existent. A sense of touch or taste also terrifyingly absent.

Panic began to settle in as I combed my mind for perspective. What happened? Where was the familiar hold of gravity or my tongue against my teeth? The pulse of the veins in my neck? Even my sense of warmth; temperature; as though it had never existed to begin with.

Those familiar sensations that never quite disappear, even in sleep, eradicated.

I feared the worst. The most basic parts of my psyche already churned in preparation. Was I unconscious? Asleep? Comatose? Was I even alive? I faded in and out. Being, not being. Aware and unaware, fighting to find some sort of base line. My final moments wrapping back upon themselves, as if to offer up some hint to my destination.

What was in that needle and why was it not wearing off?

Deep within me, a growing despair was bubbling to life. I couldn't tell exactly, but it felt like some days had already passed. The plan was to wait it out, perhaps in the hope that I would regain consciousness, but I was unsure sure how much longer I could do so. I was growing weaker. I could tell. I had given up lying to myself about that much. I was almost used to the periods of nothing, of half nothing, but the prospect of remaining in such a state was beginning to overwhelm.

It was time. I had to do something soon or I would buckle under the strain.  Time for one final push before I tapped the mat.

For the first time in what appeared to be weeks, I forcibly calmed myself.  Stepping beyond the simulated tears and imagined anguish. They were useless. It all was. The rage, the sorrow, all of it.

It was time to ask some questions, without any of the chaff.

Methodically, I picked at the threads. What have I tried? What have I not? What was I missing?

I went down the list of my body's functions. Bit by bit, piece by tiny broken piece. I knew, there had to be a clue. As I went through the paces, I started to realize that much of my brains functioning was still in proper order. I could do math. I could spell. I could recite lines from movies. Each time I went through the checks and balances though, I felt like I was missing something. I could recall events. Information. Recipes and jokes. What was I overlooking?

And then it occurred to me. I wasn't picturing any of it. Everything was boiled down to it's bare components. It's concept. I knew what I should be picturing, but it did not appear in my minds eye.

When I decided to take the ability through it's paces, prodding at it's edges, I happened upon my second clue. It took some effort, but I could slowly picture things in finer detail. Hazy. Flickered. Like playing back a damaged tape. I could recall things I already knew, like my favorite place, or my Lover's face.

But creating something new was impossible. No matter the effort.

As I tried, I started to realize what had been done to me. The sleight of hand. The sleight of mind. Somehow, I had jumped tracks. The ability;  No, the want, to create new things, slid out from under me like a cheap parlor trick.

The realization started small. A trickle turned tidal. Waves of light dancing about me as I came to realize where I was. The horizon screamed to life, as thoughts erupted into images around me. Once the illusion was dispelled, it scattered like doves on the wind.

I was already lucid. The mechanism simply lacked my direct input.

Be it a dream, or otherwise, I was very much alive. I soared through the void, the last matryoshka, in hand.