Tongue-tied

I thought nothing of it when I received the first package. I didn't associate it with the theatre at all... after all, why would I? Hexes and curses are not real, or so I thought.

I thought I heard a doorbell ring, one of those electrical ones that plays a harsh, static buzzing, and—half-asleep after my night of mischief—I stumbled to my apartment door. It was not until after I opened it that I realised that it could not have been my doorbell, for I have an old-fashioned ringer. Nonetheless, when I opened the door, there it was. A small square box, wrapped in brown paper, tied with string. No address on it, and yet... I somehow knew it was for me, or perhaps I was too tired to wonder if maybe the sender had placed it at the wrong door. Either way, I undid the box. It was empty, except for a small scrap of thick, yellowed paper, with five words scrawled on it.

'Hip sockets & knee joints'

I found it unnerving for about a second before laughing it off. Given what had happened last night, it was probably one of the chaps up to a lark. Yes, Dodge or Patterson was certainly waiting at their telephone with baited breath for me to ring them all atwitter, but I refused to give them the satisfaction. I threw away the scrap of paper, and the box, but kept the string for some reason. It's one of those household items that you can never have too much of. And then I went about my day... nothing else to report, really. Save for the odd stiffness in my legs.

I retired with a brandy or two a touch later than I ought to so I was woken by that awful doorbell buzzer once again. I stirred my stumps to answer, this time with some difficulty. I must've fallen asleep oddly, for my legs were quite painful. I could hold them in a seated position, and standing completely straight, but any other movement (walking, for example) was extremely painful. As if it was against God and nature for me to do anything other than sit or stand. As if I was never meant to move on my own.

Staggering to the door in immense pain I found another brown paper package in my doorway, slightly smaller than the last, but still nameless and tied neatly in string. I'm not ashamed to say I had to bite back tears to get myself to stoop to pick the thing up. I unwrapped it from the safety of an armchair. I had received another note in the same hand, this one only four words;

'Wrists, elbows, arm sockets'

I am not a superstitious man, but the agony I felt moving my legs was very real. I burned the note and the box and shoved the string into a drawer of handy things to only be used once I'd thoroughly forgotten where it came from. Then I telephoned Dodge and Patterson and screamed at them to stop this sick game. They didn't know what I was talking about. I drank myself to sleep.

That damned buzzer woke me hours later, and I stood up and screamed. My legs were just as bad as they had been yesterday, but now my hands could not move. My wrists could only move to the sides. My elbows could only crook. And my shoulders could roll but inside them was a fierce, burning pain, like a long nail hammered between my bones. Moving felt like a sin against my creator, but I forced myself to the door and fumbled with the handle until I pried it open, and scooped up today's box as best I could, grateful it was even smaller the last. I had to untie the string with my teeth for I could no longer move my fingers. Today's scrap of paper said only three words;

'Mouth & tongue'

I could do nothing but force myself to my bed inch-by-inch and cry myself to sleep.

I awoke to the buzzer in the dead of night. I tried to move but I couldn't. Even my mouth was locked shut in agony. This time though, my door opened on its own and I heard footsteps softly making their way into my chamber. Terrified, I saw a figure dressed in a dark shapeless garment enter my room and light a lamp, illuminating her. A stout middle-aged woman with kind eyes and an easy smile.

My eyes must have betrayed me as she approached.

"Oh, so you recognise me, then?" she smirked. "I'd have thought you and your cronies were too drunk to remember who I was, and what you did to my Sonny."

I wanted to say that it had all been a misunderstanding, what Dodge and Patterson and I had done, that night at the theatre. To explain that we were rowdy from an evening of good drink and were disappointed that the Incredible Ms Voz had not been the act we thought it would be, given our spirits. How her ventriloquism had seemed so pedestrian, until I'd rushed the stage, and grabbed the dummy right out of Ms Voz' hands, and poured my Martini down its throat. How she'd begged us to stop as I rushed the lad to Dodge and Patterson who took him for a merry drunken stroll up and down the aisles, until Sonny stumbled in his inebriation and fell. Such a shame that the creepy thing'd cracked its head. I'd laughed off Ms Voz' screams of horror as a hysteria, and gave her my details so she could send me the bill for the repairs or replacements or whatever it needed.

I tried to tell her that I was sorry, and that I'd give her anything if she stopped, but I could not speak.

"What's that? You have something to say?" she said in a soft, sing-song voice. "Of course..." she pushed me into a sitting position and pressed one of the vertebra in my lower back. To my horror, it depressed into my body smoothly as if on a pendulum, and my mouth opened.

"What the devil have you done to me?!" I cried. "Please stop, I'll give you money, my properties, anything! Ple--" but I was cut short as Ms Voz abruptly released my vertebra and my mouth swung shut once more.

"That's quite enough out of you." she said with mock-sternness, as if I was a Punch and Judy character. She set me down on my bed once more, tutting to herself. My eyes closed against my will as I heard her wandering around my apartment, looking in my drawers.

"Overgrown boys like you always think that you can treat the whole world as your plaything so long as you patch it up afterwards, but you can't. Sonny was irreplaceable." she returned, and propped me up. My eyes opened once more and I was greeted to the sight of her looming over me with a Cheshire smile. "So I have to come up with a new act. And seeing as you were so keen to perform last time we met..." she held up her prizes. Three pieces of string, and something that looked like a double-ended hook.

"I'm sure with a bit of re-stringing you'll do just fine. Now, open wide..."