Galatea est une fiction interactive d'Emily Short qui présente une interprétation moderne du mythe grec de Galatea, la sculpture d'une femme qui a pris vie. Le jeu a remporté le prix "Best of Show" lors de l'IF Art Show de 2000 et le prix XYZZY du meilleur personnage non joueur. Le jeu présente une approche inhabituellement riche du dialogue avec les personnages non joueurs et s'éloigne de la résolution de puzzles typique de la fiction interactive : l'ensemble du gameplay est basé sur l'interaction avec un seul personnage dans une seule pièce.
(source : Wikipedia)
Le jeu est disponible à cette adresse :
*
Galatea
Copyright (c) 2000-4 by Emily Short. (First-time users should type 'help'.)
Release 3 / Serial number 040208 / Inform v6.15 Library 6/10
The Gallery's End
Unlit, except for the single spotlight; unfurnished, except for the defining swath of black velvet. And a placard on a little stand.
On the pedestal is Galatea.
>x galatea
She is facing away from you. You cannot see her face, only her hair, and the line of her shoulder. It's hard to know what she's looking at -- the velvet backdrop, if she has her eyes open, but there's not much to see in that. Mostly, it is obvious, she is not looking at you.
Her green dress widens out at the knee, falling over the pedestal on which she stands in a way that would probably be very awkward, if she wanted to move.
>talk to galatea
[To talk to someone, try TELL ABOUT or ASK ABOUT .]
"You might try speaking to me," she prompts. "It's not polite merely to stare. And I've gotten very bored, standing here."
(An attempt to engage the audience -- the proactive element... you frame the words for your review, but you find that you can't get as far as a complete first sentence. There's something more here; anxious, chilly, visceral. Better pay attention.)
>ask galatea about boredom
"You're bored?"
"Wouldn't you be? Standing here all evening, with no one to talk to and nothing to do?" She turns -- not her whole body, just her head, so that you can see one ear behind the cascade of hair.
She does have a point there.
>x hair
It is a pale, Scandinavian blonde, curling just a little beside her face, but elsewhere straight and quite severe.
>ask galatea about her face
She just shrugs.
>ask galatea about face
She just shrugs.
>ask galatea about evening
You can't form your question into words.
>ask galatea about boredom
"Am I boring you?"
"Yes."
>why
That's not a verb I recognize.
>ask why
You can't see any such thing.
>l
The Gallery's End
Unlit, except for the single spotlight; unfurnished, except for the defining swath of black velvet. And a placard on a little stand.
On the pedestal is Galatea.
>ask galatea about solitude
You can't form your question into words.
>tell galatea about me
Where would you begin? And what context would she have for anything you could say? She has had no childhood, no history, no network of passions and friends.The persistent inclination to tell her such things takes you by surprise. Animates are notoriously poor at processing uncontextualized personal information. And you know better than to waste your time.
But this piece of logic doesn't banish the desire to confide in her.
>tell galatea about me
Where do you want to start? Your childhood, your family, your job?
>tell galatea about my childhood
You don't have much to say about that.
>tell galatea about childhood
Which do you mean, the artist's childhood or the childhood?
>the childhood
You'd rather know what she thinks on the subject.
>tell galatea about childhood
Which do you mean, the artist's childhood or the childhood?
>artist's childhood
You'd rather know what she thinks on the subject.
>tell galatea about job
"Actually, I'm a critic; I'm writing a review of the exhibition." (And why, exactly, did you need to get that out in the open?)
You become aware of her breathing -- the slight expansion of her ribs, the soft exhalation -- natural, and yet somehow studied. "I see. I suppose in that case I ought to stand in my pose, so that you can tell what the artist intended. Moving around ruins the lines. Or so I'm told."
"That's quite all right," you reply. "I think I can see the intent."
>ask galatea about artist
A pause. "I don't know where he is," she says. "Or who, or what, for that matter. He sold me immediately after my waking. While he was carving me, there was no strangeness, but afterward..."
>listen to galatea
You fix your attention politely on Galatea.
>ask galatea about artist
"Tell me what you do know about him," you prompt.
"He hated people -- though I think he was also quite lonely. It was a question of not having patience for anyone." Very quietly. "If anyone tried to come up to the studio he'd get out his shotgun and fire into the air until they got the idea. The woman didn't even bring milk if she knew he was there. They had a system of leaving things for each other so that they didn't have to meet. And when he sold me, it was the same. He wrote letters, made arrangements; did not even stay with me, when they came to look me over."
>ask galatea about them
You can't form your question into words.
>ask galatea about sale
"How did you come into the possession of your current owners?" you ask.
There's a moment of stillness. "He knew them from before," she replies. "And when he wanted to sell me he wrote them and they actually flew out to Cyprus to inspect me. He told me that this was a great honor and explained how I should behave, and then he left to lie low a while while they carried out the inspection."
>i
What you're carrying isn't important.
"I don't think they expected to find me there alone," she adds reflectively. "There was plenty of fuss and argument when they arrived about where he might be, but I couldn't tell them. I wish he hadn't done that. It put me in an awkward position, which I had no idea how to handle."
>ask galatea about cyprus
"What do you remember of Cyprus?"
"Very little, except the studio itself; the only time I left it, except to stand out in the garden and look at the ocean after I woke up, I was packed up in my crate for travel. So I didn't exactly get a clear view of the countryside."
>ask galatea about travel
(her journey)
"How did you get here from Cyprus?"
"Oh, I flew. They had me in a crate -- which was uncomfortable, and cold as well. But that was the only way for them to get me through customs, because of course since I wasn't born anywhere I didn't have a passport. I did my best to look still and motionless when customs checked me. Fortunately they weren't very thorough."
>sing
That's not a verb I recognize.
>think
That's a rather uncomfortable-sounding story she told, about getting here from Cyprus in a crate, just barely escaping the notice of customs.
>ask galatea about customs
"What was it like going through customs?"
"I held very still and didn't breathe," she says. "And I let myself look like a statue again." Before your eyes her skin seems to grow harder, less receptive, and her hair seems like a single piece. Then the illusion fades.
>ask galatea about statue
"What do you know about sculpture?" you ask.
"What, you think because I am a statue, I'm an expert? I've barely seen anything but myself; only the plaster model that he used to plan me out." Her voice is hard.
"I think he had some other pieces that he'd worked on, around the studio, but I never got to see them; by the time my sight was fully developed, they were gone."
>ask galatea about model
"What did the plaster model look like?"
"Why, like me! Obviously." Her voice dips deeper, thoughtful. "Though of course, one might wonder... if I woke up, why didn't she? Why am I alive, when she only stood there? I did think about it, and the only answer that I came to was this: she felt no pain. She was built, of plaster, and I don't think that could have hurt, the way it hurts to be carved."
>topics
That's not a verb I recognize.
>help
This is an exercise in NPC interactivity. There's no puzzle and no set solution, but a number of options with a number of different outcomes.
HINTS: Ask or tell her about things that you can see, that she mentions, or that you think of yourself. Interact with her physically. Pause to see if she does anything herself. Repeat actions. The order in which you do things is critical: the character's mood and the prior state of the conversation will determine how she reacts.
VERBS: Many standard verbs have been disabled. All the sensory ones (LOOK, LISTEN, SMELL, TOUCH, TASTE) remain, as do the NPC interaction verbs ASK, TELL, HELLO, GOODBYE, and SORRY; KISS, HUG, and ATTACK. You may also find useful THINK and its companion THINK ABOUT, which will remind you of the state of conversation on a given topic. The verb RECAP gives a summary list of topics that you've discussed so far; if she's told you that she's said all she knows on that topic, it appears in italics.
SHORTCUT: 'Ask her about' and 'tell her about' may be abbreviated to A and T. So >A CHEESE is the same as >ASK GALATEA ABOUT CHEESE.
There is an assortment of walkthroughs available at http://emshort.home.mindspring.com/cheats.htm, but I suggest not looking at them until you have already experimented somewhat.
Questions/comments/bug reports: emshort@mindspring.com. See also CREDITS.
>touch galatea
You put a hand on her shoulder: the skin is smooth and warm, though it lacks the velvety finish of a vintage Hazar.
>kiss galatea
Unlikely to work, from here.
>a love
"What do you know about love?" (As long as you're catechizing her, you might as well be thorough.)
"That it makes people behave like idiots," she replies harshly. "That it takes more than it gives."
>a people
You can't form your question into words.
"I have to say," she remarks after a moment, "sometimes I don't quite understand how other people's minds work. The connections between things..."
"I often surprise even myself," you reply lightly.
>tell galatea about myself
Where do you want to start? Your childhood, your family, your job?
>family
That's not a verb I recognize.
>t family
"I lived with a bunch of different relatives, growing up: my aunt for a while, and then my grandmother for a long time, but with visits to our uncle in the summers. It was crazy."
"Did you enjoy it?"
The air conditioning hums, sending a ripple through the velvet curtain. "Yes, actually, I did. It sounds inhuman to say so, but there were actually times when I was glad that my parents had died, because it meant I was free. I didn't belong to any one place. I could go where I wanted." Utterly against what a child psychologist would predict, and not the kind of admission you ordinarily make...
You stop, a little flustered. But she listens without prejudice -- perhaps because she's too inexperienced to find this kind of thing trite, or perhaps because what she really understands is how to be still and listen.
>l
The Gallery's End
Unlit, except for the single spotlight; unfurnished, except for the defining swath of black velvet. And a placard on a little stand.
On the pedestal is Galatea.
>x placard
Large cream letters on a black ground.
47. Galatea
White Thasos marble. Non-commissioned work by the late Pygmalion of Cyprus. (The artist has since committed suicide.)
Originally not an animate. The waking of this piece from its natural state remains unexplained.
>a suicide
She clearly doesn't know what you're talking about.
>a pygmalion
You can't form your question into words.
>a waking
(the experience of waking)
"What was it like, waking up?" you ask.
She shifts, so that she is now standing in profile to you, facing the blank wall. "It was night. I had been able to hear, and see, for a long time -- it was the talking, or the pain of being carved, that made me aware, I think.
"But one night-- he slept in a corner of the studio-- I heard him screaming in his sleep. More loudly than usual. And I forgot that I couldn't move, and I just stepped down and woke him."
She gains confidence as you do not interrupt. "At the time he seemed glad to have me there, to listen to him -- though I think he thought that I was only another dream. It was only afterward that it became strange."
>z
The curtain moves in a slight breeze.
She blinks once without turning toward you. "He didn't want me to be awake, you see. He didn't make me to be a live person. He told me he wanted something that belonged to him, and that if I could think and talk, I couldn't belong to him any more. So he threw me away."
You look at her, wondering about the other side of this story. Had it driven the artist mad, that she had come alive? And what part of it was it that had bothered him -- the sheer lack of logical sense, or the fact that suddenly what had been a mute witness to his most personal grief was now aware, able to judge, and to speak?
>a dream
(the artist's nightmares)
"He told me only a little," she says. "It was all about hell and being dead. He was walking back and forth, but he had no body, and everything was dark, and everyone else was in the same situation, not recognizing each other, not able to speak. Shades without voices."
>a shades
"What about you? Do you believe in shades like that?"
She pushes a strand of hair out of her face. "I don't know enough to believe one thing or another," she says. "I've been told that some people find the idea of an afterlife comforting, and the opposite quite depressing -- and that this is the reason that some people seek religion. On the other hand, nothing that he believed about the afterlife seemed to give any comfort at all. So..."
>a cheese
"I've never tried it. But he always said that cheese is addicting. Bad for you, okay. But one of the single greatest inventions of man."
>a comfort
You can't form your question into words.
>a religion
"I didn't go to church, if that's what you mean. My artist had no use for that. We could hear the ringing of the church bell, up at the studio, but he always said that was a sop for people who didn't dare take on the gods in their raw form. As pagan, and unkind." A wry smile crosses her face. "As you may have gathered, he wasn't exactly an optimist."
>a optimism
You can't form your question into words.
>a artist
You can't form your question into words.
>a creator
You can't form your question into words.
>a him
"I don't know what else you want to know. Maybe if you were more specific...?"
>a man
You can't form your question into words.
>a her artist
You can't form your question into words.
>a studio
"It was always full of sunshine," she says. "The windows were open day and night, and the breeze came from the shore. The first thing that I saw, when I began to see, was the ocean off beneath us."
>a ocean
"It was a terrible disappointment," she remarks thoughtfully, "when I first learned that the ocean is only water, slipping back and forth under the command of the moon. He used to tell me things like that, even before I asked: I think he could perceive where I was looking, what I wanted to know."
>a knowledge
You can't form your question into words.
>a mind
"When did you learn to think?" you ask.
"When did you?" she retorts. "Did you notice?"
Naturally not. "I was wondering, merely, whether there was a difference for someone who was -- not born in the womb."
>z
You take a deep breath.
"Now just a moment," she says.
"Yes?"
She blinks once without turning toward you. "WAS there any connection between your last remark and what we were talking about before?"
"Uh -- no. Sorry about that."
"Just checking."
>z
A pause.
>z
There's a moment of stillness.
>z
The air stirs, cool on your cheek.
>a body
You can't form your question into words.
>a sadness
You can't form your question into words.
>a happiness
You can't form your question into words.
>t sex
Oh, really. There are some things that fall outside your job description.
>a sex
The question startles even you, the moment you've uttered it. She turns to face you, in a rustle of resettling skirts.
"If you mean, did he sleep with me-- no, he didn't."
No. He wouldn't have. Just look at her: she's beautiful in a crystalline way, but the more you look at particulars, the more they disturb. No one is so sleek, so unforgiving. The proportions are subtly wrong, too -- the size of the head, the shape and width of the mouth...
> a love
"I've said everything I know."
>a death
A swift unreadable glance. "Mine? Or yours?"
Before you can answer, she lifts one shoulder in a delicate shrug. "It doesn't matter which you mean, since I know nothing about either. You will go your way when the time comes; and I-- Who can die who is not alive?"
>a life
"What do you know about life?" you ask her.
"Nothing," she says, "except what I saw of his; and that seldom made any sense to me. He told me that people are born, and that they die, and that there are stages in between-- childhood, adolescence... I asked him why he didn't carve me as a child so that I could grow up." Her mouth tightens a little; the memory, it seems, is not a pleasant one. "I never heard him laugh so hard as when I asked him that. And he said that I certainly had the brain of a child."
(It's chilly in here; you hadn't really noticed earlier.)
>a child
"Are you really sorry," you ask, "that you were never in a child's body? It's not always pleasant, being weaker and smaller, and having people treat you as though you're less; romantic illusions of childhood aside, it's not something I'd choose to go back to."
"That may be, but it's another way in which I'll never be like other people, or understand them." The sorrow in her voice is for once free of bitterness, and you find that you much prefer the effect.
She continues only with effort. "Where everyone else has common history, I have things that only I understand; and that I could only hope to explain to him."
>greet galatea
A little late for that, don't you think?
>bye
That's not a verb I recognize.
>say bye
(to Galatea)
[ For instructions on talking to someone, type 'help'. ]
>t childhood
(the childhood)
Childhood is a lost and private era since your sister died; you think of it seldom, and not ever deliberately. So it takes you a moment to begin.
You keep it general at first, biographical facts anyone could know. Where you were born, and when, and in what kind of economic background. Where you went to school.
It's clear that you have her full attention. Her eyes meet yours briefly.
She listens intently, expressing no reaction -- no judgement, no amusement, no boredom or distraction -- and you find yourself straying into more personal territory. Not dark secrets, but incidents that have no bearing on anyone but you. Your father coming home with a huge wheel of cheddar wrapped in black wax and cutting it up with a butcher knife -- the very first visual image in your memory. The sort of thing that would make little impression now, but which at the time seemed wonderful and strange.
>t father
(the parents)
"My parents died when I was fairly young," you say. "So I don't remember them well. Mostly just images. My mother played the violin, and I remember her getting ready to go play for a Scottish dance group. She was all dressed up and about to go, but she stopped to play one tune for me and my sister before she left."
She glances at you and then looks away. "We didn't see her again," you explain, though something tells you she's already guessed as much.
Her eyes meet yours briefly. Talking to her is too easy. One thing tumbles out after another -- memories, philosophies, names you haven't spoken for years.
She sits down on the pedestal, drawing her knees up to her chest. ("Have you no respect for that gorgeous dress?" "None.") Her bare feet poke out; she's painted the toenails a ruddy shade of bronze, and she studies the effect whenever she isn't looking at you.
Eventually she begins to talk too: about her first encounter with a northern rain; the frustration of trying to watch the television in her hotel room...
And that's where you find yourselves when the lights blink and the owners come to send everyone home: sitting shoulder to shoulder, shading your eyes from that hard downglare. You stand; a happy exhaustion sets in, so you're too tired to be self-conscious about hugging her goodbye under the skeptical gaze of the caterers.
*** The End ***
"You might try speaking to me," she prompts. "It's not polite merely to stare. And I've gotten very bored, standing here."
(An attempt to engage the audience -- the proactive element... you frame the words for your review, but you find that you can't get as far as a complete first sentence. There's something more here; anxious, chilly, visceral. Better pay attention.)
>ask galatea about boredom
"You're bored?"
"Wouldn't you be? Standing here all evening, with no one to talk to and nothing to do?" She turns -- not her whole body, just her head, so that you can see one ear behind the cascade of hair.
She does have a point there.
>x hair
It is a pale, Scandinavian blonde, curling just a little beside her face, but elsewhere straight and quite severe.
>ask galatea about her face
She just shrugs.
>ask galatea about face
She just shrugs.
>ask galatea about evening
You can't form your question into words.
>ask galatea about boredom
"Am I boring you?"
"Yes."
>why
That's not a verb I recognize.
>ask why
You can't see any such thing.
>l
The Gallery's End
Unlit, except for the single spotlight; unfurnished, except for the defining swath of black velvet. And a placard on a little stand.
On the pedestal is Galatea.
>ask galatea about solitude
You can't form your question into words.
>tell galatea about me
Where would you begin? And what context would she have for anything you could say? She has had no childhood, no history, no network of passions and friends.The persistent inclination to tell her such things takes you by surprise. Animates are notoriously poor at processing uncontextualized personal information. And you know better than to waste your time.
But this piece of logic doesn't banish the desire to confide in her.
>tell galatea about me
Where do you want to start? Your childhood, your family, your job?
>tell galatea about my childhood
You don't have much to say about that.
>tell galatea about childhood
Which do you mean, the artist's childhood or the childhood?
>the childhood
You'd rather know what she thinks on the subject.
>tell galatea about childhood
Which do you mean, the artist's childhood or the childhood?
>artist's childhood
You'd rather know what she thinks on the subject.
>tell galatea about job
"Actually, I'm a critic; I'm writing a review of the exhibition." (And why, exactly, did you need to get that out in the open?)
You become aware of her breathing -- the slight expansion of her ribs, the soft exhalation -- natural, and yet somehow studied. "I see. I suppose in that case I ought to stand in my pose, so that you can tell what the artist intended. Moving around ruins the lines. Or so I'm told."
"That's quite all right," you reply. "I think I can see the intent."
>ask galatea about artist
A pause. "I don't know where he is," she says. "Or who, or what, for that matter. He sold me immediately after my waking. While he was carving me, there was no strangeness, but afterward..."
>listen to galatea
You fix your attention politely on Galatea.
>ask galatea about artist
"Tell me what you do know about him," you prompt.
"He hated people -- though I think he was also quite lonely. It was a question of not having patience for anyone." Very quietly. "If anyone tried to come up to the studio he'd get out his shotgun and fire into the air until they got the idea. The woman didn't even bring milk if she knew he was there. They had a system of leaving things for each other so that they didn't have to meet. And when he sold me, it was the same. He wrote letters, made arrangements; did not even stay with me, when they came to look me over."
>ask galatea about them
You can't form your question into words.
>ask galatea about sale
"How did you come into the possession of your current owners?" you ask.
There's a moment of stillness. "He knew them from before," she replies. "And when he wanted to sell me he wrote them and they actually flew out to Cyprus to inspect me. He told me that this was a great honor and explained how I should behave, and then he left to lie low a while while they carried out the inspection."
>i
What you're carrying isn't important.
"I don't think they expected to find me there alone," she adds reflectively. "There was plenty of fuss and argument when they arrived about where he might be, but I couldn't tell them. I wish he hadn't done that. It put me in an awkward position, which I had no idea how to handle."
>ask galatea about cyprus
"What do you remember of Cyprus?"
"Very little, except the studio itself; the only time I left it, except to stand out in the garden and look at the ocean after I woke up, I was packed up in my crate for travel. So I didn't exactly get a clear view of the countryside."
>ask galatea about travel
(her journey)
"How did you get here from Cyprus?"
"Oh, I flew. They had me in a crate -- which was uncomfortable, and cold as well. But that was the only way for them to get me through customs, because of course since I wasn't born anywhere I didn't have a passport. I did my best to look still and motionless when customs checked me. Fortunately they weren't very thorough."
>sing
That's not a verb I recognize.
>think
That's a rather uncomfortable-sounding story she told, about getting here from Cyprus in a crate, just barely escaping the notice of customs.
>ask galatea about customs
"What was it like going through customs?"
"I held very still and didn't breathe," she says. "And I let myself look like a statue again." Before your eyes her skin seems to grow harder, less receptive, and her hair seems like a single piece. Then the illusion fades.
>ask galatea about statue
"What do you know about sculpture?" you ask.
"What, you think because I am a statue, I'm an expert? I've barely seen anything but myself; only the plaster model that he used to plan me out." Her voice is hard.
"I think he had some other pieces that he'd worked on, around the studio, but I never got to see them; by the time my sight was fully developed, they were gone."
>ask galatea about model
"What did the plaster model look like?"
"Why, like me! Obviously." Her voice dips deeper, thoughtful. "Though of course, one might wonder... if I woke up, why didn't she? Why am I alive, when she only stood there? I did think about it, and the only answer that I came to was this: she felt no pain. She was built, of plaster, and I don't think that could have hurt, the way it hurts to be carved."
>topics
That's not a verb I recognize.
>help
This is an exercise in NPC interactivity. There's no puzzle and no set solution, but a number of options with a number of different outcomes.
HINTS: Ask or tell her about things that you can see, that she mentions, or that you think of yourself. Interact with her physically. Pause to see if she does anything herself. Repeat actions. The order in which you do things is critical: the character's mood and the prior state of the conversation will determine how she reacts.
VERBS: Many standard verbs have been disabled. All the sensory ones (LOOK, LISTEN, SMELL, TOUCH, TASTE) remain, as do the NPC interaction verbs ASK, TELL, HELLO, GOODBYE, and SORRY; KISS, HUG, and ATTACK. You may also find useful THINK and its companion THINK ABOUT, which will remind you of the state of conversation on a given topic. The verb RECAP gives a summary list of topics that you've discussed so far; if she's told you that she's said all she knows on that topic, it appears in italics.
SHORTCUT: 'Ask her about' and 'tell her about' may be abbreviated to A and T. So >A CHEESE is the same as >ASK GALATEA ABOUT CHEESE.
There is an assortment of walkthroughs available at http://emshort.home.mindspring.com/cheats.htm, but I suggest not looking at them until you have already experimented somewhat.
Questions/comments/bug reports: emshort@mindspring.com. See also CREDITS.
>touch galatea
You put a hand on her shoulder: the skin is smooth and warm, though it lacks the velvety finish of a vintage Hazar.
>kiss galatea
Unlikely to work, from here.
>a love
"What do you know about love?" (As long as you're catechizing her, you might as well be thorough.)
"That it makes people behave like idiots," she replies harshly. "That it takes more than it gives."
>a people
You can't form your question into words.
"I have to say," she remarks after a moment, "sometimes I don't quite understand how other people's minds work. The connections between things..."
"I often surprise even myself," you reply lightly.
>tell galatea about myself
Where do you want to start? Your childhood, your family, your job?
>family
That's not a verb I recognize.
>t family
"I lived with a bunch of different relatives, growing up: my aunt for a while, and then my grandmother for a long time, but with visits to our uncle in the summers. It was crazy."
"Did you enjoy it?"
The air conditioning hums, sending a ripple through the velvet curtain. "Yes, actually, I did. It sounds inhuman to say so, but there were actually times when I was glad that my parents had died, because it meant I was free. I didn't belong to any one place. I could go where I wanted." Utterly against what a child psychologist would predict, and not the kind of admission you ordinarily make...
You stop, a little flustered. But she listens without prejudice -- perhaps because she's too inexperienced to find this kind of thing trite, or perhaps because what she really understands is how to be still and listen.
>l
The Gallery's End
Unlit, except for the single spotlight; unfurnished, except for the defining swath of black velvet. And a placard on a little stand.
On the pedestal is Galatea.
>x placard
Large cream letters on a black ground.
47. Galatea
White Thasos marble. Non-commissioned work by the late Pygmalion of Cyprus. (The artist has since committed suicide.)
Originally not an animate. The waking of this piece from its natural state remains unexplained.
>a suicide
She clearly doesn't know what you're talking about.
>a pygmalion
You can't form your question into words.
>a waking
(the experience of waking)
"What was it like, waking up?" you ask.
She shifts, so that she is now standing in profile to you, facing the blank wall. "It was night. I had been able to hear, and see, for a long time -- it was the talking, or the pain of being carved, that made me aware, I think.
"But one night-- he slept in a corner of the studio-- I heard him screaming in his sleep. More loudly than usual. And I forgot that I couldn't move, and I just stepped down and woke him."
She gains confidence as you do not interrupt. "At the time he seemed glad to have me there, to listen to him -- though I think he thought that I was only another dream. It was only afterward that it became strange."
>z
The curtain moves in a slight breeze.
She blinks once without turning toward you. "He didn't want me to be awake, you see. He didn't make me to be a live person. He told me he wanted something that belonged to him, and that if I could think and talk, I couldn't belong to him any more. So he threw me away."
You look at her, wondering about the other side of this story. Had it driven the artist mad, that she had come alive? And what part of it was it that had bothered him -- the sheer lack of logical sense, or the fact that suddenly what had been a mute witness to his most personal grief was now aware, able to judge, and to speak?
>a dream
(the artist's nightmares)
"He told me only a little," she says. "It was all about hell and being dead. He was walking back and forth, but he had no body, and everything was dark, and everyone else was in the same situation, not recognizing each other, not able to speak. Shades without voices."
>a shades
"What about you? Do you believe in shades like that?"
She pushes a strand of hair out of her face. "I don't know enough to believe one thing or another," she says. "I've been told that some people find the idea of an afterlife comforting, and the opposite quite depressing -- and that this is the reason that some people seek religion. On the other hand, nothing that he believed about the afterlife seemed to give any comfort at all. So..."
>a cheese
"I've never tried it. But he always said that cheese is addicting. Bad for you, okay. But one of the single greatest inventions of man."
>a comfort
You can't form your question into words.
>a religion
"I didn't go to church, if that's what you mean. My artist had no use for that. We could hear the ringing of the church bell, up at the studio, but he always said that was a sop for people who didn't dare take on the gods in their raw form. As pagan, and unkind." A wry smile crosses her face. "As you may have gathered, he wasn't exactly an optimist."
>a optimism
You can't form your question into words.
>a artist
You can't form your question into words.
>a creator
You can't form your question into words.
>a him
"I don't know what else you want to know. Maybe if you were more specific...?"
>a man
You can't form your question into words.
>a her artist
You can't form your question into words.
>a studio
"It was always full of sunshine," she says. "The windows were open day and night, and the breeze came from the shore. The first thing that I saw, when I began to see, was the ocean off beneath us."
>a ocean
"It was a terrible disappointment," she remarks thoughtfully, "when I first learned that the ocean is only water, slipping back and forth under the command of the moon. He used to tell me things like that, even before I asked: I think he could perceive where I was looking, what I wanted to know."
>a knowledge
You can't form your question into words.
>a mind
"When did you learn to think?" you ask.
"When did you?" she retorts. "Did you notice?"
Naturally not. "I was wondering, merely, whether there was a difference for someone who was -- not born in the womb."
>z
You take a deep breath.
"Now just a moment," she says.
"Yes?"
She blinks once without turning toward you. "WAS there any connection between your last remark and what we were talking about before?"
"Uh -- no. Sorry about that."
"Just checking."
>z
A pause.
>z
There's a moment of stillness.
>z
The air stirs, cool on your cheek.
>a body
You can't form your question into words.
>a sadness
You can't form your question into words.
>a happiness
You can't form your question into words.
>t sex
Oh, really. There are some things that fall outside your job description.
>a sex
The question startles even you, the moment you've uttered it. She turns to face you, in a rustle of resettling skirts.
"If you mean, did he sleep with me-- no, he didn't."
No. He wouldn't have. Just look at her: she's beautiful in a crystalline way, but the more you look at particulars, the more they disturb. No one is so sleek, so unforgiving. The proportions are subtly wrong, too -- the size of the head, the shape and width of the mouth...
> a love
"I've said everything I know."
>a death
A swift unreadable glance. "Mine? Or yours?"
Before you can answer, she lifts one shoulder in a delicate shrug. "It doesn't matter which you mean, since I know nothing about either. You will go your way when the time comes; and I-- Who can die who is not alive?"
>a life
"What do you know about life?" you ask her.
"Nothing," she says, "except what I saw of his; and that seldom made any sense to me. He told me that people are born, and that they die, and that there are stages in between-- childhood, adolescence... I asked him why he didn't carve me as a child so that I could grow up." Her mouth tightens a little; the memory, it seems, is not a pleasant one. "I never heard him laugh so hard as when I asked him that. And he said that I certainly had the brain of a child."
(It's chilly in here; you hadn't really noticed earlier.)
>a child
"Are you really sorry," you ask, "that you were never in a child's body? It's not always pleasant, being weaker and smaller, and having people treat you as though you're less; romantic illusions of childhood aside, it's not something I'd choose to go back to."
"That may be, but it's another way in which I'll never be like other people, or understand them." The sorrow in her voice is for once free of bitterness, and you find that you much prefer the effect.
She continues only with effort. "Where everyone else has common history, I have things that only I understand; and that I could only hope to explain to him."
>greet galatea
A little late for that, don't you think?
>bye
That's not a verb I recognize.
>say bye
(to Galatea)
[ For instructions on talking to someone, type 'help'. ]
>t childhood
(the childhood)
Childhood is a lost and private era since your sister died; you think of it seldom, and not ever deliberately. So it takes you a moment to begin.
You keep it general at first, biographical facts anyone could know. Where you were born, and when, and in what kind of economic background. Where you went to school.
It's clear that you have her full attention. Her eyes meet yours briefly.
She listens intently, expressing no reaction -- no judgement, no amusement, no boredom or distraction -- and you find yourself straying into more personal territory. Not dark secrets, but incidents that have no bearing on anyone but you. Your father coming home with a huge wheel of cheddar wrapped in black wax and cutting it up with a butcher knife -- the very first visual image in your memory. The sort of thing that would make little impression now, but which at the time seemed wonderful and strange.
>t father
(the parents)
"My parents died when I was fairly young," you say. "So I don't remember them well. Mostly just images. My mother played the violin, and I remember her getting ready to go play for a Scottish dance group. She was all dressed up and about to go, but she stopped to play one tune for me and my sister before she left."
She glances at you and then looks away. "We didn't see her again," you explain, though something tells you she's already guessed as much.
Her eyes meet yours briefly. Talking to her is too easy. One thing tumbles out after another -- memories, philosophies, names you haven't spoken for years.
She sits down on the pedestal, drawing her knees up to her chest. ("Have you no respect for that gorgeous dress?" "None.") Her bare feet poke out; she's painted the toenails a ruddy shade of bronze, and she studies the effect whenever she isn't looking at you.
Eventually she begins to talk too: about her first encounter with a northern rain; the frustration of trying to watch the television in her hotel room...
And that's where you find yourselves when the lights blink and the owners come to send everyone home: sitting shoulder to shoulder, shading your eyes from that hard downglare. You stand; a happy exhaustion sets in, so you're too tired to be self-conscious about hugging her goodbye under the skeptical gaze of the caterers.
*** The End ***
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