Puppet Master

Tall buildings rise like the hairs on the back of a person’s neck when they sense something is wrong. Downtown Minneapolis dominates the ardent green hills that gently roll around it. The smell of wet grass cuts through the air like a pungent razor blade to the nostrils. The hustle and bustle of traffic gives the sprawling metropolis a rhythm that is entirely its own, with the sound of slow moving cars and heavy construction machinery that paint a perfect picture of Minnesota summer time. The most formidable building stands erect in the center, an engineering marvel made almost entirely of glass. The tinted blue windows still contain remnants of the storm from the night before, the moisture beading and racing down the panes only to pool at the bottom and drip off the ledge onto the unsuspecting ground. People rise and move like ants in an ant farm, each with their own menial tasks they perform in routine order day in and day out. Humidity hangs in the air, making each breath thick and laborious. A new day has started in Minneapolis and the city runs like clockwork.

Inside of the massive glass apartment building, Miranda sits at her kitchen counter carefully munching on Cocoa Crispies, savoring the sweet milk and chewing each bite exactly 14 times before she swallows. She is reading the paper, looking over current events, only catching the Bernie Madoff scandal before she heads off to her job teaching kindergarten students at a local public school in Eden Prairie, a suburb of Minneapolis. One glance at her phone shows her ex-boyfriend’s name, Jerry, three times. Her eyelids are at war with her consciousness, trying to wrestle a few more minutes of sleep that will surely turn into hours.

The storm had kept her up all night. Jagged strips of lightning arcing across the sky terrifying her like she was a child again, sleep was nonexistent. Energy is the only defense against 23 screaming kindergarteners, all clamoring for scraps of attention. She knew her five hour work day would feel like 500 today.

Miranda walked by her mirror one more time, just to make sure she looked okay before her long day. She found a slender girl of medium build, with deep chestnut eyes that secrete a calm confidence staring back at her. Her equally dark hair fell softly across her right shoulder, and her skin still radiated a golden brown from her last fake tan, Minnesotans don’t get much sun. Dressed in dark blue jeans and a conservative pink cashmere sweater, she was ready to try and force the square pegs of America’s youth into the round hole of the educational system.

As her hand reached out to grab her cup of coffee, she noticed a blood-red thread tugging on her hand towards it. The string looked like typical yarn from Michaels, and it was tied around her index finger. What was more perplexing is the fact that she could not feel the string there, and no matter how hard she tried to catch the string and yank it off her finger it somehow eluded her grasp. The caffeine beat away the drudge of drowsiness and cleared her head like a shot to the brain. The ambient glow of her LCD clock showed it was 6:30. She did not have time for this phenomenon so she shoved it into the forgotten part of her brain along with memories of her early life and the phone number of her best friend in 5th grade.

Miranda started walking towards her local coffee shop, Lisa’s, just five blocks away to purchase a caffe mocha, her favorite drink. Caffeine was the only way to even the playing field against the exuberance of a six year old.

The humid Minneapolis air resisted every step she took, and it hung hot in her lungs like steam from a boiling pot of water. A shiny glass building to her left showed her unkempt reflection, not a surprise considering the night she had had. The weird part was the string. It had somehow multiplied and now they covered her body, tied to her circular earlobes, her upper bicep, her nostrils, her feet, and even her eyelids. Every time she winked in the reflection, a string attached to her eyelid would tug, but she could not feel its pull.

Walking turned to a slight jog as she neared the coffee shop, desperate to find another person to see if she was the only one afflicted with the strings. The string circling around her torso pulls her towards her destination, as it led around the corner but every time she stopped, it stopped too. The sun assaulted her eyes, but when they adjusted to the flash of light, she gasped.

Miranda gawked at what had to be miles upon miles of red string. They were tied to people's legs, arms, hands, feet, noses, but nobody seemed to notice the way she could see the invisible threads. The inexplicability of this phenomenon was in the fact that nobody became ensnared in the spider’s web of string that covered every inch of the Minneapolis outdoors at about chest level. As her gaze shifted upward, more and more string could be seen connecting buildings, or leading out into the horizon and vanishing. All the sheep in the world could not have produced this much yarn.

No matter where these people went the string would not break, and it would sometimes be tugged prompting actions as simple as picking up a cup of coffee to complex things like typing on a laptop, but still people remained unaware of their existence. What was even more horrifying to Miranda as she strolled through the concrete jungle, were the strings on her own legs being tugged at in unison with her footsteps. Was she controlling her walking? Or was something else controlling where she was going? It sure felt like she was the pilot of her body, and she became even more certain as she flexed and un-flexed the soft tissue of her hamstrings, until she noticed that the strings twitched just before she flexed. Ticking off the list of mental diseases in her mind, Miranda contemplated calling the authorities and proclaiming herself crazy. Then she saw him.

An average business man, with a shiny brown leather briefcase of far more value than the documents inside hung at his hip. His dark blue suit tailored comfortably to his body as his confident gait led him into a high rise. She would not have given him a second glance if there was not a short gremlin leading him, tugging on each string, pulling him towards his building. The gremlin’s skin was leathery and gray, hanging like a shirt three sizes too big. His ears were pointy like an elf, and his teeth were like rows of knives, gray like his skin. He held bunches of string in his tiny little palms, pulling each one in a coordinated effort to get this man into his office.

“Sir! Excuse me!” Miranda yelled.

“Who me?”

“Yes! Look at your hand! Can’t you see the string? There is a little man pulling you into that building!”

“I’m not sure what joke you are trying to pull, but I do not have time for this crap. I have a really important meeting that I need to be at. You are acting crazy.”

The gremlin tugged on a string that corresponded to his right hand, and the business man lifted it and pushed the revolving glass door. The gremlin stopped to give Miranda a curious glance, but it barely registered as she ran off in the direction of Lucy’s.

The slender red thread tugged at her index finger with a sense of urgency. She walked towards the door of Lucy’s seemingly on her own free will, but in her mind she knew it was a lie, her puppet master was pulling the strings. Meanwhile Jerry was calling her for the 10th time that morning.

“Why can’t this asshole just let me go?” she exclaimed in exasperation, realizing too late that the words in her head had accidentally snuck past her lips.

The red string led to the alley on the side of the coffee shop. It was littered with stained styrofoam coffee cups, and smelled of rotting food and bile. The brick surrounding her was stained and chipped from years of trash being carelessly strewn about the alley. Drunks and bums would crash here all the time to stay the night when they had nowhere else because there was ample food and shelter in the various dumpsters about every twenty feet. Stumbling towards her, clearly less than sober and unkempt was Jerry. If the string were real it would have torn her finger off by now with the force it was tugging, its soft red fibers seemingly cutting into the flesh of her index finger, yet she did not feel a thing. She was helplessly being pulled towards Jerry, and he was being pulled towards her like a child to candy. Her thoughts raced and pulse throbbed in her throat like a ringing church bell, setting off bursts of adrenaline soaked fear.

"You haven't answered my calls so I had to come find you," He slurred.

Miranda knew that was a lie. Those gremlins brought him here, but she pushed that thought away.

"What do you want from me Jerry? I told you to leave me alone." Her voice wavered in exasperation.

"I just need some money. Baby, please you know I’m good for it."

"Goddammit Jerry I thought you were turning things around. I am not giving you any more cash. Get out of my life and stay out!" Her nervous fidgeting betrayed the hollow words her voice sounded.

"That’s not the answer I was looking for, Miranda." Jerry snarled.

She saw the string twitching at his right hand and he suddenly grabbed her by the throat. The strings tightened with his thick fingers around her glass throat, threatening to crack and implode. Her mangled cry for help descended to a whisper as her windpipe was forcibly closed against the wall of her larynx by the surprising strength of a withdrawal fueled drug addict. He lifted her against the rough brick wall of the coffee shop. The image of his face, dark circles under his bloodshot brown eyes, yellow stained teeth from years of smoking, and wisps of five o'clock shadow swirled as her vision gave way to the brink of unconsciousness.

A balled up gray hand shot out of nothing and struck Jerry across the face, smashing his head into the crumbly brick and leaving him in a heap. Miranda fell to the ground and started getting up only to come face to face with a similar, pudgy creature that she had seen before. Its voice had the rough quality of rocks going through a blender.

“I am Jeremiah. Don’t worry. He will harm you no more.”

“But who are you? What are you?” she stuttered.

“I am what you call fate. I act through you, but always in your
interest.”

Questions rushed through her head like a dam bursting.

“Come. I must deliver you home safely. This cannot happen again.”

Tugging at her strings, Jeremiah trotted off with Miranda in tow. His final vague statement echoing in her ears all the while. They entered the flat gray door to her apartment and he led her straight to bed. Her throat burned, and each time she swallowed it felt like lava. Jeremiah commandeered her to bed and closed gently pulled her eyelids shut. As she drifted into the confines of her mind, she thought she could hear the faintest of goodbyes.

With a gasp, she awoke bathing in her own cold fear. What a terrible nightmare! Pouring a bowl of Cocoa Crispies, she sat down to start another monotonous day. Her reflection in the milk revealed the splotched bruising on her neck, the pain kicking in an instant after her realization of the injury. One feverish look at her hands showed no trace of the bright red string that had graced her fingers not 24 hours prior. Clasping and unclasping her fingers, a haunting thought arose in her mind. As she curled and uncurled her fingers, she wondered if her actions were her own.