When I was twelve, my father gave me a puppet. I suppose it was because he thought it was fair, that his last parting gift to me was what I was to him. Five years later and it still sits on my shelf, its hollow eye sockets in stark contrast against its tangled blonde hair, the same kind of hair that my father passed on to me.
As I sit there on the wonky little bed, looking up at the puppet, I wonder.
I wonder why I let my father tell me that I wanted to study law, or that I preferred winter over spring. But most of all I wonder why I could never break away from the strings that held me back until the puppeteer himself had died.
Only one thing is clear in my mind, a small piece of clarity amongst the fog. The puppet has to go.
I let out a breath as I push myself up from the bed, uneasily. It's one thing to be controlled your entire life, but when you're left to move on your own, it's admittedly hard.
Walking the few paces to the bookshelf my eyes seize hold of the puppet immediately, and instinctively I reach out to grasp it in both my hands. It feels smaller, and emptier than I remember it being. Its dress is the only thing that has kept its shape - a blue cotton material. I can't stop looking at the dark spaces of where its eyes never were.
'What do I do now?' I ask under my breath. I know I can't keep it here - this puppet reminds me too greatly of the past. It absolutely reeks of it. So I find a worn tea towel in the linen cupboard and use it to wrap up the puppet delicately, like Dad never would have. I hold it close to my chest, just like he never would have done. And I take it outside, untethered into the world, just like he never did.
On my way out, I see a pair of gardening scissors laying near the daisy seed packet I've been meaning to plant but haven't. I slip the scissors into my hoodie pocket and begin to walk. I walk until my body betrays me and I'm forced to stop, to sit and breathe in, feel my heart pounding against my chest, my arms gripping onto the bundle I carry. Then I get up and continue along the pavement, all the time the sun getting further and further away from me.
By six-thirty it's already dark. Stormy clouds roll their way across the sky and I can feel the shadows of night creatures scampering across the pavement, restless, always moving. In the lamplight I can barely make out the lettering carved out on the smooth stone, but I know it's there.
I know it's there because I've been here before, cried here before.
I'm here because I have too many questions for him, and he knows too many of my answers.
Kneeling down next to his grave, I know my purpose. My fingers graze the soft dirt beside me, I pick it up, watch as it falls through my fingers. And then I start to dig.
When I've decided that the ditch I've made in the ground is just big enough, I unwrap my puppet, carefully, gently. I take out the scissors from my pocket and one by one, I cut the four strings that have been designed to control it. Free of its restraints, it lays limp and small and broken in my hands. Then I take the puppet and place her in the ground next to my father.
As I finish pushing the dirt over her, the sky opens up above me and the rain starts to flow freely from the sky. It soaks through my clothes and into my skin. I think I can hear footsteps behind me, a muted shout. All of a sudden I'm surrounded by torchlight and numbness.
I feel so, so cold.
Someone grips my shoulder, tells me to go home.
But I don't move, I can't move, because the puppet is already buried beneath the ground and I'm left crying near both of their graves.
