Sorrow for the Puppet Man (a short)

This is a story born of a nightmare that I had. It is not for the faint of heart

-Dave

Sorrow for the Puppet Man

It was a cold night when I woke from my sleep. An image had stayed with me from the nightmare I wandered. The crooked, sad smile of a man no longer in his own eyes or in his heart. The light of a child in his soul distinguished. I could not do anything but sit up in my bed and look into the darkness, visualizing that last scene. As children we were told of monsters so as to keep us on a straighter path. We never knew the true horrors were beneath our skins, deep within our souls.

As I pondered on this thought, sitting up in my bed, I thought of the toy maker and his tragedy.

Robert the Toy Maker was his title. To the children that came to his shop he was the ‘Puppet Man’. His shop rich of toys, dolls, trains, marbles and others for the young hearts. A place built in the hopes of laughter filling it from the voices of children.

Every afternoon from his shop he would set the stage and hang his marionettes high above the children. Their laughter is what made his heart warm. Their smiles and their giggles echoing in his shop and onto the streets. Passerby after passerby, with children in hand, would come one by one to stop and see his prized puppets. The fool with a grin high and strong and the princess with her golden hair flowing to her feet. They would dance for the children, exploring the humor in the fantastic.

When the show would be over, Robert would dim the lights down to a close. Ushering out the last of the children, curious on what stories would come the day next. Once they had all gone home he would retire to the upper floors. There he would find his wife, Anna, with glowing eyes and peach skin, rocking in her chair.

“Did the children laugh, dear?” She would say. Her question was always met with a smile.

“I can only wait to hear the laughter of our own.” He would say with pride in his voice. Every night he would sit beside her and place his hand upon her swollen belly, daydreaming of raised voices in cheer and happiness.

The night hours would go by, all the while the puppet man would work in his office. Scraps of yarn, burlap, and wood chips thrown about with every toy that he would make. Tonight he spent these hours doing something else while his love slept. For every month of her pregnancy he would write a single poem for his child to come.

“Dear child, while you travel, your mother bears your weight. Growing moment by moment into the beauty that she has passed on. Will your eyes be green like hers? Or will you don my brown? Little whispers from birds and angels show that this world will welcome you. Will you laugh, will you smile for me? I will sing songs to you with words that rival the heavens.”

When he placed down the paper that bore his words, a sudden thought came to him. What marvels would he make for his child? A toy like none other he would create. A little doll made of burlap and yarn, with marbles for eyes. A smile large to that of his fool. Once he would be done, Innocence would its name! Yes! A name that will keep with the child so that they could know the world is full of wonder. Each new experience something fresh for them to inherit.

From then on, the puppet man would spend his final month before the arrival of his child, in work of his greatest gift. Every night for that time, once the children had left and the lights had dimmed in his shop, he would work. So careful was his method, simple cuts of burlap to take shape. Yellowed yarn to stitch together his child’s doll. Its tan skin being stuffed with wool carefully so as to not pop the seams. When it came time to choose the eyes for innocence, he took the brightest of blue marbles from his shop. Wood glue to hold them in tight within their sockets.

It was when he finished the doll that he heard a cry from the upper level. His wife cried in joy and fear.

“The child is coming! The child is coming!” Her voice would crack from excitement. He rushed up to her and grabbed her arm firmly, walking her out of the shop and to the hospital.

Robert the Toy Maker. Robert the Puppet Man. Robert the father. He stood pacing to and fro. Alone in a hallway, waiting for news of his child. His hand over his mouth. What was joy and excite from the sudden news of his coming child had gone. Now he alone would feel fear and ache for news now of his child.

When the child left his love, Anna, there were no cries, there were no gasps of new lungs taking in their first breaths. The doctors exchanged looks before they left with the child. The nurse urged Robert to stay with his wife, tired from the labor of new life. He pushed her aside and went after the men with his child.

“Stop! My child!” he cried out. One of them turned and faced the man rushed for his child. The doctor urged him to stay and await their word, the child was not breathing.

So there he stood. Robert the father. Awaiting news now of where his child was and why his child took no breath. The doctor returned to him. With no child in hand the doctor placed his hands on the shoulders of Robert. His child would never smile, his child would never laugh.

Robert the Toy Maker. Robert the Puppet Man. Assumed his usual position, high above the marionettes, high above the children waiting. There was no laughter, there were no smiles. The marionettes stayed motionless, floating a midst the air. The Fool and the Princess lifeless. All was quiet for Robert, while the children waited and their parents gossiped in whispers. The only sound that would break through were the sobs from atop the stairs that found their way to his ears.

The parents stood and grabbed their children’s hands. The walked out leaving Robert to his silence and sobs. He stood there still, high above his marionettes. The sobs grew louder with each passing moment. It racked him, driving him deeper and deeper into his own mind. There he found silence. It would not last, you see. For there he found an image of his doll beside the crib they had made for their child. Silence become sobs, not of his wife but cries of his child.

Many say that then, that is when Robert the Toy Maker came to madness. That he stood for what was hours above his marionettes, the lights of his shop still burning bright, till he came to and cried. Not in tears but in true pain. That it was heard down the streets and that it almost drowned out the rising sobs of his wife.

That night, the rain fell hard, warning of flood coming to the darkened streets. While the downpour continued, there was Robert. Down in the sinking earth, raising the dead in the night. All the while, his wife continued her mourning alone atop the toy shop. A slamming of their door only stopped her sobs for a mere minutes. Robert had returned from the night. The only noises that she heard were of his working. Hammering, stripping, tearing and his own cries of pain.

It was in the morning that Robert the Toy Maker woke his grieving wife from her sleep. She refused his touch, never wanting to leave their bed. He gripped tight and dragged her to her feet. She followed him, letting her weight and the weight of her grief press her forward. His voice dry and ragged sounded like sandpaper to her ears.

“I’ve done it love, I’ve done it.” He had said softly, almost a whisper.

Down, down the hollowed stairs they went, into the shop. Each step sent an echo into the open emptiness. At the foot of the steps he had her wait. Light flickered through the crevices of the boards that had their home on the windows.  There, sat the crib he had built for their child. He rocked it and waved to her. Ushering her to come close and see what it was he had achieved. What she saw soon stopped her heart. The weight of her body fell to the floor, and the Toy Maker’s wife’s light was gone.

Months had passed it seemed. For the children who had come by to see the Puppet Man and his marionettes. Each time met with cracked windows backed by wooden boards. Still a light shined from the window above the shop, the blinds drawn.

Till one day, a child with courage in his heart and desire for the Fool’s smile, crept into the old Toy Maker’s shop. Inside he felt the heaviness of the air. Old and molded from the rain that had leaked in. There was only light pouring in from the open board he had pried to enter. All the toys that had glowed with the light from better days had gone to dirtied shadows of their former selves. Dust upon dust collected. His gazed sight was taken back when whispers were heard from the top level.

The boy wanted answers that he and all the children had wanted for some time. Where had the Puppet Man gone? What of his toys and marionettes? He climbed from the depths of the shop and into the home that was Robert the Toy Maker’s.

The steps creaked and buckled under his weight. The whispers ceased and the boy held his breath. Yet, further and further he had climbed. When he reached the door it was closed, but with light rap on the door, it opened. There in a large room, rocking to and fro in the rocking chair sat the Toy Maker’s wife. She was as beautiful as the past days of her smiling at the children from the shop’s counter. Preserved in a face of motherly fondness, staring down towards her breast. The boy’s eyes followed down from her gaze, seeing the yellow stitching and the tanned skin of the mother, locked into eternity with her child. It was still and motionless like her, being swayed by the rocking of the chair.

The boy gasped with fear. The horror before his eyes and the rocking slowed every second until it stopped. Across the way, from the hall that led further into the home, stood Robert the Toy Maker. His face was still, only disrupted by the tears that were in his eyes. He did not move for the boy, he would not harm this child. Instead, as if condemning himself to his hell, he yelled at the boy.

“Run! Go! Away from this place!” He cried, his hands clenched tightly into fists. The boy turned and ran, leaping and bounding downs the steps and back into the shop. Silence nipping at his heels as he climbed through the window he disturbed.

That night, sirens blew and smoke rose into the air. A fire at the toy shop. A place that was once filled with smiles and laughter, now bursting at the seams with fire and charred wood. That same boy stood across from the destruction that night. Seeing the faces of the Fool and the Princess melting away into the fire.

The sorrow would not end there for Robert the Toy Maker. Many say now, the same children that once attended his shop of joy, that the old toy maker had survived the fire. Not without horrible scars that plagued his body from the burns. Those same children now grown have their own children and tell stories of the same man, the same toy maker. While their children sleep they remind them that love and creation are a great power, one that could turn ill if one is full of pride.

“The old Robert, the old toy maker, the old puppet man. He loved his life much. When he woke each day his heart was filled with pride.

The old Robert, the old toy maker, the old puppet man. When his child born dead and his wife heart stopped, madness over took him. Turning pride into grief.

The old Robert, the old toy maker, the old puppet man. He stitched them up to keep his love, to keep his pride. He burned his home in grief. And now, Robert the Toy Maker lay still. He covered his wounds in burlap and yellow yarn stitched. His face covered by the same grin of his fool. It’s smile so large you could see the burned meat beneath his shell. His eyes still brown and gold, staring from the holes of the charred burlap. Strung up from the wires he built himself. A marionette in his own show.

The old Robert, the old toy maker, now only the Puppet Man.”

So now I lay here, my eyes fixed on the dark. Remembering the smile of old Robert the Toy Maker. His love was strong and his life so rich, that when it was taken, he crumbled. Hope in the child and love in the wife, a lone doll still is found in the ashes and rubble of the toy maker’s shop, but his smile forever will follow me into my sleep. The smile of the Puppet Man.