(c) The Puppetmaster's Effect [PG-13]

by tea-boy. Thu 29 Jan 2009, 5:48 am

Her long, bony hands reach around golden strings. Up and down, up and down they go. Then side to side, side to side. Ivory-tipped fingernails dance in the air with such grace that one could lose themselves in the motions for hours. She watches them dance around their private stage, a cute smile on her face, naïve to anything but the figurative ballet in front of her eyes. A child will always be a child. She makes a sharp movement and her blond curls fall into her face as she lets out a haunting giggle. She gazes intently over her work. She is the puppetmaster. She is the controller.

She sits above everyone, and she knows it. But she is not conceited. She knows she is special, but it will never seem that way to her. She knows not why she was placed here, only that she was and that she had a job to do. Her eyes never leave her work. Golden strings intersect and twist together at a rapid pace. Her fragile, ghostly hands never falter, not even for a moment. Immaculate connections are formed, maudlin separations ensue. The same ballet is playing over and over, yet it never loses its tragic beauty.

The puppetmaster, she’s got secrets. She’s not supposed to have them, but she does. A tiny corner inside her mind exists that is not focused on her work. That is where the dark things dwell. She tries to push them out of her mind, but it’s hard. There are times, when all is quiet, and the ballet is in intermission, and the sky is dark. These are the times when she can’t keep the secrets away. The puppermaster, she’s lonely. She’s lonely and it saddens her. That’s her secret. Small to most, but not to her. The puppetmaster should not have such thoughts, or so she thinks. She has her ballet, she has her golden strings. She has her own world. Yet small crystals leak out of her eyes and onto porcelain skin.

She can do nothing but squeeze her eyes shut and pray that the feelings disappear. But the tears don’t stop, and the feelings don’t stop ripping through her being. She is alone, completely and utterly alone. And she can’t deal with it. A child will always be a child. Nonetheless, the morning comes. The sun rises. The golden strings are waiting. The ballet is ready to start, even if the puppetmaster isn’t. And thus the cycle begins again. Up and down, left to right. Connections, separations. Tragedy, humor, love, hate, loss, gain, hope, despair. It’s all there, it’s all hers. Her stage, her ballet.

But the puppetmaster has a flaw. The puppetmaster with her perfect porcelain skin, big, gray eyes, beautiful, flowing blond hair, and a heart-melting smile. The puppetmaster has a flaw. Those big, beautiful eyes of hers, they’re blind. There is more than just darkness around her. Black and white fades in. There is a whole other world. A world that is familiar with the puppetmaster. They may not know her, but they see her. She does in fact exist. There are people who know her name, who have seen her around, who have bumped into her. She just doesn’t see it. The puppetmaster either does not know or will not accept this other world. To her, it is darkness that stretches beyond space and time. She looks around at the shadows. The world looks at her. Something doesn’t feel right in her stomach, the acid is churning. But she has a job to do. She makes another sharp movement, the golden strings keep dancing.