Idea
The Pun Tyrant
Twinkle Twinkle, little star...
"How I wish to be where you are." The man sighed, turning to the unfinished block of marble. It's contorns were brutishly caved in like cratters on the drog a just digged in to pratice bone burying. Something was amiss. The man threw his hands up in exhaspertion, knocking down a pile or broken-in wood. It was wrotting right out of the wall, the ceiling already half collapsed and covered only with a leather sheet and some nails.
"Oh beauty, my bone! Have you forsaken me?" The man cried out, to the room lit only by the moonlight of the bare window behind him. "I used to be a showman. Not a showman at the theater, wavings my arms are shoUTING HEAVY LINES!- to attract a semblance of a thrill, but someone who in simple contemplation would plant that thrill and grow it up the spine with each glare. The obsidian crow, the silvery antlers, the mountain rock cubs. Which one was it? Which one held the secret to my art?"
He walked to end of the room furthest away from the window and kneeled in front of the chest in the corner. There was already a bit of dust there, but then again, there was dust everywhere in this room, everwhere except the threshold of the window and the broken marble in the center of the room. As he opened the chest, an old squeaky toy popped out of it and the man couldn't help but stare down at it for a few moments, holding the chest open with his arm. Instinctively, he he turned his face to the door and yelled:
"Hey, boy, what did I say about coming in here?!" There was no response from beyond the rusty keyhole or the web-covered knob. The man chuckled lightly in defeat. "Oh, right. Maybe I should just stop putting these things back in the chest, it's not like anyone is going to hide them in here anymore..."
After taking out some of his tools, he put the chicken-shaped toy back into the chest.
Outside, the wind was still blowing, pushing along the empty branches of the old trees and knocking down a few of the vines that were creeping around the house. The man's stomach gurgled, but he shook his head. Not yet. Not until he finished. He could not abandon her just like that. Swallowing, the man approached the marble again, hammer and nail in hand. He stroke into the block blindly once more, hopping that old feeling would return once he began. But nothing came to him except some cracks of marble that cut him lightly above the shoulder. It was strange to see that red liquid on such a skin and bone shoulder, but it reminded the man that he was yet to take his daily glass of water. He burped lightly stinging his cracked lips, as if forcing him to notice the urgency of the matter, like he used to do to the little furbals.
He would knock on their trays and bowls with a cane, calling them out one by one: Mittens, Draco, Softy, Bubbles, Cinnamon, Meatball, Ice-cream, Meadow, Gilligan, Mickey, Toto, Ryder, Brownie, Purrs. Some had long tails and a taste for fish, others preferred to burrow in holes in the wall, others would place their hands on the man's knees and lick him in hopes of getting more food from his plate or would hide their squeak toys in his tool chest so that I could play with them even when it was time to work. All of them came eagerly, as if nothing else could make them happier ever since he'd picked them up and asked why they were hanging around an old retired man's house. All of them would stare blankly at the man, but in his heart he knew they were begging for a home: one they lost, or one they never had. Only one had spoken it though, only one confirmed it with a nod from her red-soaked head. One that always came late, always stopping to admire the man's past, spread in marble, stone, jewel and obsidian all over the once dust-ridden and beautiful corridors of his home. But her favorite ones were the saphires.
He brushed into the stone, trying to smoothen the blow he had stroken against the resource of art. It felt like he himself was playing with it with soft paws of his own, or nursing back to health the healthy bits of the little one's skin, as he bathed her. He had made many shapes out of many marble blocks like this before. He filled the space and a hole in his heart with what he could grasp of what was absent. His eyes were drawn to the last, a little cannary in cheap stone. The carvings and lines, the smoothing had left the old sensation of wings behind on the otherwise blank rock, the eyes stared into the same stars the man longed to reach with his heart. Sometimes, he forgot he wasn't there yet. he would wake up and greet the statue, "Good morning Meadow.", before recalling why the white stone wouldn't turn around to chirp. such beautiful chirpings! Why stars, why beauty, why did they forsake him?
The man sat down by the broken wooden wall and placed his hands on his head. He was done. He tried it all. But the last one had broken him. the last one,yes she who came so after he found his talent, she was the key to it. Why else would she cause him such pain in his chest? Why else was he unable to draw from the pool of the stars to carve that beautiful singing of hers into the marble block?
"Twinkle twinkle little star..." she used to sing happily as she played with some shapire marbles she toom from my desk. I would ask her what she was singing and she would just turn with that huge grin and tell me about the song, the story and how one day she would find her mommy and daddy with it. One day, they would come back and hear her beautiful singing from out the window and they would come and hug each other. She would go back to school make friend, and play with everyone. Show them the statues in the house, bring them over to display the tiny spahires she was holding... It all seemed so distant now... so faint....
But no! He could not let that be so faint! How could the man let go of it all, drop her into oblivion like he had been? He stood, fire in his heart and seemingly also in his belly and picked up his tools. This time, he could see. He could see as he stabbed into the stone to bring out the limbs of sweetness. As he swayed away layer upon layer to reveal curls and long hair beneath. He broke in a corwn of roses, he spent hours on every detail of smile line. And, for a final touch, he took the spahire marbles that were catching dust on his desk... and he began breaking th, decorating wings and hair and eyes and what else he could with the shards. In the end he smiled, barely feeling that pain growing in stomach and his chest. He walked to the window and gave one longing look into the stars.
"Maybe i have earned my ticket now. Maybe i have done right for you all, at last." He dropped on his knees, then on his belly, and his body felt cold...
.................................................................................................................................
"Are you sure this is the place? Nobody's seen anyone coming in or out of this place in a year. it's clearly abandoned!" Tiller complained to his wife. the whole place, with it's rather tall grass and collection of animal statues over barely-covered dirt holes was rather frightening.
"I remember now. I remember. After that accident, this is where... this is where she headed to. Our child. If there is even the smallest chance, Tiller, I..."
"I know dear, I know. I want to find her as much as you do and I hate myself for having to say this, but she... even if she survived that crash, she would have bled or starved to death. Even back home, nobody would go near her. Even you Hannah..."
The woman stopped. At that time... how could she have been so foolish? To throw away her child? Just because she was lost... just because it was hard and it was painful to bear that, that THING covering her skin... lepresy, she had to face it. Her daughter was a leper. And because of that she told the police to stop their searches, that there was no way in hell her daughter could have survived. But real hell, she'd learned was going without that little angel, who she threw away just because her chances of normality and survival were close to zero.
"No, even if they WERE zero... I should still have known. Not to give up. Not to concede to the exhaustion and the pain... I should have listened to you dear, believed that she had to be somewhere, waiting! Please help Tiller, please help...." Hannah faced her husband, snot running down her nose and her eyes so red with the tears it was strange they didn't bleed. "Please help me FIND HER!"
But the man wasn't looking. He was not avoiding her either. His finger was pointing to where his eyes were fixed, from where his agape mouth seemed to breathe an air filled with eternal shock.
In the roof of the old abandoned home that was so broken down it might collapse on it's own on that weekend, there was an angel of marble and saphire with long flowing hair and a face just like Hannah's. It weeped for someone, a yellow liquid raining down from the stars in her eyes, stars that covered more and more of her body. In the end, only the spectre of her voice remained until it too vanished...
"Twinkle twinkle little star...." It cried in grief, to reassure herself.
(
BunBun
I haven't had time to proof-read this yet, but I hope you like it!)
Last edited:
