She wipes sweat from her hands to get a good grip on the statue base. It’s the last time I’ll see her in a while, though I don’t know it yet.
It’s not just us in the crowd. Takes the whole village to upset the metal structure, larger than life, heavy as the deaths we mourn each day. A mockery of our craft.
I set my hand beside hers. The metal sings beneath our touch.
We push. Our muscles flex, our minds tighten. It sways. The immense weight keeps it grounded, at first. Then we tip beyond the point of no return, and it becomes the statue’s weakness.
The earth shudders under the impact.
But the ground keeps shaking, even as the sculpture lies prone. The officers are here, generations past the man whose likeness we’ve toppled.
The villagers scatter.
I’m an artist. My lungs aren’t cut out for this.
I don’t run fast enough.
* * *
I cup my hands over the metal. It warms slowly, rising to the temperature of my skin, then resonating with the hotter energy deeper inside me.
“Get on with it.” The officer slaps his baton against the bronze. The noise reverberates through the metal, jarring my teeth and squeezing my eardrums.
I pull my fingers back quickly. The cacophony stills.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch him smirking. I run the cuff of my faded uniform under my nose. It comes away bloody.
“Hurry up,” the officer says again, enjoying his little power trip.
I ignore him. Not just to try his patience, but because art doesn’t capitulate to orders. Even though they’re aware how metalbonding works—crudely, at least—the artistic nuances are beyond their limited understanding.
That’s why they keep us here.
I flatten my palms against the material, concentrating. It moulds under my coaxing, bending to my imagination and shaping into a jawline.
I always start with the face. So I don’t forget the kind of monsters they have us commemorate.
* * *
The mess hall rings with chatter. My head still sensitive from before, I carry my tray to the courtyard outside. The thick wall surrounding us isn’t metal, but stone. Even the makeshift wire above is wooden cords of rope coated with crushed glass.
Before I can finish my supper, the officer from earlier sits at my bench. He stares with intense eyes. He likes looking at me. Takes pleasure in knowing I don’t enjoy his attention.
My trembling spoon clatters against my teeth. I’ll be damned if I let him stop me eating my food.
“I went into town on patrol the other day.”
I don’t answer.
“Saw your sweetheart.”
My breathing hitches. He catches it, of course. This is the game he plays, making me squirm because I can’t return the favour.
He leans back casually, arms and legs sprawling until I’m perched stiffly at the edge of the seat. My eyes burn into the walls closing me in. I don’t cry, though. I’ve had enough practice keeping my real self buried in this place.
“She didn’t recognise me,” he says. “Not until I mentioned I hang out with her girlfriend.”
“Don’t take it personally.” My impassive voice belies the pulse pounding at my throat. “It’s impossible to tell any of you apart behind those ugly weapons you wear.”
“Ah, yes, we brutish folk.” He chuckles. “Too rough to craft your people’s delicate art. But that’s what we’ve got you for, eh? What does it matter that I can’t sculpt the perfect likeness of our First Leader when I know you’ll do it for me, anyway.”
The gruel turns leaden on my tongue. Still, I force down the mouthful.
I won’t have him knowing he’s taken my appetite, too.
* * *
The face of the conqueror peers down at me. He would destroy me in a heartbeat if he still had one, the way he crushed my ancestors.
Metal folds under my trembling fingers, the fury of grief undoing days of work.
I can ruin things, too.
“Stop that,” the officer commands.
My arm sinks into the melting breastplate like it’s searching for a heart to burst. They do it with guns; I’ll try with bare hands.
Atomic lattices break and reform around me, a gleaming second skin.
The officer points his rifle a second too late.
Bullets ricochet off the metal coating my body like armour. I fasten the First Leader around me as if he’s the prison uniform I pull on every morning.
Something trickles from my nostril.
The gun twists easily in the conqueror’s fist. It’s what he’s made for, a celebration of a violent history. His bronze fingers curl around the officer’s neck and squeeze.
Reinforcements beat me with batons.
A taste metallic as my outfit dribbles onto my tongue. My head spins, but I keep going. Walls crumble under my feet. Shards of glass disintegrate into fine, glittering powder.
Then I’m free.
My vision blurs. I push harder, breaking whatever gets in my way. It all looks the same from inside my metal cocoon.
People scream and run. But a crowd gathers around me, and I recognize it as an attack formation.
I lash out. Blood sprays across the ground.
The ones who don’t fall close in. They press their hands against my casing, and the metal sings beneath their touch. I clutch at it, trying to keep it wrapped around my throbbing body. But I’m only one, and they many.
Metal curdles, dripping down my torso, dragging me down. The extra weight that catapulted me out of captivity now succumbs to their insistent palms.
I fall with a crash.
My eyes struggle to focus. I must have conjured her from my aching mind.
She touches my face—my real face—and hauls me out of my metal suit. I stagger to my knees, glancing at the shell beside me, their First Leader flayed open.
“Let’s go.” She wipes sweat from her hands and takes mine. “The officers are coming.”
* * *
Ⓒ Ayida Shonibar
Originally published in Luminescent Machinations, Neon Hemlock, July 2023. Reprinted here by permission of the author.