Mardock Scramble

A giant shadow loomed over Shell as a young boy. Trace memories—all sorts of indecent things being done to him. But he’d always managed to submerge the memories, the feelings, everything, in the girl, whoever she was. He had repelled all, killed all, and turned everything that was dirty clean. He was proud of this. This was his life.

He giggled out loud. Uncontrollably, as if his lungs were going into convulsions. Huhh huhh huhh. He scrambled around for the bottle of scotch that lay on the floor. “See! That’s how I find what I’ve dropped. I never lose anything. Shell never drops the ball. Ever.”

Gleefully, he gulped down the last of the liquid. Then he collapsed face-up on the bed and fell asleep in his euphoric state.

In Shell’s dreams, the faces of all sorts of women appeared and disappeared.

Shell tried to remember each of their names, but the harder he tried the more elusive they became.

Eventually the girls’ faces swarmed together in a bizarre montage, and girls would appear with three eyes or with nipples growing out of their noses. Then the melee of body parts all converged into one face. Shell thought that he cried her name out, in his dream.

He felt an emotion welling up—love, the sort that makes you want to stick your chest out and hold your head up high. It was for the first woman he had ever truly loved, the one he met only after he’d finally put his mother to rest. Not so much a woman as a girl. But the girl herself had long since disappeared from Shell’s memory, leaving only a lingering scent of her in his dreams. A scent full of sorrow. He wanted to make everything clean. What was it that brought the two of them together, that caused their fates to be intertwined so? The fearful, fearsome past?

Or were they simply in love? The sad smell seemed to reject every possible explanation.

A new shadow floated across—the shadow of the girl, dying and wasting away into nothingness. Shell’s ire was turned toward the girl’s father. Shell spent many years tracking him down, and when he’d finally found him, he killed him. But the father’s mind had been completely addled by drugs by then, and he couldn’t even remember the things he had done to his own daughter.

His memory was gone, just as Shell’s was now. Shell had beat him to a pulp before finally snapping his neck.

As Shell did so, he remembered his own memory disappearing. He had already forgotten what he was doing even as he did it. I’ll make everything clean. I’m going to clean you up. All sorts of possibilities occurred to him at that moment. He thought up a scheme to launder money. He thought of turning the girl into a Blue Diamond. He thought of making the girl clean again.

Shell turned the desiccated remains of the girl into a Blue Diamond to wear alongside his mother, and his mind gave up the ghost and his memories faded away completely. His mind may have been in deep turmoil, but he knew how to use people.

By the time the diamond was ready, Shell’s mind was completely clear. He was relaxed again.

The Blue Diamonds that shone resplendent in the open air—they were Shell’s last hope.

In Shell’s dreams, the light shining off the diamonds suddenly changed.

The spirits of the girls who were to become diamonds. The ghosts of girls whose names he had long since forgotten. Their faces were closed and expressionless, but this only made them seem more alluring than ever. They stared down at their own laps with dark eyes, as if they were looking for a place to hide themselves. Shell’s task was an easy one. All he had to do was give them an appropriate container, a final resting place. He would lead the way for them, guide them.

Turn them into the most beautiful thing in the world. But it didn’t always go according to plan.

The girl who had been engulfed by flames came back to life. It was as if she didn’t want to become clean again.

In his dreams the girl was ablaze and walking toward Shell, step by step, until she finally grabbed hold of him. The fire raged away, centered on the girl, and there was nowhere for Shell to run. Her blackened fingers were around his throat, plastering it with her charred fingerprints.

Shell screamed. More flames erupted inside the girl, and she squeezed down on his throat with a grip that was gentle but strong, so strong.

≡

Shell bounced up from the bed and realized that there was something on his neck, constricting him, strangling him. He tried to get it off, but his actions were only making things worse.

Then he realized the truth: he was trying to strangle himself with his own hands.

His face convulsed in a bitter smile. His whole body was drenched in sweat.

He took off his Chameleon Sunglasses, now shining like moonlight, and placed his Boston bag on the floor.