Trigger Warning: This story deals with domestic violence and undertones of incest.  Please be aware of this before proceeding with either this review or the original story itself.

Her name was Imogen.  She was created by a man seeking to recapture the memory of a loved one long gone.  Denied the power of speech, the hope of a shred of freedom, and in the end, her very existence, Imogen’s tale is one that is more fact than fiction for far too many.

The tale itself shares a very strong tie to the old tale Bluebeard and echoes Li Ang’s The Butcher’s Wife.  I will try to reference the story as little as possible so as not to spoil it for those who might wish to read it.  However, I find Nika’s first months – when she was under Ghisling’s care – and Imogen’s less-than three dozen hours to have strikingly eerie similarities.

It makes me think.  Wonder.  I don’t like it.

The makers of these clockwork girls are all seeking to capture perfection.  Their version of it.  When the created do not live up to the creator’s expectations, the creators see nothing wrong in laying the blame at the created’s feet.  Dismantling them.  Scratching them out and starting over.

But.  They think therefore they are … aren’t they?

Who cares if they think.  There is a purpose to a thinking machine.  Know its maker so it can better serve his needs.  That doesn’t take much thought.  When the machine steps beyond the tiny bounds allowed it, the maker has every right to descend upon it full force.  To fix it as he sees fit – or to destroy it as he desires.

Why not?  It’s not a person.  It’s a machine.  It’s property.  It isn’t real.  It doesn’t feel.

Only people do that, right?  Society places no value on the clockwork because it isn’t seen as having the intrinsic worth afforded a human being.  Even in humans, some are still more worthy of the title.  Having the wrong skin color, the wrong gender, or any of a host of ‘wrongs’ children are born to without asking – can land a person a life a little less human and a little more …

Why not?  They aren’t as human as us.  Through the fault of their birth, they carry less worth.  Why, just look at any woman paid less than a man for doing the same work (I could give worse examples, but I want to leave this as PG as I can) or any gender-variant person shamed in countless ways by total strangers without a thought.  Because they don’t matter as much.  If at all.  They aren’t us.  They don’t know what we know.  They don’t eat what we eat.  They don’t pray as we pray.

They aren’t us.

Just look at men and women like Eric Garner or James Byrd Jr or Sandra Bland or Matthew Shepard.  Men and women we allow society to push to the fringes before we snuff their lives out.  We do this actively in the case of the Aaron McKinneys and Lawrence Russell Brewers of the world … or passively every time we feel like we should speak up … something just doesn’t feel right … but we choose not to get involved.

Just look at the life of any child that exists in the shadows of any world as dark as Imogen’s.  Or Nika’s.

There’s so much I would like to ask the author of this story, and I believe I will someday.  Why clockworks?  Why a story that touches on so many of the same themes as Nika’s?  Is this a common element in stories that feature clockwork girls as the main characters?  It makes me think too much of many of the darker strands in Nika’s story.  The strands I don’t care to think about.

Someday.

Maybe.

Let the little one have hope today.  Maybe, if she has it, she’ll share a little with me.  She deserves hope.  She deserves freedom.  She deserves love – not the love of a man like Imogen’s Rastigan (none deserve that) – but the kind of love any child deserves.  The love Imogen deserved.  The love James Byrd or Matthew Shepard deserved.

The love any of us deserve.  Simply because we are.

Nika deserves love, and I think I need to make sure her tale is full of it.

Magnum Opus is a story by author Deina Furth.  Buy it for Kindle here.  While you’re at it, if you like the story, feel free to check out Ms. Furth’s website at http://deinafurth.com .