The Next Clock is Wound

“The world keeps goin’ round <swish>, as we play the same old sound <click>. Dancin’, groovin’, swingin’.”

A musical mix of soft swing and classical styles played on the radio from a certain studio on the twelfth floor of an apartment complex, just outside the city. The dust flew through the air from the subtle vibrations, glistening off the light of the afternoon sun. Tools, paints, and wood were scattered haphazardly across the almost room in some kind of ordered chaos, revealing the cluttered yet methodological mind of its only living resident, Armand Alexander: the dollmaker.

“As we walk on to town <swish>, followin’, straight on down <click>. Movin’, playin’, wishin’.”

In tune with the music, Armand would move his brush across the canvas or snap a carved wooden part into place. He wasn’t doing so purposely, but his subconscious perfectionism guided his hand towards the beat, as if it were the only path available. Some might call him insane or crazy, but few could deny his talent, especially with his current ambitious project.

It all started with a light of green raining from the sky. Armand wasn’t sure why he had seen it, or where such a flash had come from, but almost instantly, the color consumed his mind. Was it because of its beauty? Or maybe its finality? He could not say. All he knew was that he needed to recreate it: that flash of inspiration.

After ordering a whole host of different materials, Armand rushed back to his studio. Compared to the average dollmaker’s residence, his was rather tidy. Dolls of varying sizes and realism lined the walls as if models on display. His workspace had all its schematics and tools arranged in an aesthetically pleasing order.

And yet, once he returned that day, he swiped everything off his desk. Then, he looked through each of his creations, tearing off the parts he deemed worthy and discarding the rest as “wood”. Acting like a man possessed, he kept carving out new parts and painting them, throwing any that weren’t good enough off to the side. It didn’t take more than a month before his floor became a sea of arms, legs, torsos, and heads.

Of course, if you asked anyone else, they would be flabbergasted at the sight. Each part was so meticulously crafted that it was hard to tell them apart from a human one. But to Armand, they were just worthless piles of scrap, unable to capture the light. The pile became such a problem that he ended up throwing out the rejects, most of which became priceless works of art, not that he cared. The few places still pristine were where he worked on his masterpiece.

“And if we keep on livin’ life <swish>, everythin’ will turn out right.”

Then, after five years of toiling away without a single day of rest, a mid-May day assuming his memory was accurate, Armand’s hands stopped moving. He took a step back with labored breaths – his malnutrition and exhaustion revealing themselves as the adrenaline wore off. A gasp escaped as he finally took in his work.

Sitting on the chair was his canvas: a clockwork doll that barely looked like a doll. In fact, it looked more like a woman than a doll. Or, at least a woman encased in wood.

Her head closely resembled a certain famous actress known for her emotionless stares. Her wavy red hair (made of synthetic materials) seemed to defy gravity as it flowed down her back. At a distance, it was impossible to tell the doll apart from the real thing. However, up close, something was off, not in the way she looked, but more of an eerie feeling impossible to place.

Her hands, meanwhile, exactly matched those of a young woman. From the nails of the fingers to the webbings in-between, each mechanical puppetry seemed human. Walking around with it outside would definitely elicit a few stares and calls to the police. Not that he minded as long as he could keep working.

The rest of the doll’s body was made of a varnished pale oak, revealing its obviously inhuman nature. A bit of clothing though could easily hide such imperfections, but Armand would never let such things remain in his masterpiece. He simply performed some initial checks on her movements, delicately moving each part as they creaked and clicked from the gears within. Her range of motion was a bit wider than the average human, but nothing blatantly noticeable.

“So let the party go on. Come on out, …berrr… night long.”

All that’s left was to test the mechanisms as a whole. Armand quickly paced over to his desk. Although the once immaculate area was now covered in numerous painted marble eyeballs, one area remained clean. Laying there in the center was an oddly shaped allen wrench key nicked with an absurd number of notches.

He switched his brush for the key and scurried back behind the doll, brushing her hair aside. Right underneath the hairline, above the base of the neck, was a hole. Armand inserted the key slowly, turning it every so often as he pushed it inside. A satisfying click rang out once the last notch slid in.

Then, he turned the key.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

And the doll’s eyes opened for the first time.

Armand was ecstatic at the development. He had finished the first stages of his masterpiece, and everything seemed to be just how he imagined it. He just had to finish painting the rest of the body. But his smile quickly turned to a frown.

“No, no, no… this isn’t right…” he muttered to himself. The green irises had somehow faded into a golden sheen. Meanwhile, the pupils leaked out over the irises in two or three straight lines. The left eye was static, but the right jumped erratically to the tempo of the music, as if it were keeping the time. Armand didn’t care about any of that though; his perfectionism was already moving his feet towards the desk to grab his brush.

“The dead …Berrrr… out …BEEERRRRR… scr–”

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

~~~

Tick.

It came so fast, my creator in this world didn’t even notice what happened. The wing of an airplane smashed through the building wall, decapitating him and the rest of the room in an instant. I was only spared because the initial force knocked me onto the floor.

“...bzzz… dead …bzzz… go …bzzz…”

I gingerly waded my way across the rubble towards the giant hole, making sure to avoid any parts that were falling apart. I was looking for the radio, so I followed the static intermingled with music. It was surprising that the radio was still working, so it didn’t take long to find it. After a bit of dusting, I tried to turn the dial to change the station.

Click. Click.

“...bzzz… running …bzzz… as we …bzzz…”

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to do anything, so it was likely broken. So, instead, I switched the other dial from FM to AM and…

“...bzzz… reports are coming in

“…bzzz… burst has been detected

“…bzzz… in one year …bzzz…

“everyone will die

“...bzzz…”