Story About A Puppet (Its All I Had Laying About)

Sussex lay in the all too familiar shadowy depths of a gloomy timber box; the only light snuck in threw a long thin crack in the door directly above where Sussex lay. Sussex pondered his next performance as the van transporting both him and the box violently swerved slamming Sussex once again into the wall.

Any passer by could see the van was on the verge of falling apart and it would be unwise course of action to drive so hasty. The engine coughed and spluttered as if it was begging the old man to slow down; however the old man took no notice. This particular old man was particularly blind, though he would never admit it and as usual had his face pressed against the window to make the most of his failing vision.

Sussex lay in the box contemplating the particulars of his next performance, when the van shot around another tight corner, sending unfortunate Sussex crashing into the side of the box. Sussex felt pain flood his wooden body, as he reached toward where he expected arm to be he found something very different, something that made poor Sussex sick to his wooden stomach.

Where his wooden arm had previously been there was a splintered stub and fragments of his former arm strewn across the bottom of the box in which he lay. Sussex lay their grasping his arm and quietly gasping when the box door swung open drowning Sussex in blinding white light.

Sussex felt familiar fingers grasp tightly around his torso in into the air, at this time Sussex's eyes still felt as if they were on fire. The old man lifted Sussex closer so he could inspect the splintered remains of Sussex's former wooden arm. Sussex slowly regained vision to see the concerned sunken eyes of the puppets master staring at him. The puppet master was a short man hardly taller than a post box. His head was predominately bald with only a few clumps of persistent grey hair clinging to his glinting scalp.

Sussex could almost feel the old mans eyes searching over him. The old man let out a lengthy monotone groan as he looked at him "this is no good" the old man muttered in a voice that had suggested he had been chain smoking and eating glass for the last 70 years.

The old still clutching Sussex with his wrinkly hands with hairy knuckles, it was possible that his hands had more hair on them then his head. The man slowly strolled to a nearby park alive with the sounds children playing, still clutching poor Sussex. The old man made his way through the park past the playground, to a solitary bench under the shade of an enormous green tree.

Sussex's mind was racing as the old man carefully placed him onto the bench, trying to make sense of everything that had just happened and was still happening now. The old man sat with Sussex on the bench for a short while just before blurting out a quick "goodbye" and then scurrying of back to the van.

Sussex sat there for some time days and nights passed, people passed to lots of countless people. A lot of the people passed the lonely bench on a routine basis, Sussex envied these people somewhere