The Puppet

There comes a time, for some, for many, not most, where they become who they are.

Sometimes it is a slow translation sometimes not. Like a bolt from an unknown god, some suddenly discover that they are what they weren’t moments before.

This is not one of those stories.

The puppet was orange, stuffed, handmade, eyes embroidered eyebrows black crosshatched. A clown of no gender, had a name, lost, it was never renamed, remained nameless unto disintegration.

The orange puppet had a lonely owner and when that owner aged away from “that kind” of thing, had an angry owner who only wanted it because of hatred for the lonely one.

This too is not a story about that …

Well it is but not exactly.

The orange puppet could not have been said to be loved. The lonely owner did not know much about love and so cared for the puppet in a careful but not even kind way.

The buttons of it’s suit were firmly attached, never fell off or became undone. It’s hands were more like mittens and when the lonely one cried those mittens became sodden with tears.

The eyes were bright and open unable to close so the stories it could have told would have curled your hair, if your hair was not already so, and if a puppet could tell tales.

But they can’t so those tales remain locked inside, silent so no one suspected there were any.

The puppet was in attendance to the many stages a child goes through — many more than the yearly travails of yearly school days. It was a surprise to both that the puppet was not an honored attendee and had to be left home.

Because the owner was lonely the puppet heard all about the days at school — mostly horror stories of one sort of abuse or another. This in addition to what was meted out at home meant that weeks could go by before the mittens would dry out.

This could be the end of the story.

Days alone propped up on the bed pillows while the owner(s) were away, the occasional exciting toss into the air or frustrated throw across the room. All accepted with the calm sloppy grace of a stuffed thing, which the puppet was.

The ceiling was a pale sky blue, that was the most common view the puppet had from the bed. That and the open drooling mouth of the sleeping child at night.

Eventually, somehow, one eyebrow came half undone, perhaps a nervous twitch of the owner picking at something/anything to ease whatever the current anxiety.

Many years later the lonely owner met a woman who had a similar eyebrow. This did not go anywhere.

When the angry owner finally manages to wear the puppet out, it was trash compacted and it’s remains are somewhere in some landfill.

That’s the kind of story this is.