𝐋'𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐥 𝐝𝐮 𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞

Chapter 1: X Marks the Spot

The ideas of souls perplexed you.

What was a soul, could it be contained?

You often had these thoughts when working in the workshop. Anything that happened or popped up in your mind became conversations between you or even the little doll you were building.

You'd stare into the eyes, or places eyes should be at the puppet you made, acting out little stories for them. A little childish, but it was perfect for passing time in such an isolated environment.

It was nice having a business, almost no one came in person, only occasionally you'd get the usual tourist or curious person. Most of the time, you'd just ship them off and that kept the shop closed. It was a solitary line of work and you always liked it that way. You were the only worker and took on an assistant every once in a while. They didn't last long with your long hours of work and you found yourself to be a solitary man.

Maybe you could take on a new one soon, someone that would stay. It was a silly idea, you'd probably get too ticked off of having another person around, they wouldn't last until lunch at this point in your career.

You've busied yourself with a new project, one for an online buyer. It was a medium-sized black rabbit with bright yellow eyes. You had to make the body out of wood for the limbs, and fabric for the torso.

Most techniques you used were very old-fashioned. The traditional style had mostly come from your mother and grandmother's stories and art they had created when they lived in the Czech countryside.

Making puppets with wooden controllers and characters of pure ancient fairy tales that you could give life to was what you made, reminiscent of your culture. And that's how you spent your days now, in your thirties making perfect big and small marionettes.

You were focused particularly on finishing the head. The eyes needed to be perfectly shaped, but they didn't embody what a rabbit's real eyes. When you look at a rabbit, you see a small, furry thing with mindless eyes. Ones with a round shape and dilated pupils.

This one of course wasn't the shape or stature of one, so you gave it a soul. Every time you made a doll you poured humanity into it, personifying it beyond words.

It was an art, something you strive to excel in.

You felt it was time to begin to learn how to give such things life, not for money or fame, but just how it would feel to see something so ethereal.

And after all the years, you finally had the style of art you always wanted. The peak of your art, but needed a little something different to perfect it.

As you finish it, you lay it down carefully on a stand giving it all the air it needs to dry. And when putting away your tools, you stare at it. You expect the little králík to move, just a little. Maybe it was all the caffeine or just your usual fucked up mood, but you wanted it so badly to move, zeroing in on the goat-like eyes.

After all is done, and you check everything as usual, it's time to go with the already-set sun in the sky. You take a beat-up leather bag with you, with any busy work you might give yourself later out of boredom, and you lock the front door ending the day.

The area around your store is eclectic with little shops spanning from fortune telling to divorce lawyers lodged into small business rooms. You look across the street at the crystal shop as some teenagers come and go around, talking excitedly amongst themselves.

You'd always loved rock and crystals, they were the most perfect, small things. When you were younger you liked them a lot more and wanted to be a geologist. The amount of them you'd receive as presents from family and friends was baffling and had you quickly losing interest until you could only barely remember their names.