An abandoned marionette is lost and alone in the woods

1. As I lay in the fallen leaves, the smell of the decaying mulch surrounded me like a thick cloud. As far as my eyes could see, the branches seemed to overlap one another creating an almost ominous darkness in this seemingly bright day. I looked up and saw a solitary clearing in the top of this woodland metropolis of a divergent maze, a maze impossible even for the most ingenious person to solve. The treetops swayed in the gentle breeze and watching the leaves fall to the ground I too felt I had no other place to go and really couldn’t care less about just staying there. The ground felt crunchy and cold as I stirred around trying to make sense of it all and I could faintly hear the soft current that so wistfully carried an almost indistinguishable aroma of flowers in the background of the chirping and the rustling of the trees. Out of the silence would come an off-key call of a whippoorwill and the knocking of a distant woodpecker busy drilling holes. Suddenly a cold fear ran through my wooden body as that thought raced through my head. Would I ever see anyone I knew again or was I destined to rot like the diminished pieces of timber I see resting around me. Was it here that they came to die, as I, lying on my back as helpless as animal caught in the hunter’s trap. As I looked down, my legs were buried almost to my knees in underbrush from the untrodden, nearly unspoiled path upon which I had so awkwardly settled. The balm of the soggy dirt beneath the foliage was so pungent that I could almost taste it. I was a bitter, moist taste, such as the skin of an unwashed potato.<br />My strings lay all around me and I struggled for hours attempting to free myself as if caught in a spider’s sticky web. They seemed to be despairingly tangled from the wind, which had so violently blown my little body here and there until I rested in this one particular spot. Could it have been an accident or maybe the thoughtlessness of some innocent child? I could not remember to save my life. “Think!” I told myself as I lifted my head from the hard unforgiving ground. “How can I think with all this pain?” I calmly answered myself in a nearly inaudible tone. My hinges creaked and ached like as if a weight were sitting on every joint in my body, a dull sensation, however one that I could deal with for now. “Think!” Once more I have scolded myself, a practice I have found most annoying. Why can I not just follow my own instructions, my own rules? “See where it’s gotten you, knucklehead?!” Maybe if I were able to cut these strings I could move a little more freely, but I have no tools for which to sever them and they seem to bind me so tightly. What could I do? I can’t just lay here and let the weather decay my finely crafted teak from which I was so lovingly carved and finished, that would go against all I believed. “What do I believe?” Questioning myself only would leave me more despondent and if I could only remember how I got here in the first place I am pretty sure I could find my way out. Funny, I have never seen these woods, so unfamiliar yet I feel like I have been here before. A muffled light seemed to peer its way through the thick dark of the forest in the distance. Was this an opening to this dungeon of despondency or maybe just a trick my beady eyes were playing on me and they had done so many times before. “Before” if only I could remember what happened “Before.” How frustrating.<br />My only friend right now in this isolation is my memories. What exactly can I remember? Oh yes, how he lovingly took me in his arms and crafted me. Oh, the chisel hurt a little at first but then I started to take shape. How he sanded the rough edges away and finished my surface so there wouldn’t be any splinters, and could hear him say softly, “How I love you, you are beautiful, you are one of a kind and certainly my greatest work ever.” He would adoringly fasten my joints together and tie the finest string in all the town to them. He only worked on me a few hours each night but I could tell those were the better part of his day. Weeks and weeks went by, it seemed to me like an eternity. When will I be finished? One night as he was tying all my strings to a single piece of cross shaped wood, he said, “My boy, tomorrow you will be finished, all I need to do is touch you up a little.” His brushes and paint lay scattered across the table in no particular order and I watched as he organized them getting ready for my final coat of varnish. “You will be as shiny as a new penny.” I could hear him say as he drifted off to sleep. My heart leaped, I was so excited, I was going to be on stage. This was the first time anyone would ever see me and I was almost ready for my debut performance!<br />The night came and went and I awoke early as the sun shined through the tiny window of this small shoemaker’s shop. I couldn’t help but draw in a deep breath and smell the fresh coffee and the woodsy smell of fresh-cut pine saplings from his stove that seem to seep through every crack of in the wall. The sound of light footsteps that slightly implied a hint of a shuffle moved across the kitchen floor. Yes, the old cobbler had a mild limp, the poor guy, since his incident with that horse and carriage his health has not been the same yet his heart remains loving and caring. Lying flat on the workbench, warm rays of sun appear to drench the room with light. This was the only light we had save a small candle burned almost down to the holder itself, drippings of cold wax hung just slightly over the dusty stone floor, where sawdust lay in small piles waiting to be burned in the furnace. I breeze eased its way in, and I watched as the dust circled in small eddies across the free open room, but that wasn’t a very warm breeze at all. Suddenly I was snapped back to reality where I could only helplessly gaze upon a storm cloud that has rapidly began to gather in the opening overhead. Thunder rumbles and echoes around what appears to be an endless, dark gap. Plop! “Oh no! That was wet! What was that?” Another fear gripped me and I shivered and quickly brushed the drop from my head, I was made of only wood and my thin coat of varnish would wear off soon in the elements. My sockets creaked even louder as I quickly pivoted to miss the next plummeting bullet of rain. The sound of water hitting the leaves sounded like a million different hammers pounding a million different nails, a sound I with which I was all too familiar. “Remember! It’s all that will save you now!” Unaware and without expectation survival becomes the difference between becoming one of “them” or seeing the people you love again. I quickly rolled amidst my tangled strings and somehow managed to cover my fragile timbered body with a few clumps of dirt and leaves. Leaving no part of my body exposed, I cried not in fear but of the situation into which I had gotten myself so deeply. Among the sounds of thunder and rainfall one could hear my little joints clacking as I quivered and shook under my protection of decaying forest underbrush.<br />The rain had stopped as if the ocean had suddenly stood still. There were no sounds of birds chirping or trees rustling, there was absolutely no sound at all. Much to my surprise the leaves had kept me dry as I lay covered in earth. The silence grew thick and my eyes grew very heavy, before I could move to uncover myself, sleep overtook me. Sinking into a rather profound sleep, I dreamed. Now not all dreams I can remember but this one was very vivid and very colorful. I have not dreamed in a very long time, and it seems more and more lately I haven’t dreamed much at all. I don’t really sleep that much anymore, I just can’t seem to remember why.<br />