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Name: 'I called her Buttercup. I know you aren't supposed to name them before you finish, it gets your hopes up. But I couldn't help it. She was coming along so well ...'
Bio: 'I'd really gotten it this time, I had a whole plan for how to put it together. I had the glue to put back the pieces I messed up. She was almost even chirping, I swear! But, I got impatient. The head just wouldn't fit right, and I jammed it into the neck and ... It all crumbled from there.'
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Name: 'Test Eighteen.'
Bio: 'Nothing like putting together bots. Nothing like putting together men. Another failure, but having a code I cannot yet crack excites me. Thank you, test eighteen, for eluding me.'
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Name: 'Keep his name as Junior. Please.'
Bio: You received this camusken from a tripod. 'I learned about these things when I was on my second day of life, and thought, wouldn't it be wonderful to make a little something as my legacy? I decided from my first day I didn't want kids, but maybe something I'd make could remember my name.' The broken statue before you does not caw out a name. And it has been more than a day since you last saw that tripod.
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Name: 'I call 'er scarecrow.'
Bio: 'I tried mah luck at makin' a camusken. Heard the odds ain't in the favor of any one man, and sure enough, wasn't me. Damn thing ended up lookin' horrid, the heads all twisted an' the wings spread out in a permanan' shriek of terror. Decided to put it in mah garden, spooks away the birds right well.'
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Name: 'Mayday! Mayday!'
Bio: 'I repeat - Mayday! Does anyone copy? Please, god, this damn thing is falling apart on me, and I don't have a creature to carry me out! I'm shoving together the pieces but nothing is working, and all the cages are empty! I thought this ship had an emergency creature on board - but it's all just these damn papers! Please, send help, this is my last signal I think my ship can put out before I enter the dead zone. I repeat - Mayday! Mayda-
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Name: 'my lucky duck.'
Bio: 'It's not broken. You're just looking at it wrong. my lucky duck can do anything a camusken can, she just can't show you. You're scaring her. stop looking at her. You're Scaring her - She's nervous. She sheds when she's nervous. Leave- GET OUT. GET OUT, YOU'RE MAKING HER FALL APART. IT'S NOT MY FAULT. GET OUT.
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Name: 'Galatea - my muse, my darling.'
Bio: 'Everyone is a fool about these birds, thinking they must breathe to life and suffer the weight of the gaze of so many, performing for our wants ... No, no, my Galatea is perfect. She needs not dance nor sing, she needs not breathe. Why would you want your beast to live? If they live, they will die without your ever persistent command. You're all fools, consigning each camusken to death by making them live.'
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Name: 'Multi Purpose Tool'
Bio: 'If it's a failure, why bother mourning it? You can use the damn leftovers for a million things. An anvil, a side table, a bottle opener if you angle it under what should have been the beak. I've been shaving off gravel to pave my driveway. You need some? Cmon, meet me in my garage, I'll get the grater out.'
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Name: ‘Ah- Did we have to name these? I thought it was bad luck. Uhm- Hm. Cammie? Does that work?’
Bio: ‘I don’t know what you were expecting, I didn’t expect someone to answer my post that quick. I know it’s barely worth Scrap metal to trade, but you seemed excited about it. I’ve got more in the back, if you want it for parts or such. I’ve just been doing the assembly as a hobby. It’s kind of like sculpting, just with more of a bite to it when you fail. I don’t know, I just needed a hobby. You gonna take it?’
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Name: ‘Seven Four Eight Two Two One-‘
Bio: ‘Good, disposal service has arrived. Here, you take the head and let your partner take the tail. Don’t you look at the numbers carved along it, those are my personal equations. I just ran out of room on the blackboard. I’d prefer it destroyed so this math doesn’t get leaked, so be quick about it.’
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Name: ‘Headstone.’
Bio: ‘I wanted something nice for her anniversary. It’s been a few years since she passed, I thought making something that I could have keep her grave safe would be a nice gesture. Is it fate, that something made for a dead woman wouldn’t live to see her resting place?’
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Name: ‘You can call this one the Firecracker!’
Bio: ‘You’re all a bunch of SQUARES, y’know that? You think once it’s broken you can’t keep being as absurd as you want with what’s left over! Fuck you! I’m going to make the leftovers into a gods-blessed GO-KART.
You’ll be eating my dust while you’re mourning chickens!’
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Name: ‘Rubble would be accurate, I suppose.’
Bio: ‘I don’t know how people soothe themselves without something to destroy. These things rarely work, they rarely flap their wings and caw with life when you need it most. So why not take a sledgehammer to it all, and watch the pieces fly? You can have a turn. Let loose. Get Mad.’
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Name: Inert Camusken 12
Bio: A camusken with no light to its gaze, that lies there motionless. When you first obtained it, you could swear you saw the snake head writhe for a moment, looking up at you. Why do you keep this reminder of a failure around? Nobody talks about the failures. It isn’t normal.
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Name: 'Sand dollar'
Bio: 'Sand dollar, sand dollar, under my shoe, how many steps will it take to break you? One, two- Ah, hello friend! Did you want to join in on the game? Huh, you haven't played Sand Dollar? It's easy! You pick broken pieces off the beach, or the scrapyard, or the broken statues, and you jump until it falls apart! You can go for high scores or low, try to jump light or heavy! C'mon, play with us! I'll start the chant! Sand dollar, sand dollar, under my shoe ...'
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Name: 'I miss it so much.'
Bio: 'Why does it never work? Why? Why? Is it me, Is it my cursed hands that can never create something beautiful like everyone else? I hate it here, I hate it so much. You MOCK me, taking my failures as if you'll treasure them. How could you treasure it? I MADE IT! HOW COULD ANYONE ... How could anyone love it, If I couldn't..?'
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Name: 'Mast of the Sorrow Winds!'
Bio: 'Ay, ye seem to be admiring the fearsome screamin' beast that guides our ship ta treasure and battles... T'was a failure of a poet, I hear, that out in the wastes, a man drove 'imself mad upon its tortured visage. An' I thought, why not let the madness overtake out enemies? Well upon in despair, when ye face the Sorrow Winds!'
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Name: 'Cool to the touch.'
Bio: 'I've examined many corpses in this morgue. The cadavers are always mourned in some quiet way, to all who operate. There's a distinctive depth to their chests, where the love they once held hollows them out after they die. I broke this one open, but the hollowness is all wrong. It's like it never lived long enough to be filled with any experience, hatred or care. It's all just ... Cold, on the fingertips, and on the air it leaks out into.'
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Name: 'Berrybush'
Bio: 'I planted some seeds in that ever still beak, and from summers past and springs long gone, the vines grew and grew. Life springs from that everstill monument, and my god, the berries never tasted sweeter. I love it, I love my berrybush. Try some, let the juice stain your fingers and talons and revel in it!'
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Name: 'Rubber Duck'
Bio: 'I heard of this thing called the rubber duck method where you scream at something inanimate until you realize what you're saying and what the real problem was. So, I did it with this thing. And fuck, man, it WORKS. That is crazy. I couldn't get a single thing done for so long, then I started screaming it out step by step to this literal scrapped creature, and it just WORKS. I feel grateful, but also, it makes it weird to keep around. Is it ... Is it weird to keep it around, if it works?
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Name: 'Mary Contrary'
Bio: 'I named this one after the nursery rhyme - I'm sure you've heard it before. It makes the visage much less ... grim. The donation to the kindergarten makes all the young ones so happy. Even if the statue is a little macabre, a little broken up, anything can incite imagination in a child's mind. Maybe they'll make up stories about how it became this way. I'm sure it doesn't mind having tales attributed to it post-mortem. That's our Mary, ever accepting and graceful!'
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Name: 'It's a metaphor (You know what a metaphor is?)'
Bio: 'This is my exhibit (For the local art gallery), they tried to deny it at first (the commissioners (at the local art gallery)) but they (the commissioners) couldn't deny me once I told them the meaning (the important of the piece, my exhibit (for the local art gallery)). It's a metaphor, I said (You know what a metaphor is? (You don't need to)), and they were all so amazed. Nobody makes metaphors (You know what a metaphor is?) anymore for their exhibits (For the local art gallery). I was so smart, they had to let me be the centerpiece (For the local art gallery). So, do you like it?'
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Name: 'Expectations'
Bio: Every time I hope it can get better, it doesn't. Every time I try the odds, I lose. Every time I take a risk, I'm ruined. I am writing this note to my future self. You're going to fail at this, whatever it is you're doing. Take out this note and read it, over and over again, until you either decide to not try, or are ok with failing. Because knowing me, knowing us? It will fail.'
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Name: 'Missed Direct'
Bio: 'I think I'm in love, I've found my perfect partner in crime. All he has to do, is stand there, and once I shove over the broken pieces into a beautiful rubble by a fool passing by, I can start crying my damn eyes out. Claiming I spent weeks trying to make this camusken, crying how this was really gonna be the one. Playing on their heart strings, hell, I can even scramble trying to pick it up as I start sobbing. Then, they feel so bad the wallets come out. Oh, gods, I love when they fumble through their cards seeing what has the least on it, before I just break down further. They finally hand over a card with prepaid points and I'm home free. Best part? The damn camusken is just a pulley with strings through the head, I only need to yank hard enough on the tail and it comes back together, although significantly worse for wear. It's perfect. It's simple. It's all I've ever needed.'
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Name: 'Are you Serious?'
Bio: 'I don't know what to say. You made this for me? What the fuck? It's not right. I know what these are supposed to look like. This one's inert, it's all wrong. What did you say? It's the THOUGHT that counts? the THOUGHT? I've got a THOUGHT that this is all I mean to you! One try and it's done! One attempt and I'm left for the wayside! You couldn't have tried again, and again, until it worked? You had to let it be? No- NO, don't say anything! You've said enough.
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Name: 'So I Say'
Bio: 'A Camusken is the epitome of a Pet, when you consider what a Pet is meant to do. It faithfully follows your words, to its very demise. How loyal, to have your existance defined by spoken language. You cannot have instinct, you cannot express anything beyond what you are told. It is all anyone can do to make it be something, try to make it a person. But is it? If you lived, I would command you to reveal all the secrets behind those inner workings. But you are motionless, So I Say "Rest". Fulfill your purpose in another life.'
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Name: 'Page one.'
Bio: 'There was once a hare and a hen. Best of friends, inseparable by nature. The hare loved the hen, who preened till she shone, that beak taming her unruly feathers. The hen loved the hare, who hopped till he flew, those legs bounding to the heavens. They were inseparable by nature. But the snake in the grass grew jealous of those two.'
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Name: 'Page two.'
Bio: 'The snake was not like the hen, nor the hare. It had no beautiful feathers to preen, it had no legs to bounce into the sky. What of it could there be to love, it lamented? If the snake could only be one of those things, it could love like the hen and the hare did. It didn't know how else love could work. So that jealousy grew, deeper like a root in the snake's mind.'
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Name: 'Miasma'
Bio: 'I feel so sick when I'm in my workshop ... The air is thick with gravelly taste, every damned carving leaves a stench I can't purge. I think these things- these beasts - are mad I didn't get it right. They hate me for what they've become. So they're trying to choke me, choke me from the inside out as they crawl into my lungs. Those damned fowl sit there decaying as they decay me with them. They're a murky miasma, and I know they want to drag me down with them.'
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Name: 'Erudite of Seventh Seal'
Bio: 'Have you ever read the mythos behind these creatures? I think many scholars could benefit from examining folklore, about the beasts and capture creatures we find ourselves using and caring for. This specimen, Erudite, is defined by her mark as the seventh seal of my work. Ah, let me explain. the seals are a work that explains the ratio of death to life with these beautiful beasts; She marks the learning I have had from this point, and the knowledge that I will carry on. I keep them all as décor for the study in which I write down my findings. It seems the ratio is still 7 to 0, but I have a good feeling about the next. If not, may Concipient of Eighth Seal be well received.'
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Name: 'Brake Pedal'
Bio: 'What? Oh- this chunk of rock? Yeah, I got it from a guy handing out pieces from this weird-looking pile in his driveway. Yeah, it was small enough to fit in my car while I needed to make sure something would stick, but not too light to be ineffective. It's a good rock. I'm sorry - did you need something? Why are you looking at it like that?'
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Name: There is a distant sound of splashing water.
Bio: There was no note left with this camusken, as it washed up onto the shore before you. Long since having lost any life, if it ever possessed that spark. the ocean was all that remained in its heavy carapace. Saltwater bled from the cracks in the hide, and barnacles clung to its false feathers. There will be no restoring of it, and there will be no mourning of it. You can send it back out to the water, in the hopes it will sink. Or you can carry it, merely as a burden. What else can it be?
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Name: 'I have an Idea!'
Bio: 'Hear me out - What if we sold these inert camuskens! "You're insane." No, no, hear me out! People might want these things! "Yeah, for their weight in scrap. They're no more valuable than teeth or empty capsules - collectors with no real market pull!" That's what you're not getting! You know these were all failures, right? "Yeah, I do." So, what if we offer to make them seem like they ever had a story? People love it.'
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Name:'Page three.'
Bio: 'The snake in the grass wanted what the hen and the hare had. He had a horrible thought, an idea none should entertain. "What if I slew the hen, and wore her, so the hare might love me too?" And the snake did, leaving its head poked out from her tail. The hare screamed in horror, at the abomination that had replaced his beloved. The hen cried, even though she was long gone. There was no love there, only the terror of the hen and hare, as the snake wept from it's desecrated shell. This is why the camusken can never be happy. It will never be the hen. Not by a hare's width.'