Short Stories and Ideas

Marionette

They hold you tight in their suffocating grip. In their cold, clawed hands. In their searing embrace. And in passionate gusts, they rise up your throat, choke you; steal the little air you have left. You remain as nothing more than smoldering ashes, helpless, in their almighty hands.

They steer you like a broken marionette, hanging off but one string, pathetically opening and closing your mouth, screaming a toneless cry for help. And you wander among more marionettes that pass you on the busy streets, and you wonder, why they don't seem broken. Why they do not have but one, pathetically thin string. Why the intricate patterns on their bodies do not resemble the jagged lines of your broken frame.

You search, and you search to find another broken puppet, one completely surrendered to that grip. One sad, broken puppet like you. You search and you search and you search but there is no more. Not one in the barren landscape of a city full of puppet masters. Of those in charge of themselves, not at the mercy of that scorching power that holds you tight and does not let you go.

You wonder why your chest burns and aches when you look at another puppet that hangs not from one pathetic little thread. Thick ropes keep its arms up and hold it upright without swinging it around at their mercy. The puppet is in control of itself, and you lumber away sadly.

You go on a journey to find another like you – a lost soul among those that have found a shining, golden path to walk along. A soul that is completely controlled by that scorching power that sears its mark into your wooden body. A sad, pathetic lump of wood among silvers, golds and diamonds. Among shining gemstone bodies in control of themselves.

You wonder, why are they so much more intense in you? Why is your puppeteer such an almighty power that sends you to your knees regularly and reminds you of how pathetic you are? That you are just one sad, little lump of wood. One with broken, used limbs, and a chest scorched hollow from the power's might. Where the fiery rage of your puppet master surrounded your chest in white-hot flames and let it burn and burn for years, until only ashes remained. And the phantom pains return with the rage of your puppeteer, rising smoke clogging your throat and halting the movement of your chest.

So, you fall to your knees in the city of marionettes in charge of themselves, and they turn their heads. For the fiery rage of your puppet master will consume them too but will never scorch the intricate patterns on their bodies, for they are made of silvers, golds and gemstones, the likes of which you could never dream of reaching and your puppeteer could never hope to become.

Your puppeteer hopes to burn you in their flames until you are but coals, that can be heated and pressed to form diamonds. You stare out to the distance, and you see nobody. Nobody else on one thin string, minutes away from dropping to hell like a man hanged. And the flames consume you, but you never become a diamond, for coal and charcoal are two different things, one a diamond in the rough, and the other just the pathetic remains of wood that has been charred to uselessness. So, you drown in the red of their flames, nothing more than a sad little pawn that has done nothing to the board other than clear space for the Queen to pass through.