Pygmalion

by Ai Lee Woods

When I arrive, the meadow is still waking up. It’s early spring, and the world has just begun to remember itself, bursting into yellow-green leaves, covering the hills with patches of frothy white flowers. The sweet scent of grass mixes with last night’s rain. It smells like her. I let myself relish in it, ignoring the unpleasant sensation of the dew soaking my pants, but the memory doesn’t last. I take another step, and my boot sinks into mud, squelching.

The sound makes me think of Pygmalion. He was a sculptor, not a potter, but he liked the feeling of clay beneath his hands. He would mold it into faces. It took him so long that the clay would dry out, then squelch as he added water. It took weeks for him to make a face that satisfied him, delicate features set in smooth serenity. When he did, he approached me. He studied the grain of my marble, looked down at the face he planned to carve and finally, he began to chip away.

I left hours before dawn and the sun is just now peeking over the hills, warming my cheeks as I reach my destination. With a sigh, I squat in front of the half-buried statue.

I’ve never gotten used to the sensation of seeing my own kind—statues. And though I was never buried like this one, I was once trapped within a block of marble. Pygmalion thought he made me, but I think he only set me free. And yet when he saw the face he had spent weeks perfecting, he pressed his lips to it. He thought he deserved some reward for his creation, and when he kissed me, I came to life.

This statue must have once been distinct, but now it lies half-sunk into the earth, the rest of it speckled with mud. If I were to dig, I might unearth a garden where this statue once stood guard, but I don’t care to know those types of things. Neither do the farmers who called me. They know that when I leave, they won’t lose their land to hordes of students and archaeologists, all clamoring to learn what lies beneath their soil. All but the statue’s head and shoulders are buried beneath the dirt. I run my hands over the vague contours of the long-forgotten face. There is a mouth, an eroded ridge of nose, two indents for eyes, lumps where ears should be, and a raised circle around the head. It might be a coronet, a crown of leaves, but I want it to be a circle of braided black hair, pinned into place by a lover. But the longer I touch her, the more I fear that I have wasted my time. The stone is cool to the touch, cold even, as a stone should be before the sun warms it, and I become certain that the statue’s eyes were never as dark as the night sky.

Pygmalion’s eyes were blue. Blue like the ocean, like the sky, like a forget-me-not. When my stone became flesh, marble-white settling to soft brown, the soft expression he had carved shifting from wonder to joy, to fear, he looked at me with all that blue and was disgusted. 

Then my hands brush the statue’s cheeks. They are somehow warm, almost soft in their smoothness. Almost, I think, like flesh. 

I have never grown used to having flesh, though mine is not like most. It does not burn, does not age. It just stays as it is—brown and somewhat smooth. Pygmalion hated that. So he found a paler marble. When he kissed her, I thought she was the most beautiful thing. 

I don’t let myself feel hope. All this means is that I have more work to do before being disappointed.

Her skin was warm and soft like mine, but when I stepped up to speak to her, Pygmalion held me back. He was so pleased with the way her skin almost glowed. But as she drew breath, the expression he chose melting into one of her own design, I could see his heart break. As her arms dropped from their artful poses, he tried to smile as he pushed them back into place, kissing her again and again. 

As I unwind the leather strap that binds my tools, the wind ruffles my hair. I set out my shovel and brushes and finally begin. 

Pygmalion was never content for long. He left me and her to our own devices. We danced through his workshop, laughing as we trailed our hands through paint, smearing each other in patterns of yellow, green, red, but never blue.  

By the time I finish unearthing the statue, I have convinced myself that it is not her, despite the familiarity of her well-preserved hands. Hands that soothed me, that pleasured me. Finally, I let myself try it. I kneel before her, cup my hands around her worn away face and press my lips to where hers would be. 

He saw us together, saw our happiness, and he cast me out, screaming that I sought to hurt his more beautiful creation. When I raged against him, tearing at his arms, screaming for the help of whatever god had fulfilled his wish, he only saw the wildness he could not carve out. I woke up far away, and when I went back for her, he said she had changed back into stone, that he had sold her. 

The stone beneath my lips is cold and unrelenting.

He died a thousand years ago, but stone made flesh does not wither.

I begin to pull away just as the kiss turns soft. Stone becomes flesh, and I feel her hands grip my neck, pulling me closer. Finally, we break apart, and I blink at her dark eyes. She smiles, her features restored, no stone but flesh, covered in tiny imperfections. I press my face to hers and she says my name. 

Galatea.

🜁🜄🜂🜃

At night, Ai Lee Woods (she/her) is a writer of dreamlike fiction and poetry. Her writing has won several awards at her alma mater, but during the day, she sews and researches historical clothing.