Once Upon a Story [ HIATUS ]

Welcome to the Puppet Show

Today's inspiration: the cordyceps fungus.

Word count: 520
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The stage is dark, and the curtains are drawn closed. The crowd anxiously waits for the show to start. Among them, the Queen sits high on the center balcony.

Suddenly, a light beams on stage. In a burst of glitter, a young child enters the scene. She twirls her hat off her head and bows dramatically to the audience.

"Welcome, ladies, children and elders, to a show never seen before!"

The crowd roars with applause and excitement. The child spots the Queen from the balcony and smirks.

"And how could I forget our most honoured guest of the evening?" she gasps. With a snap of her fingers, a cane twirls into existence. She points its curved edge to the center balcony.

"Our Majesty the Queen has joined us tonight!" Cheers and acclamation rise to her ears, earning a smile for their praise.

"And now, I present to you: The Puppet Show."

The curtains pull apart, revealing an empty stage. From the ceiling drops a doll, a puppet. She wears a lovely dress and a crown stop her head of knitted hair. Her eyes, frozen as black buttons, look aimlessly ahead. Her arms slowly lengthen to her side, moving up and down as a wave, starting the first step of her performance. Tied to thin strings, she flits and floats on stage.

Her body twirls into endless pirouettes, and she leaps across the stage, one grand jeté after another. But with each step, the strings attached to her limbs fray. They thin and stretch like spongy hair until she's free.

The puppet freezes in a relevé and dances as if nothing happened. Her steps are light as she travels on point. A faint pitter-patter echoes from her feet, accompanied by the delightful image of her arms, softly flapping like swan wings.

Vines sprout from her trail and curl around each other as they stretch toward the puppet, searching for her on the empty stage. She escapes their grasp, time and time again, gliding on the wooden plain.

Her steps grow frantic and stiff, controlled as if her hands never left the strings. At the center of it all sprouts a stalk. It stands from the nape of her neck, forcing her arms and legs to a crawl. Even the vibrant hazelnut of her skin fades, matted with puffs of grey and white.

She lands in point, posed in arabesque and never moves again. Vines curl around her ankle, slithering up her leg and wrapping her waist tight. Her right leg drops, and her arms cradle together against her chest. The grey masses spread, covering her face and tangling her hair. The crown atop her head is gone, resting on a bulb.

Bloomed from her neck, it stands tall above the puppet and slowly opens. Glitter rains down and wisps through the watching crowd. The awe as the golden powder reached their skin, sticking to it forever more.

And on the stage, surrounded by the forest underbrush, is a lasting silhouette, a shell with no will of its own, taken over by a single entity, an organism supreme with a crown in hand and an army of followers at its feet.