Chapter 2: Part 10, Empty Nest

Patchwork watched as the golden yellow flame before him slowly faded to a smoldering orange. How quickly the warmth of the living ebbed out and faded into the general entropy of the surrounding world he thought laying against an unmarked grave. He had had his fill of the spongy grey and red mass that covered the bottom of the grave and felt his thoughts clearing with each passing second. He silently watched as both the dark singing man and the bald white man fished out organs from the husk of what had once been Jonesy. Like a demented version of Thanksgiving he looked upon them the same way a content father would look at his children eating at the dinner table. In life they would have fought each other over personal beliefs and the color of their skin. Now in death they shared, and almost seemed to enjoy each others company. Black, white, everyone looks the same when they’re covered in blood.

An eerie serenity blanketed the scene as the sounds territorial grunts, smacking lips and tearing cartilage provided gruesome contrast. After a few minutes they started to lose interest in the flesh as the warmth it once contained diminished. Sadness struck Patchwork as he watched them get up and move on their own way.

His left eye twitched as a stitch pulled at its corner and blurred his vision. When it finally cleared the figure of the carcass came to him in stark clarity. It pained him that the one that they had feasted on would not be coming back from the darkness to join them. This was his doing and as much as he felt in control at the moment, he feared the unbridled rage and strength that accompanied it when he lost control. From what he could recall in his prior memories they were both uncommon for a man of his size. He clenched his fist tightly when he realized that he wasn’t exactly a man, he was something else... he was an abomination.

He tried to get a grip of his first memories, something which he could use to start to piece together the puzzle of his existence. At first they were just flickers of sight, sound, and pain along with the acrid smell of harsh antiseptics which pervaded his memories. Fearing the sight of the devices and tools which had constantly pierced and probed him he continued delving into his first feelings and remembrances. His thoughts plunged his body into a cold dark pool which reflected nothing. He lay there frozen, staring up at clear plastic lines which dripped blue colored liquids into him while shiny metal blades danced above. Blue, the color of glaciers, there was something about that color that caused him to stop. It was the color of hard packed snow lit from behind during a winter night, but it wasn’t cold at all. In fact, there was a fire in that blue, like the circular blue flame on a gas stove. Then he remembered, circles... yes circles... the ice melted away as the form of two deeply caring blue eyes surrounded by soft flesh hovered over him. That face, where did he know that face from... she knows! Whoever she is, she knows where I came from. She might have even had something to do with my creation. He focused harder and tried to sharpen the image, but the harder he tried to hold onto its definition the faster the image dissolved into a tangle of wires, IV tubing, and roping intestines. He finally let it all go and opened his eyes to reveal an empty graveyard. He was alone.

He couldn’t let go of the sadness that accompanied the frustration of still not being any closer to an answer. He was angry at those who created him, and then just abandoned him in this world to fend for himself. He was jealous of those people with the golden glow of warmth that resided in them, the glow that he himself, was missing. He was sad that the family dinner was over and the kids had left the nest, left him alone again.

His children had moved away in seemingly arbitrary directions, but he knew there was something pulling them... it was food. It pulled them all...