A Clockwork Christmas Angel by J. W. Stacks Page A

broken by the horror of waking up without a flesh and blood arm attached, a patchwork mental quilt of anguish. She remembered sobbing uncontrollably while holding the shards of a teacup, tea stains on her nightgown after her hand had shattered the delicate china. A yellow bowl of blue fruit. A needle full of some kind of narcotic. She twisted a doorknob off. A octopus. In a fit of anger, she drove her fist through a brick wall. They restrained her to a bed after that episode. A man with a monotone voice who she believed was a doctor. Nothing made sense, everything jumbled together like a pile of alphabet blocks that spelt nonsense. There were days she had problems distinguishing the reality of her experiences with what might have been phantoms of her own mind.
Abigail never found out who financed the expensive surgery but, spurning what had obviously been intended as a act of mercy, she’d cursed her unknown benefactor ever since. The doctors, alarmed at her deepening fits of melancholy and one attempt to poison herself with a carelessly unattended bottle of medicine, had her committed to a sanatorium.
If her drugged state in the hospital had been nerve-wracking, the sanitorium became a terror out of her deepest dreams. Her days consisted of staring at bare white walls and the outside world through iron bars over her window. Nights were worse as she was lulled to sleep by the cries, shrieks, and screams of the hopelessly mad. Being the only sane resident amongst the lunatics threatened to make one desire to join their delusions, if only as a escape from the torment. She would have poetically strangled herself with her new arm but they “thoughtfully” let it run down and did not rewind it, further reinforcing in her mind that it was a dead thing grafted to her at the shoulder. Several months passed before she was declared cured of her hysteria and released.
    Abigail took a shuddering breath and pressed her forehead against the fragile barrier between her and the dirty metropolis. Unable to deal with the certain ruin of her career, she fled. No one would want an actress who wasn’t whole or possibly insane. Over time she had pawned off most of her belongings, uncaring that the villains were giving her next to nothing for her valuables, before making her way to this rundown room. The only thing she kept was a small box that contained playbills of her performances. As often as she wanted to hurt them into the fireplace, something kept her from doing it.
She wasn’t sure how much lower she could go or even if this Christmas Eve would be her last. She wondered why she hadn’t killed herself in the months since she had been released and could only come to the conclusion that she was a craven coward. At one point she might have claimed that her belief in God forbid taking one’s life but her faith died in the sanatorium. Surely no sane supreme being would allow such things to befall those who had been devout unless he was a cruel and malicious devil.
    Instead she moped until the first rays of sunlight broke through the gray clouds. Unable to bear the drab four walls any longer, Abigail dressed and concealed her deformity in a sling before venturing out to purchase her usual meager food for the day. Her daily perambulations were a dreamlike experience for her. It was if she were apart from the teeming crowds that bustled along the street. It might be madness but she walked along as if they were not there, ignoring the jostling and occasional greetings and apologies. They did not impinge upon her world nor did she choose to take part in theirs.
    The market was especially busy as shoppers making their last minute preparations for the next day were everywhere. The noises of geese and fowl ready for slaughter intermixed with the cacophony of shouted transactions and the hawking of wares. Colorful ribbons clashed with the drab clothing that marked this section of the city. The smell of roasting chestnuts reached her nose and her