[ A Puppet with Few Strings ] - Arma
CW: implications of abuse and character death, puppets
something for @piraticusdorm ‘s Peaceful Shadows event! wrote this half asleep and on a whim after having a weird nightmare myself SO ! it might have typos or just be? not great lolol
( i hope the abrupt changes aren’t weird. i feel like that’s how dreams tend to be for me )
Arma could see a lone circus tent in the distance, red & white stripes illuminated by a warm light. He could hear roars of laughter beckoning him closer. Though, he was disinterested in going toward it. He had a feeling it wasn’t as joyful as it appeared.
With every step backwards, the tent had gotten closer. A panic of running, only had him engulfed into the light and the rowdiness of it all. By the time he regained his senses, he found himself sitting front row and center with every other seat filled by a mannequin, smiling brightly.
[ Why couldn’t he run away? ]
A drumroll rumbles the theater and a spotlight shines on a Punch and Judy-styled booth. Two glove puppets emerge. One burly and one lanky but both equally hideous with their wood faces carved crudely.
“Rocco, where’s that meat head brother of ours?” The lanky puppet cried in scratchy and pitched voice.
“Ricky, he’s hidin’ cuz he don’t wanna be a star no more.” The burly puppet responded deeply and both shrug, earning laughter from the still audience.
“Maybe if we all call his name, he’ll see how popular he is and come out!” Ricky waved his puppet arms, as if to pump up the audience.
Arma hears the cheers, the chorus of the audience callling his name and he can’t help but grit his teeth. Slowly, he feels the pull of his hair, finding that his point of view changed suddenly. He could the audience he once occupied and he was a puppet himself, trapped between Ricky and Rocco. They were smiling but, things felt so tense.
“We found you, Arma! But, you’ve been nothing but trouble keeping us waiting! So, take this! And this! Try this on for size, twerp!”
Both Rocco and Ricky pull out sticks, hitting Arma back and forth, eliciting more laughter from the audience with their slapstick routine.
The puppets relentlessly beat him on the head and all he can do with his little cloth arms is curl up. The curtain on their booth droops closed.
[ Why couldn’t he run away? ]
Arma looked up, feeling rather off. Restricted. He takes in his surroundings, the strings attached to his wooden limbs, his body shuffling against his will in a limp dance.
Neither Rocco or Ricky had left the stage, both puppet waving their sticks at Arma from the same booth beside him.
“Keep dancing, goddammit! We didn’t pick ya off the street to sit around and cry! We told ya you gotta work to earn your spot. We told ya we put down dogs who don’t cooperate!”
The audience cheers and roars, at a volume that’s even more nauseating than before.
Arma didn’t wanna dance anymore. The harder he pulled to keep from moving, his strings snapped in two, his wooden limbs going limp. Yet, he was still being carelessly pulled about on the stage.
The audience is silent, with wide smiles and stares that are sickening and empty. It seemed hopeless to think anything would change.
“You’re not a puppet.”
Arma could hear it clearly. A voice, familiar but small.
“You’re not a puppet, you’re human, right?”
There it was again.
Arma gasped as he pulled himself off the ground. He was no longer wooden. Back to flesh and bone. As he took in his surroundings, he was still on stage. Though, he noticed the puppet booth tumbled over and looking down, he held the Ricky and Rocco puppets by their necks, lifeless with nothing to say to him anymore.
Before he could say anything, the audience began to murmur, the plastered smiles they once held were now frowns. Sighing, he put the puppets on each hands, to which Ricky and Rocco began to swat his head with their sticks like earlier.
[ Why couldn’t he run away? ]
Arma’s eyes shot open suddenly, his throat feeling incredibly dry and his stomach in knots. He looked around, finding that he wasn’t even his room. He’d fallen asleep in his office, again.
“Fuck…gotta stop falling asleep in here…another weird ass Pinocchio dream.” He murmured to himself, looking at the digital clock on his desk. 5:47 A.M. Early, but there was no way he could sleep after that.
By his elbow, a pea-sized orb sits on the flat surface. It’s pitch black and dull, hidden to Arma as it blends in with the darkness of the room.
