The Marionette

There had been a time when they danced. When they spun and leapt and twirled. Weightless. Breathless. Alive. Just an instinct, a force outside of them lifting their limbs, guiding their movements. The strings tugged, and they obeyed. Propelled by an energy so electric it made the world shimmer.

They were magnificent. People laughed. People clapped. People admired.

“You’re so fun,” eyes alight with awe and envy. “You have so much life in you. I wish I could be like that.”

So, they danced harder. Faster. Higher. Arms flung wide, head tilted back, devouring the rush of it all. It was exhilarating the way the world blurred as they spun. The way the music never seemed to stop. A grand performance with no intermission. No rest. Then a tremor in the motion. A hesitation in the step. A missed beat. Then another. And another. They tried to push past it, to keep moving. But something was wrong. The pull was weaker. The unseen hands above, so commanding before, now seemed uncertain.

The strings had snapped.

They collapsed in an instant. Limbs crumbling like a rag doll, head lolling forward, the rush of movement replaced by an awful, unbearable stillness.

No one cheered anymore. No one clapped. They only stared, confused. “What happened?” someone asked. “Why aren’t you dancing?” Murmurs laced with disappointment. They tried to move, but their limbs felt heavy, useless. They were no longer light. No longer full of laughter and colour. Just a heap of wood and fabric and silence.

They wanted to scream, to explain they hadn’t chosen this, that the strings had broken, that they couldn’t move even if they wanted to. That they missed the dance too. Missed flying. Missed being unstoppable. But the words wouldn’t come. The weight in their chest was too much.

The world moved on around them. People walked away, finding new dancers, new performers who could keep the music going.

The marionette lay there, staring up at the ceiling, at the empty place where the strings had once been, knowing they would not be lifted again.

And when they finally were, they would dance and spin and twirl once more–

                                    until the strings broke again.