Amor Fati: A Pinocchio Retelling

Pinocchio marveled at the sight of the arborescent stranger. While he wore a smile that rivaled the sun’s warmth, there were sharp shadows stalking in the corner of his smallest gestures. His clockwork eyepatch had such meticulous designs that it almost looked like a shrunken version of all of Pinocchio’s inner mechanisms. There was something vital in the delicate cogs spiralling within it, something akin to a heartbeat with each tick and click. But the rest of him was spun from nature’s marrow, for he even carried the fragrance of a forest anointed by time’s passage and its eternality. A wind’s howl flowed out of his mouth as he warmly welcomed them, fixing his gaze on the wooden doll. 

“It seems like you are finally awake. Did you have nice dreams? My plants are very good at providing the softest dreams.” 

Pinocchio looked at Sachi, both struck with the same flavor of perplexity. Facing him, she stepped one foot flower to the wooden doll while her hand pinched a part of her foreign attire. 

“How have I not seen you before?” Sachi asked with a strength in her voice, hiding the unease Pinocchio noticed with glaring detail. The wooden man’s crackly chuckle only made her discomforted state more obvious. 

“Because I spend most of my time gardening at Merula's mansion. That’s my whole life’s purpose now…” 

Staggered by his own vulnerability, he picked his pace back up with startling effervescence. 

“Her mansion is much larger than you think, so it’d make sense if you haven’t seen or heard of me. I’ve practically become the shadow of the leaves. But you don’t need to be alarmed by my presence, I’m simply here to tend to everything, which may also include you folks.” 

Finally, they were able to invite a smile to their lips with his presence without being encumbered by the weight of distrust. Still, a sea of questions plagued the both of them as they studied his one sparkling eye. Due to the way they sparkled, it seemed as if the fay were still moving about inside of a glass orb, dancing like stars in a black night. 

“Were you the one that painted that?” Pinocchio blurted out with a sparkle of anger in his little voice, eliciting the surprise of both of them. The gardener studied the doll’s striking vivacity, forming a delicate conclusion with a smile on his lips. 

“I do paint, but I haven’t painted you. It could have been someone else.” 

“Who? Who was it then?”

His silent surprise slowly migrated to his countenance as his intrigue grew, extinguishing his nonchalance for a polite friendliness. 

“I’m sorry buddy, but it’s a mystery for me too. I’ll help find the artist behind it, don’t worry.” 

Sachi noticed how sulky Pinocchio became when he couldn’t find the answer, his cogs churning with an irregular intensity. Overflowing with a dark anxiety, Sachi decided to lighten the interaction by inquiring further into the mysterious nature of the man. 

“So what’s your name?” 

He raised his grassy eyebrows in surprise as he looked around him, as if searching for it in the green glow of the flora. 

“Uh, let’s see…”

Every passing second only kindled their confusion more as he looked around him. Seeing how deep in thought he was from the simple question almost sparked a chuckle from Pinocchio, but he easily suppressed it with the density of his curiosity. 

“I haven’t thought about it for a long time. I’ll remember at some point, but it’s just not coming to me right now. I’ll let you know once I remember.” 

Even Sachi looked at Pinocchio, giving him the chance to read the unfiltered dryness of her expression through the lace-blindfold. When looking close enough, he was able to see the savage scars across her eyes, inviting a sickening feeling in the wooden doll. He was still unable to imagine how Adone could perform such a vicious action. The more he did, the less clear it was and the more blurred his idea of him became. The line between tender and terrible became broken by the lapping waves of the two forces intersecting at every moment when thinking about him. 

“You must be ancient. How long have you been her gardener?” 

To Sachi’s surprise, Pinocchio managed to perfectly follow up Sachi’s inquiry. Even if his sole impetus was to wash away a gnawing thought, he himself was able to read Sachi’s soft sense of pride that emerged from it. 

“For as long as I can remember, honestly. Time here doesn’t work in the same way as it does outside of her manor, nor does space. You’ll get a taste of both the longer you’re here.” He added with a conspiratorial chuckle enveloped by warmth. 

After the echo of his chuckle faded in the silence like smoke, a heavy seriousness washed over his face as he studied the wooden boy, hiding a million thoughts behind his ancient gaze. Tired of carrying the growing weight in his mind, the gardener knelt on one knee and faced the wooden doll directly, looking him directly in the eye as if cutting through him with a knife. 

“I was once exactly like you, you know. Fresh and new to this world, scared of it yet compelled to get closer to it and drown myself with its marrow. I can’t remember how many times my inner music box got repaired by Merula, but I hope that you will learn to appreciate it fully for all that it does and can do. Since I know that you’ll be staying here for a while, I am more than grateful to show you around. In fact, let’s do that right now.” 

With one swift move, he got up and walked to the exit they were standing in front of the whole time, slowing down his pace once he reached it. 

“I believe that you, Sachi, have an appointment with Merula. I will invite Kon to it too once those two have settled on some kind of agreement.” 

The absurd change in opposite ends stunned her into stillness for a moment, only following him once she saw Pinocchio do the same. As she stepped closer to him, she could smell the sweetly intoxicating scent of the lavender from his hair, easing her spirits in an instant. 

“Where have you sent those two, anyway? How did you do it?” 

His light and easy laugh complimented the serene scent of the lavender flowing from his head, combed to one side to hang down like wisteria. In the glass corridor infested with plantlife, the sunlight that filtered through kissed the gardener’s purple locks, igniting them with a glow as brilliant as the character he shone from his personality. But as Sachi delved deeper into the lights beyond the foreground, there was such a deep ocean of darkness that she couldn’t fathom how he was able to remain so nonchalant within it all. A profound yet mute respect grew within her as his character slowly grew like flowers in her soul’s garden.  

“Being here for so long gave me a lot of time to play around with aria and manipulate the music of nature. Because of the sheer amount of flora here and how it’s all connected to me, I gained a large pool from which to draw out these little tricks. They’re in a realm I designed that changes in design depending on whoever enters. Think of it like a dream shaped by the experiences of the dreamer. But rest assured that they won’t be harmed and cannot be harmed in such a realm, so depending on their temperament, they are able to brutalize one another to their heart’s content without having a scratch in the real world. But I’m keeping an eye on them as we speak to see that they don’t go too far.” 

“That’s a relief,” Sachi sighed, now more sensitive to the tranquility of the flora around her. Pinocchio, however, remained silent, having some knowledge about Adone’s exposure to such things and dreading how it will reawaken his all too fresh wounds. Having faith in his indomitable spirit’s strength, Pinocchio did his best to breathe easy amidst the body and soul of the gardener. 

No matter where Pinocchio looked or from what angle, there was one glaring detail which stained it all. The wonderful flora growing at the glass walls of the corridor that showed the edge of the world beyond the flora mystified him. Overflowing with words, he was left speechless upon observing the coruscating of his own heart, unable to read what it was trying to say. It felt as though it whispered to him all the answers he was looking for, even going so far as screaming them to him in stormy moments. Now the fay radiating from the plant life around him began to give Pinocchio the answer he was always looking for, only to receive it as an illegible muffle in his mind and barbed spears in his body. He couldn’t see himself in the greenery, giving him a distance between it paired with hostility. It served to sink its roots into his spirits and tear them to shreds, telling him what he’s not and can never be with the fury of their beauty.

For a second, the gardener turned around, making brief eye contact with the doll as they walked by. He broke it off by letting his eye wander to the buildings in the city below and the horizon beyond. Devoured by the green below and the blue above, the gardener was still able to breathe easy, confounding Pinocchio. That paired with the vague knowledge of his lengthy life was very difficult to digest to the wooden doll. Just when he was about to grow starry eyed for the gardener as others have done to himself, he realized that the strings he wore were still very much present, tangled within every corner of the castle. Pinocchio’s final ember of surprise still shone at the thought of how the gardener managed to not become imprisoned by his own puppet strings after so much time. 

“This door will lead you to Merula’s study.” 

Large double doors waited at the end of the end of the corridor, puzzling both of them as they studied its designs. Sachi moved her hand gently on one of the doors, trying to understand just what kind of engravings it had. Based on the texture, she was able to see a series of images in each leaf shape on the door, all of which was woven with thin ivy-like roots like a tapestry of nature. Due to her sensitivity, she was able to hear the softest hint of music being played from them through her fingers as if she were strumming an instrument by the simple act of cognitively engaging with it. While it was just a sea of visual abstractions pleasant to the eye, she was able to receive disturbingly clear messages from it, causing her to step back. Based on the gardener’s strange smile upon seeing her visceral reaction, Pinocchio knew that there was a lot more to that door and to him than initially expected. 

When the door opened, there was nothing but darkness before her. Pinocchio, confused, wondered how she was able to trust the subtle music emanating from the shadows. She performed a gentle bow before submerging herself in the shadows. Before the door was completely closed, Pinocchio saw through the gap a large room infested with books and scrolls with candles all over the wooden surfaces. A scent as earthy as the woods and as sweet as nectar wafted out of Merula’s office when the door shut, giving Pinocchio the desire to go there too. The gardener noticed Pinocchio’s dream-stung expression as his little hand caressed the designs on the door, silently wishing to go to that place as if it was an old home. The wooden doll looked up when he felt the gardener’s hand fall on his shoulder. 

“Allow me to finally show you around her garden. It’ll do you good after such a wild morning.” 

With every step, Pinocchio felt as though he was walking through a painting. It was only in the quietude of the gardener’s company that the song of birds was able to enter his awareness, sculpting a tranquil scene in his mind. They walked over the long bridge with a gentle arc to reach the other side of the large enclosure that felt like an eternity, as the doll was too absorbed with every microscopic detail of the glass-covered garden. The lavishly designed pillars that supported the sheets of glass reminded him too much of what he was, seeing himself in the turquoise rust of the materials. That same color stained his nightmares he could still see playing out in his waking life. The geometry behind his horrors appeared all around him in every layer of the world he could take into himself, strengthening the threads around his clockwork heart. 

Sunlight slithers through the leaves and bathes the dirt path with a golden glow. As they headed to an elevated place with two chairs and a table protected by a roof, they walked past a line of bright red flowers screaming out the color they wore. There was something nostalgic in that color and its intensity, something he couldn’t remember with full clarity. The pleasure he found from the bitter disgust created a sickening cycle of self-loathing he was forced to break free from in order to get rid of it. The doll’s deep sigh couldn’t escape the gardener as he felt the way Pinocchio gazed upon those crimson flowers, those aspects of himself. An artist’s pride bubbled up within him, slightly proud of his ability to resonate with another through creations borne out of himself, even if it was a painful resonance. He hoped deep down that the doll would discover the curative powers of connection, even if it was simultaneously the greatest source of anguish. 

When they made it in the old gazebo where vines of wisteria tried to climb to the top, seating themselves across each other with two hot cups of tea already on the tables. Once the doll was closer and the light hit the liquid, he noticed that its contents had a bright red color like the flowers they just passed. As the wounds caused by the painting were still raw, he could only see the blood dripping from the portrait of himself, remaining frozen in his seat. He diverted his attention from the echo of the past to the music of the present that was playing beautifully all around him. Yet, as a natural part of the process, there were remnants of a past he wished to avoid that saturated the present with its dark presence, giving the music a beauty he couldn’t bear. 

“Do you not like rose tea?” The gardener asked, sipping his share. 

It amused the doll to see a juxtaposition between the simplicity of the gardener’s clothing and the lavish designs on the delicate tea set. Before, it all seemed to be a part of the same thing with no lines to be seen or divisions to be made. With the introduction of such categories came the introduction of ruptures within himself. While there was the voice of the cricket that told him how such things shouldn’t be seen as ruptures, but ways of analyzing parts of the self that lead to an enhancing of the self as a whole, Pinocchio couldn’t shake off the awful feeling of disintegration. 

“I’ve never tried rose tea before,” said the doll before taking a sip. It immediately released knots of tension in his body, unwinding him completely. Still, the split of his spiritual sensations paired with the claustrophobic mechanisms of his physical design always left room for a horrific void he fell in whenever such a sensation washed through him. Whenever a euphoric feeling went through him, it always managed to slip between the cracks and disperse into the nothingness mending him together and taking him apart. 

“It’s good.” 

Pinocchio’s velvet melancholic tone couldn’t escape the gardener’s ears, calmly studying the doll’s expressions as he waited for him to open up about himself. Not even his cogs had the ability to carefully articulate the depth of his tender sorrow, jaggedly scraping against one another whenever he uttered a word in such a state. The gardener recognized it awfully well, so much so that watching Pinocchio was like watching a younger version of himself. He only hoped that that doll would become someone like him as opposed to the others, to those who weren’t as fortunate enough to love their fate. 

“Your heart plays such a beautiful song. Did you know that?” 

Startled, the doll looked at him and then looked away, doing his best to find a reply in the ether. His gaze sank back to the ground. 

“I guess so. A lot of people have complimented me, or rather, my existence, whatever that entails.” 

The gardener tapped the rim of his teacup before taking another sip, its flavor dancing through his body as it faded in the space between the real and unreal. 

“This tea is indeed very nice. Even if the goodness of the scent and taste goes away for us so quickly and cruelly, it’s amazing that it’s even present to begin with.” 

A sharp smile grew on his lips and he saw Pinocchio’s eyes widen and sparkle at the comment, catching his attention perfectly. Warm embers yawned and sighed deep within the gardener’s heart as he felt the warmth of connection between him and the next victim of the cosmos. 

“You…”

“Of course I’m familiar with your troubles; we’re cut from the same cloth, hewn from the same stone.” 

Pinocchio, too, felt the warm thread that wove through both of them, bringing him closer not only to him, but to himself. Within the noontide of vulnerability, a potent desperation struck him where he couldn’t allow his heart to go any further unless it burned him completely. Aware of this almost animal urge to seek comfort from himself, within himself, Pinocchio composed himself. The gardener’s smile twisted from a crescent moon to a meandering vine upon noticing the wooden doll’s shift in mood. 

Placing his teacup on the table, the gardener leaned in, unintentionally showing the doll how brilliantly his eye sparkled even in the shadows. A universe swirled inside of his glass eye, sparkling with the promise of immortal dreams. Even with the chaos that it contained, the way he wielded it gave it a grace Pinocchio couldn’t compare to the grace of anything else.

“Fate has brought you here for a reason, and I can tell you why.” 

Again, a battle of indestructible forces raged inside of Pinocchio. The strength of his craving for comfort ended up bleeding on the floor as the darkness of his distrust announced its victory. But as its blood flowed into the earth like roots, he noticed how they were one and the same; how the guardian of his vulnerability was another form of the comfort he craved, but in a different shade of comfort. The answers that would release him danced around the doll like rain, but shattered the moment his hands could reach them. Pinocchio leaned back as a way of showing the gardener that he wished for him to proceed, unable to utter a word in the process. 

“I was just like you. Lost, alone, terrified. It truly is a blessing that you are able to be surrounded by such wonderful people, especially that Adone of yours. I, on the other hand, was a bit less fortunate than you. I had nobody and nothing else but my mission, which is to create a substance that is capable of dissolving the universe. It sounds absurd, but I was pretty close. But then my time ran out, I got careless, and a new avatar emerged to replace my role, leaving me here for all eternity. Merula, the witch of the castle, had pity for me and gave me the job of tending to her garden forevermore. I serve no other purpose now but to hunt down or be hunted by the most recent avatar, which is you.” 

Pinocchio jumped out of his chair and let it fall to the stone floor, reaching the edge of the gazebo. The gardener stretched his hand out as a sign of peaceful honestly, wearing a strange smile on his wooden lips. 

“Don’t worry, I will do you no harm. I’ll even allow you to take my life to fulfil your mission if it’s necessary. You can sit back down if you want, but I’m only here to enlighten you on the mission of your life.” 

All the mechanisms in the doll’s body couldn’t stop shivering uncontrollably, grinding and scraping against each other with unhindered brutality. Slowly, he tried to compose himself, filled with a strange trust in the stranger’s words. But what bothered the doll the most was not the mission, but the fact that he was still nothing but a puppet on strings on a cosmic scale. 

“At least others have the grace of giving themselves a mission in a life with no inherent meaning. They paint whatever they wish to paint on the blank canvas of life. But… Am I just predestined for this? Is that the only reason why I’m alive? To kill? Then why do I exist with the capacity to hate it if that’s all I need to do?” 

“Plently of people suffer because of their aimlessness, but you have one! Beings like us are the only ones with a reason to live, a proper purpose; that’s an immense blessing. I know it may seem scary but I don’t want you to end up like me or the others and wander aimlessly until it’s too late. Take the opportunity and seize the moment while you can, while you still have so much time. And let me help you with that.” 

A sickening sense of power flooded within Pinocchio, a power that made the threads feel like roots that wove into the universe and gave him the strength to crush the stars. In the wake of realizing that he had a clear and curated role just for him in the vast ocean of possibilities in the world, he finally felt a sense of groundedness in reality, even if it was of a dark nature. A feral flame coursed through Pinocchio’s body as he tried to compose himself, wrestling with a million questions. 

“Why do you want to help me if you can use me for your own mission, your own life’s purpose?”

A soft laugh bubbled out of the gardener’s chest as he rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward. He gave the doll the time to pick up his chair and seat himself again before explaining the threads behind his intent. 

“Because I have no use to fulfill such a mission. Lady Merula gave me one here, in her garden, and I’m eternally grateful for it. And as long as the mission goes unfulfilled, there will be more creatures like us wrestling with our destiny and suffering for no reason. And it would be even more cruel to suffer when the answer is painfully clear to us. So allow me to find the answer for you. Even if it costs me my own life, I will help you reach your goal.” 

“Even at the cost of your life? Why?” 

A kind light entered his eye as his lips stretched into the smile of a crescent moon, carrying that same soft glow. 

“Because I’m tired of eternity. And I don’t want you to suffer the same fate as the others before you. So allow me, Giangio, to help you save yourself from time’s torture.” 

Giangio stretched his arborescent hand across the table, creaking with the sound of old wood paired with the muffled screeching of the rusty metal within. Pinocchio, too, stretched his wooden hand out, feeling its weight pull him to the core of the earth.

“Since we’ll be partners for a long time, I’d like to know your name.” 

He grew lost in his turquoise eyes, seeing the future he could never have shine within. But perhaps through the wooden doll, he could attain salvation for all those who suffer the same fate. 

“Pinocchio.”