The Lump

         My first moment of consciousness, that I recall, was startling.  It took only moments to begin feeling and processing sensations, and putting names to them.  The first I remember was a sensation of a surface worn smooth, but distinguished by lines and swirls in its texture.  I felt the substance of my being form to the lines.  In those first moments I also learned of hot and cold, as my one side experienced an undulating heat, and my other a wafting cool. 

         I soon felt something of a much more peculiar substance than myself or the surface on which I rested.  It was soft, yet firm, and I felt a warm, pulsing life force flowing beneath the pads of its appendages.  Over time, it was this strange new substance and its mysterious appendages that gave the substance of my being its form.  It worked its magic through the appendages, and my shape began to change.

         One day, after much work, I felt a new sensation.  The strange thing had formed a part of my substance into new shapes, and those shape allowed me to experience sound.  I heard a cracking noise in the direction from which the feeling of heat came.  When I listened for the cold, I heard only a low, howling whistle.  The strangest sounds of all came from what I presumed to be the strange thing.  It made all manner of strange sounds.  At times it made a shuffling sound that moved all around me, and got alternately father and nearer.  Sometimes it made a lumbering thud, thud, thud, and its sound would disappear all together.  Most of the time I heard only a soft, rhythmic rustling, not entirely dissimilar to the cold howling whistle.  Occasionally it would make words out of the rhythmic rustling, and I soon learned to interpret these words.

         My shapes that felt sound were called “ears”.  The crackling thing that made the warmth was called “fire”.  The smooth, lined surface I rested on was “wood”, but also “table”, which made me curious to how one thing had two names.  Its appendages, called “fingers”, kept working, and as I learned how more things were called, a strange energy worked through the fingers, and new shapes began to form.  I suddenly learned a new sensation, as the man who was making me formed a shape called a “nose”.  I could now take in new sensations, like the stinging smell of the smoke that fire made, and the odd substances which nourished the man.  The man kept working, and forming new shapes.  Again, a strange energy moved out of his fingers, and he created a new shape which I could part, and open and close.  What a fantastic feeling it was when I learned that I could make sounds of my own!  I began interacting with the sounds the man made, and soon learned to mimic his words.

         “Man,” I said.

         “Yes, good,” he replied, “I am a man.”

         “Fire,” I said

         “Yes, fire keeps us warm.”

         We began to talk of things more and more.  I learned to form strings of words like the man did to say more complex thoughts.  We talked as his continued to work.  He formed more shapes on my face, and warned me that I was about to experience the greatest sensation of all.  His strange energy coursed into my new shapes, and I was overwhelmed by the brilliance of sight.

         At first I could only see light and dark.  I learned that the world was sometimes light and sometimes dark, but the man was able to capture the light in the form of fire, and could have light whenever he pleased.  After I learned light and dark, I learned color, and found that the light from the fire was different from the light of the day, which came from the window.  Once I understood colors, I learned about shapes, and textures, and was able to look upon the face of the man as we spoke.  He smiled warmly, and I smiled back at him.  We talked, and he told me of the world, and the things outside his house.

         He told me that his house was at the base of a mountain, that he had lived here for many years while he studied ancient books and learned to perform magical feats.  He had learned to cast enchantments on things and people, and manipulate strange forces which no man truly understood.  He told me of how after many years he found the pursuit of this skill to be hollow, as he had shed all human connections to devote himself to his craft.  As he learned more feats, he came to see his skills as mere toys, fanciful playthings that served no purpose, but to amuse their master.  He became distraught and lonely, and decided to go beyond mere enchantments, and to create life from a lifeless form.  He said I began as a piece of clay cut from the side of the mountain, and that I was his greatest feat of magic.

         He continued his work, and crafted a body for me, with hands and arms and legs, and appendages called fingers.  He taught me to walk, so that I could move around with him.  I had not flesh, or feelings, like the man, but I had substance, and strength, and thought.  I helped him, and we walked on the mountain, and I learned of the sun, and the moon, and the stars.  When I had learned enough, the man taught me to read his books of magic, and I learned to cast enchantments and manipulate strange forces which no man understood.  After many years the man, my maker, grew old, as men do, and died.  I buried him on the mountain as he had wished, returned to the house with a lump of clay from the side of the mountain, and began to craft a new man.  This one, like me, would not grow old and die.



999 words.