Avril and the Automaton

May I come in? It was timidly heard outside the ruined house. Inside were the worn pieces of an old wooden automaton. The little gears scattered on the floor moved timidly, letting off a little dust each time they touched each other. They were jumping on the floor, avoiding the cracks between the planks.

The gears jumped rhythmically into the mouth, one after the other, and it began to move with difficulty. The mouth moved up and down like rehearsing a dance learned many years ago. The old wood in the joints released sawdust with every movement. The light coming through the window allowed the rain of dust and wood falling to the ground to be seen, reminiscent of a foggy day in Autumn.

At last, a sound came from the worn old man's throat. "Come in," he blurted out. Outside, Avril was waiting attentively for an answer that she thought would never come. However, her ears caught the raspy voice of the wood. "Come in," he repeated mechanically, like the predefined notes of a musical box. Avril felt the hair behind her neck standing on and an electric current ran through her entire body. She adjusted her broken-frame glasses and was inadvertently inside.

The house was in ruins, and if it weren't for the strands of light coming through the dirty curtains, it would be in total darkness. With each step the house whispered at Avril's feet. She seemed happy to have someone standing on her moth-eaten floor. She no longer heard anything, was the voice real? She didn't know. However, she felt the urge to discover the old furniture. She shook off the covers raising clouds of dust. She covered herself with the sleeve of her jacket and repeated the same thing a couple of times.

She sat in the dim room wondering what she was doing there. She wasn't sure what strength had brought her to that old house by the side of the road. She dropped her arm next to the chair where she was sitting and inadvertently stroked the automaton's fingers. Avril jumped scared and leaned out from under the chair. She reached out and pulled out the old worn arm with cracked plaster fingers.

She looked at him with fear, because she wasn't sure what she had in her hands. She carefully placed it on the couch and prepared to open the curtains. The light reflected off the brass rivets around the elbow joint. It was an old wooden arm, there was no doubt.

Avril tied the curtains and the light reached every corner of the house. Under the table were a pair of legs, beyond which was another arm. There were several shapeless pieces of wood, and in the far corner, next to the fireplace, was what appeared to be the missing head of the last inhabitant of the house. Avril gathered all the pieces and placed them carefully on the table, trying to order them as her logic indicated. Only the head was left.

Avril plucked up courage and walked slowly to the fireplace. She observed the head from a distance and spoke to it: "Hello?" There was no reply. Gently she pushed it with her foot and after a couple more tries, she reached out to lift it. It was lighter than it seemed.

She was already there. All the pieces were arranged on the table and Avril had nothing to do but try to reshape the wooden automaton. The task was easier for than she thought; it was as if each piece waited for the moment when someone put them next to each other to meet again. Each piece hugged the other as Avril brought them closer with love and softness.

She lifted the half-assembled body and sat it on the table. She took it by the hand and again felt an electric current throughout her body. Once again, the head was left. Avril looked at it trying to force it to open its moister-closed eyes with her own. It was useless. She held it up with both hands and stared at it against the light. Every time she moved it, loose pieces sounded inside of it as dust poured out through the cracks.

"The time has come," she thought. So she screwed the head into the body. It was impossible to know how long they had been apart. In the last couple of turns the wood screeched trying to fit properly.

Finally there they were, face to face. The old inhabitant of the house and the unexpected visitor. Avril looked at him as if waiting for an answer, but received none. She ran her hand all over his body, avoiding splintering with the old wood, trying to make him react. She knocked at his chest a few times, but stopped when she realized it wasn't a door. She smiled to herself and sighed. She leaned her forehead against the old man's and a warm wind blew into the house. Suddenly the light seemed brighter and the interior of the house began to regain the life it had lost. The curtains fluttered lightly in the wind. They no longer released dust.

Avril did not understand what had happened. "I did nothing". She said to herself. The face of the old automaton had lost his cracks and the wood looked new, clean and freshly varnished. A drop of water loomed between his eyelids and opened them for the first time in a long time. Avril and the automaton stared at each other. It seemed like a gaze lost in time, eternal. They smiled at each other and melted into a contained hug from many lives ago.