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You're drenched in stars, broken pieces shining against your pale, pale skin. Your crystallized veins are hard like diamonds and cracking on the inside. Your lashes are dusted with white gold, fanning out a mix of dark and light against your porcelain cheeks. What you lack in color – you’re nothing but gold, whites, and dark browns – you make up for in shine.
You're stretched out on a long slab of concrete and downy pillows. Your sharp edges are illuminated by the dying stars, their deaths making up your body. They're the reason you live. I can only see you through the wrought-iron fence; my dark eyes only ever meet you at a distance, my dirt-stained fingers longing to touch your white-gold skin.
You and I are not human. We've never had the opportunity to live human lives. We live in a world that alternates between blissed-out white and deep, heavy stone. We've never seen anything beyond this world. You've never seen anything outside your gated area.
Your eyes are rarely open and my hands are always dirty from creating things for the world below us, things that will never compare to you in beauty. Your life consists of lying out on display, being a gorgeous work of art, hard pieces of bright, white stars tangled in the dark locks of your hair.
I often wonder if you're bored, if this was the way you had hoped your creation would be. They tell me it is what you were made for, that you are nothing but a work of art meant to be viewed. I think that you must be sad, must be lonely, and I? I am a creator. My fingers carve mountains, valleys, animals, people.
I will admit I've tried time and time again to make a human that bears your face. None of them ever succeed. I can never quite manage to capture the beauty of your face. I've spent so many days of my life trying to make a human that can be worthy of being called your mirror.
It takes me years before I achieve what I had set out to create. I created a human from the dirt and the clay. He is truly my masterpiece. They won't allow me to choose his name, but the Namers tell me that he's to be called George. I softly tell the Namers that I had wanted him to be named after my favorite constellation, the stars that gave you life: Orion.
The Namers scoff at me and tell me that I've been working on your human too long. They tell me that the world has changed around me and that Orion is a name that will no longer work in the world he's going to be born into. I go and plead with the twiners of faith, those who thread and weave the lives of the humans I forge.
The threader I speak to has striking eyes, powerful and bright. He takes pity on me and says he'll give my human the middle name Ryan. He tells me he'll add a stitch into "Ryan's" webbing, his life, a point, a moment where someone decides that Ryan is better than George. He says it's the best he can do and I nod in acceptance.
I catch a glimpse of your human's thread and I see dark, black string, see pain and hurt spread out throughout his life. You don't deserve this.
I go back to you and watch you lay out and shimmering, satin and silk draped over the sharp angles of your diamond bones.
I don't tell the Threader, but I make another human based upon him. I give him a few slight differences, but he is still recognizable as the Threader. I make a note to keep the eyes the same; the soon to be human will have eyes like the Threader, striking and powerful. I send the human off to the Namers and the giddiest of them stops when I hand over the human who bears the likeness to the Threader. His eyes grow heavy, the way I think mine must when I look at you.
The Namer asks me if I had a name in mind for this human. I tell him 'no,' tell him that he can name this one whatever he'd like. The human who bears the features of the Threader comes back with the name Spencer.
I go back to my pedestal and create again. It's animals this time and I wonder about all of the things your human will enjoy. I wish with all of my being that I could go to you and ask you about what you like the most. I'd make you anything you wanted.
I sculpt with thick fingers that should be clumsy but aren't. My fingers are well-trained and fly over the clay and the dirt, sculpting and scraping until I am satisfied. I hope that, someday, I'll be worthy enough to step inside your roped-off area so that I may be allowed to touch you, to speak to you, so that you may know who I am.
When I return to my pedestal, I see that the Namer is there. He stands and tells me he's been waiting for me. He frowns as he asks me for a favor. The Namer tells me that he wants a chance to live, as well. I am surprised. I hadn't expected it and, really, it's frowned upon to make humans who so closely resemble the beings who live here.
The Namer promises not to say anything and begs me for a human, someone he can watch live in place of actually being able to live. I find myself unable to refuse his request. He sits for me, perfectly still, and I mold a human figurine for him. They're small yet detailed, each one fitting perfectly in the palm of my hand.
I hand off the human figurine of the Namer to his real-life counterpart and the Namer gifts me with a careful hug. The Namer whispers to me the name he’s already chosen for his human: Brendon.
The Namer departs and, again, I am left to create.
I've already abused my power, but a thought still manages to worm its way into my mind. I could make myself just as I had made you, the Namer, and the Threader. I wait until nightfall and I go and see you. You are typically more popular at night, but this particular night, there's no one to see you.
You're even more beautiful at night. You're made from stars and you glow warm and soft at night. I clutch the twisted metal of the fence that separates us. Your long legs hang off the cool slab of concrete that you spend each day of your life on. Your one arm is stretched over your head, your fingers dangling down, nearly brushing the soft white of the ground. Your other arm is in front of you, your hand pillowed under your head.
Every time I've come to see you, you've always been asleep. They tell me that it's because you have no purpose, that you're a worthless creation merely meant to be gazed upon. They keep you locked up because they don't want to share you, but they also don't care enough to let you live what limited life you do have. I've come to realize that you sleep because they like you that way. They keep you weak.
I must make a sound, because the next thing I know, your eyes are slitted open. I think I was expecting your eyes to shine as bright as the rest of you, but they don't. Your eyes are dark, an unbelievable depth to them. Your eyes are open and you're looking directly at me.
I raise my hand in a small wave and whisper a soft greeting. You don't say anything, but you do smile. It's soft and small, tired, and, despite the dirt and clay that's smudged along my face and hands, I am not afraid to smile back.
Before I get the chance to speak to you, I hear others coming, and so I leave you. To my surprise, your eyes follow me as I depart. I return to my pedestal and take comfort in the fact that, at the very least, you now know I exist. It's this night that I decide to make a human of my own.
My human is the second-hardest figurine I’ve ever created, the first being yours. By the end of the process, though, I am more than satisfied with my creation. I wait until morning before I take my own figurine to the Namer. He grinned at me and takes my figurine with gentle hands. The Namer asks me what I’d like to call my human. I'm not quite sure. It's not something I ever envisioned myself having to do.
Throughout the years, there was one name that, time and time again, caught my ear.
I tell him I want the name Jonathan. The Namer nods in approval and tells me that he thinks Jon suits me better. With my human's name in place, the Namer lets me take him to the Threader. The Threader smiles at me when he sees me. He tells me that he likes his human. He turns on his seat and points back to the wall, to a long, long weaving hanging there.
The Threader tells me that it's your human's life and, like I had noticed before, there's large spots of dark thread, but there is also white and yellow, deep reds. Your human will be happy, he'll be in love. The Threader tells me that his human will know yours, that they'll meet and he'll protect your human for a good long time. The Threader tells me that it's meant as a thank-you to me, because I had gifted him with a human of his own.
I hesitate to ask him if I may be woven into your life as well. The Threader looks at me carefully with his lip caught between his teeth before he gets up off his seat and goes to the wall, to the tapestry of Ryan's life that hangs there. The Threader looks over his work, fingers running down the thread until he stops at a certain point about midway down the beginning of your human's life.
The Threader tells me that I can be woven into your life...or at least our human lives. The Threader takes my figurine and sets about weaving a tapestry of my own human's life.
I can't help but wonder what his life will be like and what your human will think of mine. I go back to my pedestal and I wonder. I know I'll be able to watch our human's lives unfold and, even though you and I might never know each other, I know our humans will.
Maybe it will be enough.