Oogie

Chapter 3

I sat on one of the higher branches of my tree. I heaved a sigh as I stared up at the pumpkin moon, fiddling with the wrench in my hand as I awaited inspiration. I am a sort of inventor, one might say. Since the others don't approve of my... gambling ways... I had to learn how to make all sort of machines for myself. So far, I had only made a few small ones. I doubted that I could handle the mechanics of the larger machines that I have seen in the human world, especially since this is a "learn-as-I-went" sort of skill. Maybe if I had a teacher, but such a thing is but a dream that cannot be.

Halloween would be here soon, I thought to myself as the wrench continued to make its way through my fingers. Just like every other before it, I would be forced to stay fa from mortal man and scare them from the moon, least I do something that will, in the words of the others, "take the joy too far and end up killing those whom have no chance against the true strength of us." Perhaps they are right, in some aspects. Looking back on some of my previous ideas, quite a few, as I see now, were much too much for the likes of the living humans. They will still so inexperienced, having not yet discovered the majesty of gears and inventions farther than that of their wheels and wagons.

Perhaps some of my past plans and inventions were wrong, but one cannot make an omelet without cracking a few eggs. If I had seen such horrid results from my inventions and plans, then surely I would have stopped, given up on it, and moved on to better things that were more suited to the likes of the mortals. How did any of them ever hope to improve if they dared not try? No. That wasn't correct. They were able to try, fail, and learn with each passing year, for they were not deterred. They could try new screams, new ways of lurking and creeping, and new ways to draw terror. It was I who was always deterred; always told "No, Buggie".

I hated that name; Buggy. Bringing my hand up to my face, I touch the grey skin that concealed what I truly was. This face was not my own, nor was this body. It was a borrowed piece. Or perhaps it wasn't. I just remember it, so perhaps it was always mine. Or perhaps I got it long ago, for I remember not the beginning of my days. The farthest back that I could go was a good hundred years or so back. The years of the same thing have just stacked themselves upon me in a way that I find it hard to determine which day came before or after another. Either way, it wasn't living flesh, nor was it truly me.

I could control every muscle and it felt just like any other person would feel in their own skin, or so I assumed, but, unlike others, I have not organs, bones, or blood beneath the dead and stitched flesh. Beneath, I hold my nick-namesake.

Squirming and wriggling bugs and one black-and-white striped snake that served as my tongue. They were there, constantly moving about and sometimes even whispering to each other. They were me and I was them. Everyone knew of it. Luckily, people in Halloween Town do not discriminate for such things. With that being said, they are still willing to make fun of it if the person in particular is someone that they care not for, such as I.

Thus, to them, Oogie Boogie became simply Buggie; the "crazed bag of bugs with an addiction and no clue as to when to stop".

I sigh heavily, letting the wrench slide from my fingers and fall to the ground below. It doesn't matter where it landed, for I would simply retrieve it later when I so desired. This whole area was my home, for I never cared for the houses of stone and mortar that the others in town so much enjoyed. I believe it is because of what I am and my lack of enjoyment of being in anything that resembled a cage of any sort. Instead, I had a large dead oak, much too big to be cut down, which saved it from becoming a home to another graveyard. Sometimes I spend the night in slumber on the thick branches, other times in a small nook in the trunk. More often than not, I would sleep in the only room I had, which was a large, hollowed area halfway up the trunk. Inside I had my tools and inventions, which I typically fell in slumber while working late on them.