Just A Sculpture

He has been accused of playing God. He disagrees. The beings he makes are more perfect than any human could be. 

Ambrose also receives many questions. Do they have a soul? Do they really think the way we do? Are their wants and desires and feelings real? Are they real?

His response is always the same. “How do you know we have a soul? How do you know we are real?” 

Ambrose also knows that it really doesn’t matter to them, these questions they pretend to be concerned about. Their fake furrowed eyebrows and acted-out wrung hands. These people know what they came to him for, what they truly want. They want to bring something to life. They want to fill the gap of something lost, or something that was never had. And that’s what he does.

To someone who does not know, his workspace looks similar to any sculptor’s studio. In his spare time, he does enjoy creating actual sculptures and such. However, Ambrose’s true life’s purpose is not creating statues. Creating life is his art form.

Children are the most-requested. Most often babies, but not always. People who want a baby but could not have their own, or sometimes, people who had their own child but lost them. Babies are easiest, even with how specific the clients could be. “We want a boy with his eyes but my hair”, “a girl with my face but not exactly, prettier but still mine”, or they would show a picture and ask him to recreate it. Their small bodies take the least time, and he doesn’t have to spend the time explaining why the baby would be a blank slate in terms of personality, because that’s what people expect of babies. It is harder to explain why a seven year old boy or a twenty-two year old woman has no personality. It is simple to him, they have no experience yet, they have not lived to develop one.

He remembers the way one woman cried after she met his creation. Tears of joy were common, people hugging and thanking him, but this time had been different. These were not tears of joy, but those of sadness and fear. She was distraught. The outburst came after the woman hugged the girl and the girl just looked at her, not yet knowing what a hug was. Over and over she screamed, “That’s not my daughter! That’s not her!” Ambrose was confused, of course this was not her daughter. This was his creation. The girl this couple had wanted to replace, he assumed their lost daughter, was not transferred from her dead body to this one. Ambrose performs magic, but he does not raise the dead. He asked if they wanted a new one, and to have this one destroyed, which caused even more tears from the mother and a shell-shocked expression from the father who muttered something along the lines of “What have we done?” In the end, they took the girl and he never heard from them again. 

Sometimes he wonders what happens to his creations, what came of them? Though it does not really matter, he told himself, they are magically created artificial beings made from sculptures, just sculptures. Even when their eyes seem to scan the room or the people coming to greet them, as if actually taking it all in, taking in being alive for the first time. It can be eerie sometimes, even to Ambrose. Magic has limits though, and while his beings “came to life”, he could not see them as truly alive as himself or any other person.

The past few weeks, Ambrose has been working on his newest project. A man had come to him with the request, a very specific one for another man. Ambrose wondered if this was for someone he had lost, or someone he had never gotten to know. He never asked, it was not necessary for his work. The sculpture was of a  man in his late twenties, medium build with olive skin and curls. Curls are more work than straight hair, but more satisfying once completed. Ambrose thought this about much of his work, the more difficult, the more satisfied he was that he could perfect it. He poured over his work, the shape of the hands, the neatness of the facial hair, the slight roundness of the belly. When adding color, he ensured the shading and blending were precise. Ambrose seeked perfection.

However, this part would not matter if the creation could not pass the test. Ambrose did not wave a wand with white sparkles coming out of it and the being just came to life. There was a process. A careful, meticulous process that has to go perfectly. If not, he would start over.

Once finished, Ambrose used his workshop machine to lay the sculpture flat inside a coffin-like box with wheels. Easy to move the sculpture if needed, if the process could not be completed.

Ambrose walks over to his locked cabinet, retrieving the ingredients he needs for his concoction. The cauldron bubbles and steam begins to fill the room as he adds items to the pot. The mixture changes colors until it is no longer one color at all, but seems to change by the second. He nods in approval and pushes the cauldron on wheels over to his creation. Ambrose pulls a lever attached to the cauldron that tips it to the side, pouring the concoction into the box holding the sculpture and filling it, temporarily covering the creation inside. Then the liquid begins to disappear, soaking into the sculptures man-made pores, until every drop is absorbed into it. As this process occurs, the sculpture slowly transforms, turning from stone to flesh and bone and hair and organs and even blood pumping throughout. Ambrose smiles, the first part of the test is complete, his concoction and sculpture had blended perfectly. Now came the part that is out of his hands, the part he could not control. If there was a way to, he had not yet mastered it.

The man’s expression changes from that of someone peacefully asleep to pure shock in a moment’s notice. His eye’s bulge and his jaw drops, trying to take in air. Ambrose watches as the man tries to breathe before realizing he can’t. He twitches and shakes, trying to break free. This is the moment of truth, but it didn’t seem to be working. The man makes eye contact with Ambrose for a second, seemingly pleading for help. Ambrose stares back blankly. He found that interesting, they seemed to have no personality or feelings at the beginning, but there was one thing that seemed to be constant. The panic and fear of not making it. At least, the appearance of these emotions, he corrects himself. The body goes rigid for a moment, all shaking and twitching stopped, and the eyes close again, as if just going to sleep.

The body slowly changes back into that of a sculpture, still realistic looking as he made them, but still just a sculpture. Ambrose let out a sigh of disappointment. If they couldn’t figure out how to break out, then they would not survive anyway was his rationale. Still, disappointing. Ambrose moves the lifeless statue over to his enormous fireplace and tips the box in. He had to make sure there was nothing left in there, nothing left the concoction he made could continue to try to awaken.

“On to the next attempt”, he mutters as he watches the fire close around the sculpture. Ambrose could swear that he sometimes heard a sound from the fireplace not created by the fire, something more alive, but he knew this could not be. The magical process was not completed. It was just a sculpture.