[EternalPen]

The carpenter shaved wooden ribbons off of the block he held; each stroke of his tools was careful and delicate. He made sure he never made a single mistake, causing him to often spend hours on one single limb. A leg or an arm took him all day, a foot or hand took him a weekend, and the head he created nearly took an entire week. He had yet to piece it together or even paint it after that, but he wanted to be proud of his craftsmanship.

He was working on the body, now. He was carving a much larger piece of wood, not wanting to work on any one thing too long, lest he make a mistake. He was trying to take a break from the tiny, fragile fingers he had finished creating yesterday.

His creations were picture-perfect, and to keep them that way he had to make the fingers bend like a human’s fingers did. The wrist and shoulders had to turn, the toes able to curl, the eyebrows raise, the teeth show in a smile or grimace, the eyes close and open, the knees bend, and the hardest of all, the back had to be able to arch over. The creation had to be able to bend over to pick things up.

His masterpiece was beyond amazing, but the strings…

This collection of wood had to be able to hold many, many strings. Fifty or more… most likely much more… maybe over one hundred. So many parts of his artwork had to move in unison that no single man could make it truly come alive. It had to be given to museum or placed on a shelf or something of that sort.

This child of his, it could not be played with or used. No, this was beyond entertainment, beyond a simple smile, beyond a profession, and beyond a piece of art. It was this man’s soul poured into a wooden child... into a wooden man…

…Into a grinning, wooden puppet.


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Hal sighed. He had always wanted a job doing something he loved, but never expected to be paid so little doing it. As an unpublished author, telling stories to others made him feel alive. As an unpublished author, getting others to hear his stories was hard. As an unpublished author, feeding himself was proving to be quite difficult, too.

Hal sighed because he had finished writing his first novel six months ago, and hadn’t heard even the slightest peep about getting it anywhere. He knew things like this took time, but he was not what one would call a patient man.

His steady job, the one he was getting paid for, was beginning to grow tiresome and boring. As if it wasn’t already. Hal wanted a change in scenery, a change in life, a change in career.

He worked at a company that created and sold various strings. The included products were things like yarn, thread, string, fishing line, and ropes. It was all Hal could do as the man who took in orders and relayed them to the guys who shipped them out not to take one of the ropes from Dr. Knots Strings and Ropes Inc. and hang himself with it.

Hal was growing impatient of his low status and even lower paycheck, and wished his book would get published so he could become an instant millionaire… as if that were the way things worked.

He spent his days behind the decrepit, stone-age computer playing endless hours of solitaire, dozing off, and taking an occasional order. One of those dull days he had decided to make up a story, which he typed and continued to work on for a very long time.

He had his first unpublished book now. He had entitled it “Maverick Zero” and thought it was cool at the time, but wondered if his twelve-year-old half had chosen a name that kept the book from being published. He had tried many different names, but stuck with the original. He didn’t want anyone changing or ruining any part of his story; title included; an attitude that was sure to keep him from ever being published.

Hal reached to his left and slid open one of the drawers on his desk. There lay his son’s portable video game system. Jack had gotten in trouble for playing it at school, so Hal kept it with him wherever he went to ensure that the restriction from the device was finite until the punishment ended. Hal wondered if he could figure out how to turn it on, and if so, wondered if it would be enough to get him through today.

He fiddled with the buttons until one of them forced the screen to explode into color and sound. Hal jumped and looked around his little office, hoping no one outside the door had heard him. He looked everywhere for the volume, and after a frantic moment was able to turn the sound off.

The game didn’t interest Hal that much. He played the role of a katana-wielding samurai for ten minutes. After his first death he shut the system off. He sighed again and wondered if there was something constructive he could do.

Just then, the phone rang. Hal sat up, took a deep breath, and answered it calmly.

“Dr. Knots Strings and Ropes Inc.” he said.

“Yes,” The elderly, male voice on the other end spoke, “I need string.”

“Well,” Hal started, “You’ve called the right place. I can take your order right away!”

“I need string for a puppet. I need string that you attach to the puppet to make him… move.”

“Well, sir, we normally don’t do house calls, but I think I can make an exception!” Hal wanted anything so long as it got him out for a little while. “I think I know just the kind of string you need, too! I can send it to you by the spool or an exact measurement.”

“Oh… I don’t like measurements.”

“So by the spool, then? How many would you like?”

“How much is in a spool?”

“Depends on the size. I would think you are aiming for a small, though, since this is for a puppet, correct?”

“Yes.”

“So do you need one spool?”

“This is a rather… complicated puppet. I’ll need more than usual.”

“How about this? I’ll bring a crate full and you can pick out just how much you need!”

“Oh, excellent! When can you have them over?”

“Depends on where you live! If it’s not close by, I’ll have to have to have an exact number and it’ll take a few weeks.”

The elderly man gave Hal directions to his house. Hal was glad to see if was close enough to drive to. He hoped his boss would allow him to make a house call. He would defend himself with the fact that it might boost their customer service, which would boost their sales in the overall run. Anything to get out of the stuffy little office.

“Oh, one more thing.” The elderly man said.

“Yes, sir?” Hal asked.

“When you reach my house, the door will be unlocked. Just walk in and call for me, I’ll be there.”

“And what was your name, sir?”

He heard a dark chuckle echo softly from the lungs of a body that was near the point of failing. The man coughed once, quietly, before he spoke his last word and the line fell silent.

“Pinocchio.”


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Hal had received his permission, loaded up one crate of small, various colored spools of “puppet string”, and left the building. He drove on the paved roads until he took the necessary turn to complete the businesses transaction. He found himself bumping up and down on a dusty road, the pebbles outside all cracking and splitting under the weight of Hal’s truck. The noise was constant and refreshing. It reminded Hal of the countryside, where he used to live before his wife died.

He loved nothing more than to be outside… but not anymore. He missed it quite a bit, but everything now reminded him of his loving wife. The trees swaying in the gentle winds, the timid, curious animals, the smell of the grass that collected in your hair and under your feet, and the myriad of shapes and pictures formed by clouds as they blew by at a turtle’s pace. All of those things and more reminded him of what she looked and acted like.

The worst of it all, though, was the feel of the sun on his skin. It warmed his body and brought color to his skin the same way she did every time she grabbed his hand. He hated it. It felt like her, but it wasn’t her and never would be. He often wondered, through all the similarities, if she had become a part of the sunshine and trees when she died.

Sometimes he heard her letting him know she missed him and loved him when a breeze caught his ear. He knew people made pills for that, but it was the one thing he allowed her to do. Everything else he shied away from until he couldn’t take the enclosed cage of an office or house any longer. This was one of those moments.

Hal sighed again. He thought of Jack, and wondered how his son had taken his mother’s death. Jack never ever shut up, Hal remembered with a hint of a smile, but now he barely talks. I wonder how he does at school. His grades are the same, but I never see much of his friends. I never see much of anything from him anymore…

Hal made a mental note to have a talk with Jack later on. He couldn’t bear to see Jack waste his life over something that his coward of a father was too scared to ever talk about. He knew life would never be the same again, no matter how much time passed. But… but he had to try. He was sure the moment he gave up trying to be happy he would see her temper in some nature form like everything else. Maybe a thunderstorm would hit… or knowing her, a tornado.

Hal smiled as he remembered her temper tantrums. That was something she never outgrew, and Hal loved it. She would get so mad and her voice would hit notes so high Hal occasionally wondered if she was really a bat. She would stomp her foot in an attempt at expressing anger and irritation, but at five foot ten compared to his six foot four, she just looked cute.

Hal sighed again. He often found himself at this point. Remembering everything that made him fall in love with her only to realize she was never coming home…

The house he was supposed to stop at flew by and Hal slammed his brakes. The loose dirt below his vehicle spun his truck ever so slightly, but enough that he hit a pothole at just the right angle to bounce the truck. Hal groaned in annoyance, anger, and horror as the small crate in the back flew over the tailgate and onto the road. He heard it hit the road, and it didn’t sound good at all.

Hal left his truck running, but jumped out and ran to the crate. It was completely broken, and the spools were everywhere. All of them were tangled in briars and thrown everywhere. After searching for a moment, he found the only undamaged string. It was wrapped around a branch from a nearby tree and just hanging there. It wasn’t tangled, no knots or tears, so it was the best. The problem was in the spool. The spool was gone.

Hal didn’t care. He began to gather the string. After he finished, he climbed into his truck and pulled into the driveway of the house he had been directed to arrive at. He exited his vehicle after gather the loose string and entered the house.

“Pinocchio?” he called.

A chuckle crept its way into his ear from the room to his left. He entered the room to find the old man he had conversed with. The man was working diligently with an extravagant wooden puppet. It looked just like a real person, and stood at a good three feet tall. The old man was painting its eyes. It looked completely finished, save the eyes that were being created as he watched.

“Here I am, dad.” The old man said. “I’m a real boy now.”

Hal dropped a loose chuckle of his own, but did not find the statement at all humorous. He wondered if the old man was right in the head.

“String?” the elderly man asked.

Hal held out the string. It was wrapped poorly onto a cracked spool of thread. The old man glanced at if over his shoulder and continued to paint the puppet.

“Where’s the rest of it?” He asked. “I though you were bringing a whole crate?”

“Hal thought hard and fast before speaking again. “I thought about it, and this should be the best string for you to use. So I brought it over.”

The old man sighed, placed his paintbrush in a jar of filthy, paint-diluted water. He turned around and reached out his frail, aged hand. The skin clung loosely to his bones and his hand shook ever-so-slightly as it hovered there, waiting for the string.

Hal handed the spool to the man and examined him as the man so examined the spool. The olive-skinned stranger was old and faintly hunch-backed. Hal supposed it had come from years of bending over puppets as he painted countless pairs of eyes. His hair was snow-white, though only a handful of strands remained. They waved and bent like tendrils as every slight breeze hit them. He wore a long, black suit, as if he were dressed for a funeral, and Hal noticed he donned no wedding ring. He wondered if that were due to his obsession over the puppets.

The man looked at Hal and smiled. His teeth were pearl white where they reached down, but yellow and browned where they touched his gums. His nose was pointed and short and his eyebrows arched upwards. He looked like a child who had just found a long-lost toy. Hal hoped the smile and the sparkle in his dull-green eyes meant he was happy with what he got.

“Like it?” Hal asked, returning the smile.

“Yes!” He said.

He turned around and began unraveling the string from the spool. Something about the way the man worked fascinated Hal and he watched he man attach strings to every moving joint on he puppet. Hal never lost interest, though it took the man well over three hours.

The man stepped back and giggled. He clapped his hands together in glee.

“It’s done!” He exclaimed, hitting a high note on the second word and dragging it out at the end. “How much do I owe you?” he asked Hal as he turned.

Hal couldn’t break the man’s spirit, so he answered exactly how much he thought it was worth.

“Free?” The old man asked him.

Hal nodded, smiling.

The man spun in a slow circle, laughing the whole time.

“I’ll get us some tea, boy!” He said to Hal. “Wait here!”

Hal smiled and bent down near the puppet to examine the craftsmanship. He as careful not to even touch the thing, but he looked it over. It appeared to Hal as if it were wearing a robin-hood suit. It was clothed in green overalls with golden buttons holding them in place. It had green, pointed shoes and a hat that matched them. A smaller replica of a peacock feather stuck out of the back of the hat. The puppet’s face was painted with such detail that it looked real. Hal wondered how the man’s shaky hands had done all that.

There were many puppets. Each one in the building was so real and life-like. The puppet Hal had looked at a moment ago didn’t seem to come close to these. He touched one and it was soft. It felt like touching a baby’s skin. It had no indications that said it was made of wood, and it looked like it was a real child. The only difference between it and a real child were the strings on its limbs. The old man was good.

Thinking of the man, Hal wondered what was taking him. He walked into the kitchen as he called out.

“Hey, Pinocchio! You need some help in… there?” Hal whispered the last word in horror.

There, on the floor, was the old man. He was wheezing and shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. Hal ran to him and fell on his knees. He slid the last few inches until he nearly bumped into the old man’s back.

“Are you alright?!” Hal asked frantically. “Do you need help?”

The man looked up at Hal and whispered, “Puppet.”

“It’s okay! What about you?” Hal asked, still anxiously trying to find what was wrong with the man.

“You.” The man wheezed out, trying to speak. “You. Take my… take Samuel. Care for… the puppet. They are real… just need… love.”

The man’s eyes rolled back into his head, and his body stopped convulsing. Hal whipped out his cell phone and dialed nine-one-one.


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Hal was riding home in his truck, Samuel the puppet in his passenger seat. The old man had died of a heart attack. Hal wondered if the man had a heart attack from the joy, or if a mouse had skittered across the floor while he was making tea…

Either way, he was dead and riding someplace new in the back of an ambulance with a light blue blanket covering him from head to toe. Hal hadn’t planned on taking the man’s puppet, but it was his dying wish. What could he have done? Said no?

He pulled into his driveway as the sun began to set behind him. He often wondered if the things that ran through his head were the same or opposite of the thoughts that ran through the heads of the people who were watching the sun rise right now. He entered the house.

“Hey, dad.” Jack said.

“Hey, pro.” He said back.

“Dad,” Jack began to ask, “What’s that?”

Hal looked at the puppet in his arms. Funny… he hadn’t remembered taking it out of the truck. He must have forgotten. A lot had happened. He placed it on the couch next to Jack and walked into his bedroom.

“It’s a puppet, kiddo.” He said, “Check it out. I got from a guy I know, it’s pretty cool…”

Hal retreated to his bedroom, climbed into his bed, threw off his shoes, and thought. He thought about the day, the office, the novel he wrote, the publishers, the strange robin-hood puppet, and the old man. He thought about how he watched the old man die. How he held felt the man’s last breath hit his face. It smelled like coffee, the last thing he had ever gotten to drink. He thought about how the man died less than three feet from him, how he couldn’t stop it, how he didn’t want it to happen, and what it felt like to touch his hand and feel the touch of ice.

He thought about how his wife had died the exact same way.

And for the first time since her death, Hal cried himself to sleep.


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Hal awoke the next morning not feel that great. He had slept on a soggy pillow, felt dehydrated, and wasn’t going into work. There was nothing that would keep him there today; he needed a little time to himself.

His son had already left for school and Hal was relieved to know that his kid could take care of himself with his father so unstable. Hal skipped breakfast, skipped a shower, and didn’t care to clean up around the house. He changed clothes, brushed his teeth, and left. He hopped into his truck and turned his head. Something green was in his peripheral vision.

Ah. The puppet.

“Hi, Samuel.” He said.

The puppet was staring at him, but of course it wouldn’t answer him.

“Do you mind if I call you Sam?”

Hal cranked the engine and the sudden burst of mechanic life made the puppet fall forward. Hal caught it before it fell onto the floorboard and set him upright. He placed the seatbelt securely around the puppet and looked at it again.

“Hey, Sam.” Hal asked it, “Did I bring you in last night or dream that?”

Sam didn’t answer.

“I’m leaving you in the car today, okay?” Hal said.

He put the truck in reverse and the puppet’s head fell forward. The eyes shut and the lips fell downward. It looked disappointed.

“Hey, Sam!” Hal said, playing along with the funny coincidence. “Don’t be like that. We’ll go places some other time. Just not today.”

Something that looked like a tear fell from the puppet’s head, but Hal ignored it. It was probably a flake of wood or something. Maybe a little paint came off…

Hal drove to the park and stopped his truck there. He got out, shut the door, and stared at the park. A good walk would help him today. He took one step forward before a young child held tight in the constraints of her mother’s arms squealed “Puppet!” with delight.

Hal looked down to see his arms cradling the puppet the same way he had cradled Jack when he was only two. Hal would have dropped the puppet out of surprise, but the moment his eyes met with Samuel’s gaze something overcame him. Something that reminded him dearly of his wife. He took the little puppet’s tiny hand in his and squeezed it gently.

“Don’t worry, Samuel.” He whispered lovingly to the puppet, “I won’t drop you, Daddy’s got you.”

The little hand squeezed back, reassuringly.

When a love of yours is seemingly lost,
You lose a piece of your heart…
But when you find her in the world around you,
That’s when you’ve fallen apart.

NOTE: This story has two parts. The link to part two is here.

[Peppy]

Well, you dramatically improved on your action and thought process in writing. It seems as thought you pulled the necessities to tell this story. The whole piece is EP-ly done, the way you always intend on making your story. The story has a slow build up, forcussing on the mudanity of his life. I'm pretty sure it was your intention, though. The feeling you provoked felt real - plausible that I'm convinced they are real people. Her temper tantrums, that was funny.

Anywho, this piece still need a bit more editting. You're still having dialogue problems, I don't know it you want my help for that.

Good piece, EternalPen.

His creations were picture-perfect, and to keep them that way he had to make the fingers bend like a human’s fingers did.

The bolded part you really don't need.

The wrist and shoulders had to turn, the toes able to curl, the eyebrows raise, the teeth show in a smile or grimace, the eyes close and open, the knees bend...


I think it needs some "To"s.

He didn’t want anyone changing or ruining any part of his story; title included; an attitude that was sure to keep him from ever being published.

“Yes,” (<--If there's a comma there - you need a small letter there-->) The elderly, male voice on the other end spoke, “I need string.”

“Well,” Hal started,(<--____-->) “You’ve called the right place. I can take your order right away!”

You're still having dialogue issues.


“Yes,” the elderly, male voice on the other end spoke, “I need string.”

“Well,” Hal started, “You’ve called the right place. I can take your order right away!”

businesses transaction.

business transaction would sound better. If you want it to sound like that, you can choose one of these two:

business' transaction

business's transaction

“Hal thought hard and fast before speaking again.

Something about the way the man worked fascinated Hal and he watched (t)he man attach…

He (w)as careful not to even touch the thing...

alright

This is just a tidbit. The one you are using is generally used in comics and advertisings, but in proper writing, you you "all right".

How he held felt the man’s last breath hit his face.

[EternalPen]

Eh, I can see ONE thing hasn't changed.

I have a girlfriend now, so it's a little difficult to do ANYTHING I used to. Especially write. I want my stuff to be good, so I will work on it, but I just dont think itll get worked on FAST. I'm trying, people!!

[RENA HANDS]

You mean ‘thought,’ here...I (thought) though you were bringing a whole crate?

You mean ‘the,’ here...Hal and he watched (the) he man attach strings to every moving joint on (the) he puppet.

Isn’t a wondrous thing how the mind reads one word, but the eyes see the opposite...lol?

I think you mean ‘was,’ here...He (was) as careful not to even touch the thing, ?

Ah...the man’s body (stopped) convulsing or it (started) to convulse as his eyes rolled back into his head?

I think you mean ‘feeling,’ here...Hal awoke the next morning not (feeling) that great.

Wow, what a splendid story you have here.

I will rate the first, 4/5.

[EternalPen]

OH!

I WONDERED why that was happening. Turns out my keyboard is lagging! =(

[timtornado3721]

Found an error here:

Hal awoke the next morning not feel that great.

Should be feeling.

So far its turning out to be quite a scarer with the psychotic puppet and his creator's untimely and oddly coincidental death.