Chapter 9

Bite My Shiny Metal Glass Menagerie

This story is a memory play. You can take what I have to say about what happened as literal truth, but that would be missing the point. I'm telling you things as they are in my mind. These thoughts live there. They may have changed or grown with time. I may have forgotten some things. I may remember some things that never happened. Still, the events I am about to relate left such an impression on me that I feel obligated to pass on what I have, even if I can't vouch for its accuracy. There is some form of reality in there. Incomplete and muted by a veil of fiction though it may be, it is there.

Strangely enough, this story isn't about me. You might even get through the whole thing without remembering that my name is Tom. Tom Wingfield. Pleased to me you, by the way. But enough about me. The most important person I'm about to introduce to you is my sister Laura. Ah, Laura. Such a singular figure. She was probably the most introverted siren you could ever meet. She might even have been the only siren alive who could be fairly described as introverted. Sometimes I couldn't even think of her as a siren.

How many sirens spend hours at a time listening to classical strains on a victrola while tending to the jonquils? You probably think of sirens as women who spend most of their time trying to woo men. I think they all live in a sort of fantasyland in their own way, but Laura's was different from most. Most of the sirens of the village lived in a perpetual haze of amorous fuzziness. Laura dreamed of that, but she lived as if trapped inside the world of her hobbies.

I can still see her now, sitting alone, music charming her as she stares at her collection of animal sculptures. Her plants, her music, and her animals took the place of the unwary male travelers swayed by the deadly charms of the village's other women. It's not that she didn't want a gentleman caller; its' that she never thought to get out of the house to find one. To her, men were like a new book sitting on the shelf. Often, you'll leave the book in its place, knowing it'll be there in the future yet not wanting to commit to it just yet. Years later, you'll find yourself without having read so much as the title page. Laura was like that. She didn't know the first thing about how to treat a man. She probably didn't even know that, as a siren, she was supposed to be the one luring the man to her.

She might have gone on like that for the rest of her life had it not been for Cloud and Cid.

One evening, our family sat down to eat dinner, like we always did. Our mother kept telling Laura and me that we had to chew our food better. It had been a full two weeks since Laura's choking incident, but that hadn't been long enough to escape a by then routine warning to be sure every bite was mushed into sufficiently small pieces so as to prevent another scrape with death. To our mother, even eating was something unsafe, something unnatural, something outside of comfortable domestic imaginary life.

I didn't like being told how to eat; I had my pride as a grown man, even if it was tempered by my living with my mother. In order to preserve some of my dignity, I went out for a walk and a smoke. I don't know what happened at the dinner table after that, but I suppose Laura and our mother got into another argument. That always happens when I leave them alone, Laura once told me.

While walking, I met the two people who would change my sister's life forever. Both were odd-looking men, but they were odd in different ways. One looked like he had a worse smoking problem than my great aunt Gertrude, and the other had hair that probably could have pierce my hand had I foolishly decided try to slap him on the head. Both looked very, very preoccupied. At the least, they looked distracted by the women roaming the streets. I guessed right away that neither had ever visited the Village of the Sirens before; the spiky-haired one looked like his eyes were about to pop out of their sockets.

It was about then when the fateful idea formed in my head. Out-of-towners were rare enough in those days, and there I had cornered two who did not even seem to know what a siren was. Laura had been so alone for so long, and she didn't know how to help herself, but I decided then that I could. Something reminded me of an old conversation I had had with Laura, back when we were children. We had been leafing through her school yearbook, and she had pointed out a boy she said she liked. When asked what was so special about him, she had said it was his hair.

She liked boys with special hair, and there I saw the most special hair that ever dodged a barber's razor. This man's hair might not have even had to dodge, in fact. I'd wager it could have taken a slash or two without giving way. It looked sturdy as steel and as defiant of gravity as a hummingbird. The other man's hair wasn't bad, either. Laura would have her choice of two gentleman callers. Or, I thought slyly to myself, she might not bother to choose one or the other.

"Sir," I called to neither in particular, but I received no answer. I couldn't help but think that had I myself been a siren, I would have been able to command their full attention with a wave of my hand.

"Sir," I called again, this time jumping between them and the girl in whose direction they were staring. "Please, a moment of your time."

"Hmm," said the one with the smaller hair. "This one looks decidedly less feminine than the others."

"That's because I'm not female," I answered him.

"Not female? But this is the Village of the Sirens, is it not?" He looked more incredulous than sarcastic.

"Indeed, it is," I said.

"Then who are you?"

"I am the brother of a shy but tantalizing siren who would love to meet the two of you, if you would care to follow me back to my home."

"Tantalizing?"

"Tantalizing."

"You'll excuse me for asking, but I'm afraid when dealing with women, I have a lot I'd like to learn."

"I'm sure my sister can teach you every thing you need to know."

"If it's a lesson in love, watch out. I suffer from a very sexy learning disability. What do I call it, Cloud?"

The spiky-haired one sighed. "Sexlexia."

"My sister is patient," I said. "Please, give me your names. I'd love to introduce you."

"I'm Cid Highwind," said the short-haired one, "and this is Cloud Strife. Pleased to meet you, though I'm sure I'll be even more pleased when I meet this vixen you've promised."

"Certainly," I said. "Her name, by the way, is Laura Wingfield, and mine is Tom."

"Cid," said Cloud, "do we have time for this?"

"Come to your senses, boy!" Cid slapped Cloud across the cheek. "We always have time for diversions, if the diversions are diverting enough. And this way, we might get our Outerspacium and a hot alien babe. Lead on, Tom!"

"Right this way. But first, let me make a phone call."

I dialed home on my cell to warn Laura to wear her best clothes because I had found her not one but two dates. The tone of her reply carried in it some form of shock, but she agreed to do what I told her. She had to grow up sometime, after all.

When the three of us reached my house, my sister greeted us at the door dressed in a thin fabric dress whose surface area was small enough to attract prolonged stares from her two guests. I smiled and waved as I introduced her to Cloud and Cid, who fell over each other trying to be the first to kiss her hand. They eventually compromised and each kissed a one of her hands.

"Thank you so much," she told me after the strangers made their way inside. "I really don't know what to say, though somehow, I've been waiting for a day like this. I, well, I'll tell you in a minute."

Laura then raced up the stairs to her room, returning a minute later with a finely knitted scarf in tow.

"I wanted to give you this when you finally brought someone home for me. I hope you like it."

"I do, I said. Did you make it yourself?"
"Of course not. I got it at a magic show."

"You actually left the house to see one?"

"Just once. It was a little frightening."

"Please don't be frightened now. Cloud and Cid are good men, and they seem to like you already."

As if to punctuate my words emphatically, the lovesick pair drooled shamelessly on the floor when my sister turned to glance at them.

"Cloud," Cid said to his comrade, "this is where I teach you how to properly conquer a woman. It's a lot like some of my old military campaigns, like when I assaulted the planet Zergatron liberate a supply of spices hoarded by the evil alien race that once ruled that world. Ah, the Brainballs. Mysterious, crafty creatures. They had a lot of brains, and a lot of chutzpah."

"If she's a siren, doesn't that means she's going to kill us after she woos us?"

"You don't understand women very well, do you, Cloud? Step aside and learn from the master."

Cid then fixed his eyes on Laura's, leaned forward, grasped her hands in his, and planted a gigantic kiss on her lips. Laura flinched.

"That felt… good," she said at length.

"Everything feels good when Cid Highwind is in control, baby," said Cid. "See, Cloud, when you hit the bulls-eye, the dominoes fall like a house of cards. Checkmate."

"I'm glad to see you taking a liking to my sister," I said. "Both of us are getting tired of working for her – our mother." I pointed to a painting of my mother on the wall. Cid looked impressed.

"That's your m-m-mother? Here's to the poor schmoes working for the Man, even if he is a hot, sexy female man. Cloud, here's another lesson in love. The quickest way to a woman's bed is through her parents. Sleep with them, and you're in."

"Cid, you're going to get yourself killed. Now come look what I've found."

I couldn't help noticing that Cloud seemed to have his lust for my sister under control, so I urged her to flirt a little harder. She nudged up beside him as he was inspecting her collection of animal sculptures.

"What is this?" he asked her.

"Oh, this? It's my collection."

"I guessed that. What animal is this? It looks like a horse."

"It's a unicorn."

"I like it." Cloud slipped his arm around Laura. I noticed Cid giving him a rude stare.

"I'm saving it for the first man I fall in love with."

"Are you in love with me?" Cloud asked.

"I don't know yet. Am I? How do I know?"

"Let's find out," said Cloud. He took Laura's hand, pulled her head close to his, and started kissing her.

And kissing her. And kissing her. I thought they were never going to stop. I feared I had misjudged the strangers; they were clearly not the inexperienced bumpkins I had hoped. They might have been too much for my poor sister, siren or not. Or so I thought for a minute, but then things sorted themselves out. As Laura became more and more engulfed in her kiss with Cloud, her skin began to turn from the soft moonlight tint to something more resembling a sinister pool of blood. Her eyes flashed green, and two horns sprouted from her head. At last, I knew, she had reached her full potential as a siren, and the poor visitors would fetch us a fine bounty in the flea market when Laura had finished killing and stuffing them.

And then, too late, I realized my mistake. There were two of them, and she only had one of them in her embrace. And my mother was not home at the time. That left Laura outnumbered, and against all odds, Cid was not unarmed. As soon as he saw the object of his infatuation transmogrify into her demonic true form, he snapped back to reality, pulled a pike from a sheath on his back (which I hadn't even seen up to that point), and beat my sister into submission. I, being a male of my species, had no special means of fighting back, so I merely watched, a painful expression etched onto my face, as our victims got away.

"Give me your wallet and your booze before we leave," said Cloud.

And they were mugging me. I shrugged and told them to take whatever they wanted. I lost 5,000 quatloos that day.

"You and I are of a kind, Tom," said Cloud. "In a different reality, I could have called you friend."

"Put a sock in it," I said as Cloud scooped up Laura's unicorn statue and ran for the fire escape. I have no idea why they didn't just use the front door, but I'm sure there's some symbolism in there somewhere.

I spent the rest of that afternoon in bittersweet reflection. My sister had finally come us age, yes, but her personal growth had come at a price, and she didn't even get to finish her prey off properly. My disappointed was only somewhat assuaged when our mother came home later that evening carrying a dead body clad in a red space uniform with a nametag labeled "Ricky" over the breast pocket.

XXX

"Well, Yuffie, did you find any of the Outerspacium?" Cloud looked pleased with himself.

"I didn't."

"Well, I did. This unicorn statue is made entirely of just that."

"Really? How did you get it?"

"I… stole it."

"What were you telling me about ethics?"

"Let's get the heck out of here."