TITLE: Sibling Rivalry
AUTHOR: Doctor Strangelove (strangelove317@hotmail.com)
RATING: PG
GENRE: Drama/General
FEEDBACK: I'd love it.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. I think Tim Burton owns them.
"Sibling Rivalry"
Written by: Doctor Strangelove
Sally. Precious Sally. The Doctor's finest creation. A marvel of science and wonder. He made her with his own two hands. He made her of scraps of flesh and cloth. He made her to be the most magnificent creation of all time, far surpassing all of the others.
I hate her.
Why do I hate her, you ask? After all the wonderful things I just said about her? Check the part. She surpasses all of Doctor Finklestein's creations. I was one of his creations.
Not just one of them mind you, I was the creation. Everything before me was just a machine. The drinking bird, the walking bathtub, that little two-faced man with the weird hat. They were all just machines. I was different. I was alive. I could talk, I could walk, I could laugh, I could smile, I could yell, I could think. I was alive.
The Doctor loved me. I was his finest creation, better than all the rest. We would spend days together, talking together, laughing together, we did everything together. He told me all of his plans, his hopes, his dreams, his schemes, his fantasies. I knew everything about him. But he didn't know everything about me. Not at first, anyway.
A few months after I was born, something terrible happened. One of the Doctor's closest friends was killed. She was eaten alive. By the Boogie Man. That's what the Doctor told me. He was devastated. He couldn't eat, sleep, plan, create. He couldn't do anything. I was very upset. So I did what seemed natural to me. I tried to avenge him. I planned to go out and kill this Boogie Man.
The Doctor was angry that I was going to do such a thing. He couldn't fathom why such a young thing would do such commit such a horrible a horrible crime. I tried to explain that since he ate his friend, the Boogie Man should die too. Then the Doctor got quiet. He asked me how I felt after his friend died, because she had often visited and was very fond of me. I tried to think, and I couldn't think of how I felt. I didn't really feel anything.
You see, I was better than all the other creations Doctor Finklestein had created, but I still had one tiny flaw. I had no heart. I couldn't feel. I couldn't be sad. I couldn't be angry. I couldn't be anything. I couldn't love.
Love. That's what the Doctor was really after when he made me. A companion. A friend. Someone he could love and have love him in return. And I couldn't do that. So I was cast aside.
I tried to go to the Doctor still. I tried to talk to him, tried to get him to talk to me. But he wouldn't. He was busy. With a new creation. A sister for me, he said.
I didn't like the idea of that. I didn't want a sister. Because I knew what would happen to me. I knew that with each new creation, a new one better than all the rest, that the last one would become inferior. And the Doctor would focus all his attention and love on the new one. I didn't want that.
I sabotaged Sally. I snuck into the lab and tore her lifeless body into pieces. I got caught. The Doctor was so angry with me, we demanded to know why I did what I did. I explained that I felt he would stop loving me when Sally came to life. He understood. He hugged me and comforted me and said that would never, ever happen. He lied.
Sally was born. She became the focus of his attentions, just like I knew she would. So I told the Doctor what was going on and then he did something I will never forgive him for. He gambled with my life. He decided he would flip a coin to see which one of us would live, me or Sally. He was basing my entire existence on a damned coin toss! I lost.
Still the Doctor couldn't bring himself to kill me. I was the first-born after all. So instead he took me out into the woods and locked me in his old lab. All alone. I'm still here, all alone in the dark. I'll probably be here till I die.
But I do things to pass the time. From the Doctor I learned things. I learned to create. I don't have the resources to bring life into this world, but I can make machines. And machines are a type of company. That's not all I do. I draw.
I draw all sorts of pictures. I never draw me. I draw the Doctor, I draw Sally, I draw the Doctor's friend, and I draw the Boogie Man. The big bad Boogie Man. A tall fiendish purple man, with long claws and long horns. Sometimes I think he's got the right idea. Everybody in Halloween Town fears him. And fear is a lot like love. It's a kind of attention and it's better than nothing. But he'll be dead soon. The Doctor explained that to me, that he was sick and wouldn't live long.
My machines aren't my only company. Occasionally I see three children playing near my prison. Dressed in costumes and having all sorts of fun. I never had a real playmate when I was younger. The Doctor wasn't very fond of my kind of playing. Someday I think I'll call out to the little children and see if they'll play with me.
And of course, there are the bugs. My prison is filled with bugs. Tiny, creeping, crawling, little, delicious bugs. The bugs are my real friends. They belong to me. They are me. My bugs. My precious bugs.