the girl is a gun - g j welsh

Dave found her buried in the back yard like a relic or someone’s dead pet.

He had been digging a vegetable patch to grow his own food. He had recently converted to vegetarianism out of a longing for some change in his life.

And here she was, the stone statue of a goddess.

It was said the artist Pygmallion had given up on finding the perfect woman, so he decided to sculpt one for himself. The result was a marble being that was ideal in form, so lifelike it could fool most people of the time. 

Pygmallion even gave her a bed to sleep in.

He made sacrifices to Aphrodite and wished for a woman in the likeness of his ivory girl.

When he returned home, he kissed the statue on its lips and found them warm; the ivory had become soft and yielding like flesh. So he married her.

Dave carefully removed the dirt around the statue, placing a blanket in the curve of her back. He pulled her upright and out of the hole. There she stood, her beauty and stature towering over him, for he was a mere mortal. Could this be the mythical woman from the Greek tale?

Dave certainly thought so.

He went to bed that night filled with fear.

The fear that someone would peek over his wall and fall as deeply in love as he was with her. Eventually, it got too much for him. He drove his car out back. He backed it right up to the statue and brought the vehicle to a stop. He opened the hatchback’s trunk and folded down the seats. He placed a thick blanket on the bumper and slowly pushed her by her shoulders. She felt oddly warm despite it being a cold night and the rock being so smooth; just tiny cracks ran along its surface, showing her age but not her imperfections.

He parked in the garage, something he never did.

He tried to get to sleep, but once again he was gripped by paranoia. He had made it easier for someone to take her; she was now technically on wheels.

Dave got up again. He would have to take her to a place where no one could find her. He packed a flask of coffee and drove far past the outskirts of town. Deep into the desert, making sure that no headlights trailed him. Now and then, he turned around to stroke her shoulders, to make sure she was real. He rubbed her hair, every strand perfectly in place and intricately carved. She was more real the more time he spent with her.

He drove until there were no more roads, and then he went some more. Eventually, his wheels were spinning in the loose dirt. He was stuck here, the car angled upwards at an impossible angle. He would wait until it was light to try to free the vehicle.

He opened the trunk and lay down next to her, and the sun rose slowly. The light creeping through the windscreen, arcing through the gap in the front seats and lighting Dave and his girl as they embraced.

He stretched awake as the sun hit his face. He looked at her. Her pale eyes stared back, and he could swear he saw a tinge of blue in the whiteness of the stone where previously there had only been blankness.

He scoured the arid area around the vehicle. He was able to find some old planks of wood, which he placed in front of the tyres, creating a ramp that he hoped to push the vehicle onto. Once on firmer ground, he would use it to boost the car over the small ridge and drive off into the valley below.

He went back to the back of the vehicle. She had slipped down during the night, and it was no longer possible to close the trunk. He wedged it closed as much as he could, tying it down with the blanket.

He wiped the sleep from his eyes. By now the sun was peeking over the roof of the car, directly into his eyes as he heaved his shoulder against the bumper. The vehicle refused to move, and then it did, gaining grip on the wooden base he had built. 

The blanket he had secured the trunk with slipped with the added weight of the statue and the steepening incline of the slope. The ivory girl slid down, pushing the trunk open with force, smacking Dave under his chin and knocking him to the ground. The vehicle rolled slowly back, the tyres crunched over his ribcage, bursting his lungs and sending blood spurting into the desert sand. The statue tumbled out and lay next to Dave, staring at him with a wistful smile.

GJ Welsh is a South African conceptual copywriter and author who has won the Clio Award, Cannes Lions and Loerie Awards. His work straddles the line between mythology and reality