The Music Box

© rubylane.com

There's a music box playing inside my house. I don’t know how it got there. I don’t own a music box. Never have. Never will. I don’t like them. Creepy and evil - like mechanical monkeys and Victorian dolls.

It is playing a medley of "Send In The Clowns", "Moon River", "Living On A Prayer" and "Is That All There Is". Over and over, it tinkles and creaks out its tunes, murdering each song afresh with every repetition. 

If I peek through the window, I can see it. This is no ordinary music box. It is the size of a coffee table and coated in a garish red lacquer. There are strange symbols on its sides, painted on in a thick, black, oily substance. These markings flow and change as the music plays. 

It is the dancer in the music box which holds my attention though. She whirls and twirls to the music, the position of her arms expressing the mood of each song. For "Send In The Clowns", she starts with her head in her hands, then looks up to the sky beseechingly as the song ends. For "Moon River", she sways a little, affecting a sad, wistful gaze tinged with hope. For "Living On A Prayer", she pumps the air above her head with her fists, defiant. For "Is That All There Is", she slumps tired and beaten, her expression bored and cynical.

I cannot go into the house while the music box is there. I am frightened of the dancer. She is an exact replica of me, a monstrous doppelgänger. She mocks me, stares into my soul with eyes that are my own eyes, and taunts me with regret.

And like me, she spins endlessly, repeating herself, never moving forward, trapped in a box from which there seems no escape.