Joseph

Rain drops fall through the ceiling of the shabby and broken down workshop onto the old puppet master. He doesn’t react and continues to work by candlelight while the rest of the town sleeps.

Beads of sweat drip from his face as he reaches for the next body part. The little tools in his rough hands quiver as they help attach the next limb onto the body.

Soon all parts of the puppet are attached, and the old man can only stare at his masterpiece. It sits on the wooden table with it’s head slightly cocked to the side, unable to hold itself up.

Droplets of water drip onto the cold wooden floor of the workshop.
But he is no longer sweating.

And the rain has stopped.

Yet, a storm continues to brew within him.

“Joseph…” he cries out in his sorrow.

The only thing he can see within the puppet is the life of someone he had lost. He cries out to it again.

“Joseph…”

But the puppet is not his son. It continues to sit there, as a puppet should do.

He wipes the tears from his eyes. Then, with sudden resolution and hysteria, he declares his final decision.

“…Joseph, I’ll bring you to life.”

And with that…

He began to turn the puppet into something more.
————————–

————————–

After an entire sleepless week, the puppet master created a new masterpiece. He once again sat back and looked at his creation lying down on the wooden table.

He stepped back and spoke to his creation.

“Joseph… I’ve given you life”

With that, the puppet began to move on its own. Like a child first learning to walk, the puppet made of wood picked himself up, but fell back down again.

“You…are alive Joseph” the puppet master said with a smile.

But the puppet did not respond.

The puppet master bent down and stared into the gem like eyes of the puppet. It felt empty, as if there was nothing behind it.

“Can you not understand what it means to be alive?” he asked the puppet.

The puppet continued to move in its regular pattern, standing, falling, and standing again.

The puppet master frowned.
“I will allow you to understand what it means to be alive” he said.

And thus, the puppet changed again.
————————–————————–—–

Another week passed, and the puppet master’s beard had turned white. Still, he continued to create yet another masterpiece.

Through his labor and brilliance, the puppet master had somehow given life to his puppet. It was almost as if he had put a soul within the once dead puppet.

“Now… you are conscious” he said, while stifling a cough.

The puppet stood up as it had done before, but began to turn its head, touch the tools on the desk, and even look at the puppet master with a hint of curiosity.

“Yes… you are here. Here with me…Joseph” The puppet master told the puppet, “You know how much you mean to me?”

The puppet cocked its head to the side and stared at the puppet master before going on to look at other things.

The puppet paused as it passed by a mirror. It began to make movements and seemed genuinely pleased when the strange doll on the other side copied its movements.

The puppet master followed and turned to the puppet:
“Do you know what it means to be human?” he asked.

The puppet didn’t respond.

The puppet master decided at that very moment that he would allow the puppet to understand what it meant to be human.

Thus, the puppet went through one more transition.
————————–———————–

A week later, the puppet master was forced to lie in bed. He could hardly breathe in between coughing, and was only able to listen to the puppet that had begun to talk after more work.

“Joseph…” the old puppet master said. His outstretched hand was grasped by the wooden fingertips of his puppet masterpiece.

The puppet had changed completely from its original shape; he could now talk, move on its own, and even think.

The old puppet master’s last moments were arriving swiftly. His voice became hoarse as he continued to call out the name of his son. His hearing faded before his eyesight, and even that soon left him.

The puppet spoke with the same character and emotion of a human. Yet his words were not of a caring son to his dying father.

“I am not your lost son.” He said, “You wanted me to understand what it meant to be a human…but that is impossible for I am merely a puppet. No matter how much you try to make me like you…I am just…not human.”

The old man could only smile at his creation. He could no longer hear anything; his eyesight had vanished as well. The only thing he could see was the image of his lost son, Joseph.

The puppet continued to speak with greater clarity.

“You brought me to life… not to replace your son, but rather to replace the gap created in your heart due to the loss of your son.” He paused. “You…never truly looked at who I was”

The old man’s smile had stopped changing. And within moments, the puppet began to understand the meaning of “death.”

“I suppose you mean for me to live on as Joseph.” The puppet said softly. “I wonder what Joseph himself would have done in my situation.”

The puppet looked at his creator for a moment, before pulling the sheet over the old puppet master’s head.
“Goodnight….Father” the puppet said softly. “May your dreams be as sweet in your eternal rest.”

Tunnels 1

The final stretch of the climb was the hardest. The rocks and the ground began to tear away at our hands far more than before, and the sight of the light at the end of the tunnel seemed to trigger some sort of desperate euphoria within us.

Eus began to cackle with disillusioned laughter.
“Haha… I never thought we would actually make it… The surface! It’s right in front of us!”

I had to suppress a smile as I looked at the light. A whole new world was waiting for us right when we reach out and touched that light.

I reach out my hand and grab the next hold- putting me one step closer to the exit. But as I climb towards the exit, I begin to notice the ground’s stuttering vibration.

It gives out a repetitive clicking sound.
Click. Click. Clickclickclickclickclick-until it all blends together into one monotonous chain that grows louder and louder until it feels like a wall of sound is about to collide with our ears.

I shoot a glance back at Eus who is as clueless and scared as I am. And as I look at him, the tunnel goes pitch black for a moment, and I feel like i’m watching the scene through an old movie projector.

Then it’s gone and the clicking fades.

“What the hell was that?” Eus asks me in desperate curiosity.
“I don’t know” I reply slowly.

We sit there in that cold tunnel with the stagnant air floating around us- as still as stalagmites trying not to wake a flock of bats. Our hearts felt as jumpy as a scared dormouse in the middle of being chased out by a cat.
I keep telling myself that the only thing keeping us from that exit is our own fear. The fear of what’s out there, the unknown. What’s out there? Should I go check?

But no. Even when our minds tell us that there should be nothing to fear, our bodies were petrified within that tunnel.
I note to myself that this may be what has prevented most people from reaching the surface.

“Ju-just go…” Eus said, trying to usher me forward. Despite his advice, his legs are bolted to the cold wet ground.

“Yeah…” I respond. My legs likewise frozen in place.

We stand in place until our limbs begin to numb, and with a final desperate cry, we let out a battle cry and simultaneously rush to the surface.

What greets us is the blinding light of day. The sunlight seems to eat away at our raw flesh and unaccustomed eyes. And for a moment I consider hiding back in the tunnel. However, a familiar sound stops me.
The clicking sound begins to come again- Click. Click. Clickclickclickclick… until I am literally blown off my feet by a wave of air.
Strangely enough, I hear cries of fear and joy as the sound of repetitive clicking passes. And with it, my eyes begin to adjust and the world around me becomes visible.

I open my eyes and am suddenly treated to the wondrous splendor of the surface, where miracles are common place and-

Wait…

My inner dialog grinds to a screeching halt.

I look above me to find rail after rail of suspended train track that looped in circles and spun in spirals before beginning again at a platform. A small train cart sped along the tracks making creaking and clicking sounds as it traversed the track.

I immediately felt a strange absurd feeling.

“It’s a roller coaster,” was my pathetic attempt to comment after finding that the source of fear was a -er- not especially strange device.

“Yeah… it’s a roller coaster” Eus echoed behind me.

We marvel at how undramatic the object is. After all, it was just a normal roller coaster- and not a very exciting one at that. In fact, it was one of those roller coasters only suitable for young and small children. This wasn’t the splendor that I came here to see.
Though I suppose you could consider the under hangings of a roller coaster to be interesting, I don’t think it’s worth digging a hole and spending days upon days of crawling through mud dirt and muck.

“Is this really the surface? I want to see a chosen person!” Eus chimed in, disrupting my disappointment.

Thats right! I remembered to look around for any strange beings walking the surface. After all, being among the first people to see a surface dweller in AGES, automatically entitles you to bragging rights.

So Eus and I scan the area next to the roller coaster. Despite the screaming from the people ON the roller coaster, there actually wasn’t a single person in the area. Instead, the area was rather barren… and covered in pipes.

Pipes?
I do a double take.

The ground was straight desert and hot enough to fry any poor desert critter stupid enough to try and hide under the sand. It would have been just another desert, but the obvious and impossible-to-ignore inclusion of knotted pipe-work made it otherwise. They were enormous tubes half covered in sand which resembled what a giant’s failed attempt at plumbing might look like.

“Say… what do you think those are, Eus?” I ask absentmindedly.
“I dunno… they look like giant pipes to me”
“Right, pipes”
“Right”
“…”
“…”
“Don’t you think they could be something else?”
“Like what?”
“I dunno…maybe an abandoned recycling plant?”
“You mean like one of those car compactor ones?”
“No… I mean the ones that….recycle…pipes”
“Oh…I see”
“Yeah…”
“I suppo-No. I think they are just pipes”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right”

So Eus and I spend some more time staring dumbfounded at the recy-er- PIPES with a sense of utter disbelief and lack of an idea of what to do.

Happily -er actually- unfortunately the sweet silence was broken by a strange echoing and mumbling from the pipe complex.

“Well….if…I…ever…get the chance to find out where this all leads, then I’m never making another trip through that Dryer again. I mean, honestly, who decides to look into their dryer after doing laundry anyways? I mean, theres never anything there… well except in mine theres a big hole that leads into these weird pipes and…”

Within moments a girl crawls through the pipe-work with sunglasses, blue hair and a curious expression on her face.

Of course, since we have no prepared response to the situation, Eus and I just stare at her. Which then continues the awkward silence which she breaks with ease- only to make it more awkward.

“You guys are all muddy and dirty. Is that normal?”

Yet again, I find myself at a loss for words. What do I say to someone who just crawled through what appears to me a mile worth of piping that extended from her household laundry machine?
-Maybe I’ll try- did you lose one of your socks?
-Or- Fall into your laundry machine? Yeah, happens to me every tuesday.

Before I can come up with an adequate response, she continues with a follow-up comment that has rung in my ears ever since then.

“You’re so weird”

That’s my line, you dryer-crawling-laundry-fetish-bimbo.