New Ed

The city was gray, thick with smoke. The sidewalks were gray and pitted. Ed was gray. Partly because he was wearing a suit that made storm clouds look cheerful, but also because he moved down the sidewalk the way that a sack full of garbage slowly descends stairs when pushed… he slumped.

He turned from the sidewalk and down a set of stairs leading to his basement apartment. It was a sickly home. Years of polishing, finishing, and waxing the wooden floors had not concealed the diseased wood that made up the floor. The ceiling leaked in the bedroom from the bathroom directly above it, and Ed had decided early on that he did not want to know whether it was the tub or the toilet that was the source of the leak.

He hung his coat on the rack and set about cleaning his counters. He was focused, intent on removing the dust of the day. Later he would sit in front of his television, the apartment clean enough for his desires. He would try not to think of his recent promotion and the headaches that came with quality control.

Ed finished with the counter and went to his coat. He pulled free a doll, a tiny homunculus, from a sleeve where it had been hidden most of the day. The factory he worked at made them. Vast numbers of them every day. His job allowed him to look over them for hours, assuring that they were all consistently the same. The same plastic shell with airbrushed makeup and shallow, shiny eyes. Later, at another plant, they would apply one of a series of dresses to them.

This one was different, and he was supposed to report it and return it to its base components for correction. He couldn’t. Something about it was appealing. Maybe it was the dull look to its eyes, or the way the blush had missed it altogether It’s hair was out of sorts as well, having a disheveled, bed-head, look. All it needed was some fixing.

He set it on his couch and corrected it. Brushed the hair. Carefully applied the paint that was used for blush. As time went on he forgot his appointment with the television and night fell.

Ed grew tired and took down a box he had stored socks in. He set the socks carefully into his drawer next to the ones he had calculated he would need for the remainder of the year. The empty box became a nest for the doll, carefully collected tissue paper surrounded her.

He looked upon her with the warmth of having created something. She was his contribution to humanity, beyond his toil. When others looked upon her they would know something of his soul. She needed a name. “Belle,” he said with a smile as he placed her next to his bed in her box. He left the lid off and the light from a flickering streetlamp flickered across her face.

The morning sun did not have the angle to enter the small window, but Ed draped a silken handkerchief over Belle, knowing that noon would come and strike her down with its vicious rays.

He made breakfast and a lunch to take (cucumber sandwiches, with the crusts cut off, just like his mother used to make), before leaving his home. The rising sun made progress against the cityscape, and Ed’s ashen suit did nothing to aid it.

A week passed with Ed hovering over Belle. Her hair had become like a model’s… perfectly coiffed. Her plastic had taken on the tone of life, with the blush of blood vessels hinted at beneath the surface. Tonight he had set her on the couch, and they had watched television together: “The Wizard of Oz.”