The Marionette by the snow

The moment their eyes gazed at each other with widened eyes and stiff bodies, the shadows started to appear. They stood at the end of a track way just behind a small wooden gate. Thin trees surrounded them. Its branches stretched outwardly over an empty ground covered in snow. The shades darkened the ground forming a veil of darkness against the cloudless sky.

The girl stood up slowly from the snow looking at the man with pursed lips. She covered a small box that was huddled in her arms. It resembled her maroon robe that covered most of her body from neck to foot. The man stood stiff before her. He held the straps of his knapsack with both hands.

“Sorry to scare you, Miss.” The man apologized as he brushed the back of his neck.

The girl narrowed her eyes. She looked at him from foot to head while moving backwards away from him.

“Who are you?” she inquired him.

“I am just a traveler, Miss.” The man answered hoarsely. “I just came here to –”

“Who are you?” the girl repeated the question.

“Cato Durman.”

“Who are you?!” the girl exclaimed as she gritted her teeth.

“Miss, calm down, I am not here to hurt you,” Cato claimed as he offered a hand to the girl. The girl in reply grasped her possession tightly. She breathed heavily against her mouth while her long brown hair covered almost half of her face.

“Who are you!” she snarled against him. The man moved backwards with both hands before him. For a moment, he stopped breathing to glance at the girl before her. Her hair and robe were filled with snow while a raw pungency escaped from her mouth to his nose. When he bumped a small bricked fence, the girl turned around quickly. She gave Cato one last look before she rushed into the woodland.

“Wa –wait!” Cato cried out but the girl had already vanished into the darkness of the forest.

As the sun descended beneath the thick grove, the shadows began to emerge. From the ground they rose up to the trees veiling it with their shade. Some of the trees became one with the twilight while the rest took the form of biomorphic creatures that has their branches stretched outwardly into the dim sky.

At the centre of the forest just before a large crack boulder was a small clearing where the girl stayed. She sat there huddling herself against a small bonfire she had made from dead leaves and small rotten branches. Her possession was camouflaged by her long, loosely held maroon robe.

As the crickets began to play their music, the girl ate the roasted corpse of a rabbit. Her eyes never left her possession on her lap while her hand brushed the sharp edge of a wooden spear. So when she heard a faint crack, she rose quickly to her feet. She placed her possession tucked under her right arm while stiffly holding her spear on her left.

“Who are you?” she shouted as she stepped forward. Her hand was tightly gripping the spear.

“Who are you?” she repeated. From a small leeway between two trees came a bent figure. His upper body was filled with layers of snow. He looked at her through blue goggle and spoke. His words, though, were muffled by the scarf tied tightly around his mouth and nose. As the figure stood up straight straightening his knapsack, he gave a wave to the girl.

“Who are you?” the girl shouted gritting her teeth.

Slowly, the man took away his scarf that covered his mouth to pull up the goggles to his forehead.

“Cato Durman,” he replied as he stared at the girl.

The girl paused for a moment to look at him. She raised her head, revealing her pale grey eyes and her light brown skin. She took a few steps forward, her breath partly ruptured, stopping less than a meter away from him. With it, she raised her spear at him nudging his thick black beard.

“Who are you?” the man replied hoarsely with a small grin on his face. “You had asked me many times already. So can you tell me who you are?”

The girl simply stared at him. His eyes were now filled with a void of darkness, his skin now seemed flat and solid.

“Who …are… you?” she replied slowly as the crickets suddenly stopped their melody. From it, a billow of wind raged against the thick grove blowing away the dancing fires. Above, the moon rose from its exile brightening the forest as it revealed their biomorphic forms against the twilight.

The girl turned her head around, breathing gruffly through her mouth. Her eyes widened as she witness a number of fish-like shadows hovering above the trees. Its outlines glowed with a small radiance. As the shades passed the boulder, a crack was heard behind it. This crack was followed by another, then another, and another until they formed a single sound through the groves.

“Who …are… you?” the girl whispered as she pulled her spear away from the mouth of the man but it held back. Cato had taken hold of it.

“Who are you!” she screamed as she faced, with a gaping mouth, to a person who was once Cato. From a man, he had now taken the form of a large puppet. Its body seemed small against the clothing and the knapsack it held. It made wooden clicks through the bolts that held its body together.

The girl pulled her spear away from Cato fiercely but he moved forward. Once the moonshine illuminated its face, the girl gazed in horror its dead-like eyes that seem to stare blankly before an empty space. Its small mouth seems to quiver attempting to speak through its wooden body.

“Gib… mi,” the puppet Cato said as he pulled the spear away from her. The girl fell forcefully to the snow moving backwards as Cato positioned the spear above its head, its tips targeting the girl’s chest.

“Gib…mi,” the puppet spoke as he stroked her.

From the scream that came from her mouth, the forest was veiled in darkness as the branches of the trees had block off the sky. The moon no longer gave the forest its light for the branches had joined together. Their once thin branches had transformed into thick root-like object in which they sought for each other.

They had formed an almost ceiling-like structure that separated the night sky from the darkness of the forest.

“Are you?” the girl murmured to her own self to what it seemed an hour. When she opened her eyes she saw a close-up face of a puppet before her. Its large dead eyes stared at her intently. Its thin wavy hair brushed against her shoulders.

She shrieked kicking the puppet’s head off from its body. Hurriedly, she rose to her feet and made her way out of the flat ground by the boulder.

As she entered the dark woods, she took one look behind. She noticed a large number of marionettes wrestling Cato for the spear. Their bodies were much smaller than the puppet Cato. Yet on their bellies lay another doll-like face. Its large pink eyes blinked continuously as it murmured wordlessly. At the distance behind the boulder, more had arrived.

Their walk resembled that of a man who had walked off from his wheelchair. It was slow and sluggish, waving to and fro to the sides. Before the sight would disappear through the thick woods, the puppets stared their large blank eyes at her.

With the fishes, she ran within the dark woods. She saw no light penetrating through the thick branches that shielded them from the evening sky. The cricket’s melody was replaced by the branches that scraped each other’s bark.

Behind her, she heard the footsteps of the puppets against the snow. It resembled that of a ticking clock where the sound it created was faint, almost soundless. Suddenly, the shadows of the fishes illuminated by its small radiance began to dissolve in the surrounding darkness. One by one, these shadows were pulled back.

When the girl looked back, she saw the marauding shadows of the puppets snatching up the tail of the fishes. Behind her, the lifeless eyes of the marionettes glowed against the nightfall.

At the far end came a light, faint like the first sunlight. As she drew near, the girl noticed the place as the small flat ground with the wooden gate and the thin trees. By her arms, she felt the soft beating of her heart. Slowly, she stretched out her hand clutching the opening at the far end. Open, close, open, close, she repeated with her hand imagining reaching the place.

As she felt her body smashing against the snow at the flat plain before the wooden gate, the shadows of the fishes dispersed outward from the dark woods. They floated in the air before their shady fragile shapes scattered into an explosion of snow.

Behind it came the marauding mass of puppets. The girl crawled farther away from the entrance to the dark woods. She witnessed as the puppets came out of the darkness into the open plains. Their hands that stretched out transformed into branches outwardly. Their bodies turned into trunks in which their small pale heads was covered with foliage. The doll-like face at their belly blossomed into flowers.

One by one, she witnessed all of these until to the point that the wood’s entrance was block by a large bended tree. Its thick branches speared the ground. Through this, as the girl slowly stood up from the events that she witnessed, a spear came from the woods.

The puppet figure of Cato leapt from the bended tree only to explode into a cluster of withered leaves. Yet, on the soft snowy ground, the spear struck the box the girl had held precious. The box opened to reveal a small beating heart that continued to throb slowly as the sunlight embraced the morning. The branches that had blocked the night moved away from each other to let the light shine within the dark woods.

On the centre of it all, the girl lay on the snow. Her arms and legs spread outward. Her face directed to the box just inches away from its face. Her dead hollow eyes gazed towards the beating heart that was inflicted by the spear. The girl lay there still without a single movement as the first snow fell on her wooden body.