Free The Melancholy of Anatomy: Stories by Shelley Jackson

the door frame.
    Slowly, slowly, they were drawn together. Some moved like inchworms, humping up. Some like sidewinders. Some just slithered. They amassed: a pale, luminous pile in what moonlight found its way through the dusty windows.
    Nerve fibers have a curious property. They organize themselves. They twine, knot, braid, lace, plait, mesh, splice. Some stringent ancient script takes over.
    By midnight, a thick braid lay shining on the ground. (At home, George was sleeping quietly for the last time in his life.) Over the ensuing hours, more strands knotted themselves to it. They formed nosegays, posies, faggots. Sheaves and bales. (George slept on.) They twisted, coiled, fretted themselves together. (George woke up, took a hard-boiled egg out of the fridge, baggied it, shook some salt into the bag, set out early for work.)
    A forked figure stood, took a bite of the apple.
    George’s key turned in the lock.
    These spontaneous assemblages of sensibility are not just admired by aestheticians and teenage girls. One minute you’re a man of business, the next you’re writing sonnets to a squiggle of sore pasta, and your career can go to hell for all you care.
    The warehouse supplied nerve fibers to top designers. George handled the overseas clients. He was a burly, well-spoken man, with clean, filed fingernails. Nobody would have pegged him for the sort to ditch the wife and kids (not yet an actual wife and kids, but a prospective wife and kids, real enough that he could almost see their tiny, resentful faces asthey waved goodbye) and go in for pain and sequins. Nobody including him. But there he was, in love with a length of forked lightning.
    How long was that going to last? But it changed everything. Afterwards, he found that he remembered his past differently. Isolated incidents suddenly strung themselves together into an argument, a prediction. Innocent objects started to phosphoresce. A child’s
Rainy Day Fun Book
metamorphosed into a grimoire.
    “Tie a Turk’s head in a hank of nerves—four fibers will do. Give the nerves a turn to make a neck. Reserve two fibers for the arms. Twist the remaining two together to make the body of your nerve man or lady. When half of their length is still remaining, separate them to form the legs. Give them a little loop at the end so the dolls have feet to stand on. Keep your eye on them while you fashion their outfits—don’t let them get away!
    “Here are some easy outfits you can make. Cut a dress out of plain paper. Tape the nerve lady to the back side. You may want to draw a pocket or an apron on the dress. Your nerve gentleman does not need much clothing, but perhaps you will want to give him a natty bow tie! Cut it out of plain paper and give it a gay pattern with your crayons. How about polka dots? Or stripes? Now your nerve gentleman is ready to step out with the lady of the house.
    “Maybe you would like to give your nerve man and lady a shoe-box house to live in. Glue a piece of patterned paper on the floor to make a rug. You can cut out miniature pictures for the walls, or draw windows for them to look out of. Chairs can be made out of corks and nails, see page 23. Do they like towatch TV? Draw a scene from your favorite TV program on the front of a box, and add some dials. Use your imagination!
    “When you’re finished playing, just put on the lid to keep them safe and sound until next time.”
    “It was cruel,” George told his therapist. “But children are cruel, aren’t they? Not evil, but nonchalant about pain. I was interested in salting slugs, swatting flies. Of course, the general opinion at the time was that the nerve dolls didn’t suffer because they weren’t really alive to begin with. Frog legs kick in the lab with no frog attached to them, you know. Chickens gad about without their heads.
    “They weren’t the best-looking dolls. No more than stick figures. Their paper-doll dresses hung crooked, and exposed their backsides whenever they turned