Welcome to the stage. Your eyes would be filled with tears and fright, but they are dry and wide. Why am I here, you whisper to yourself as the stage lights blink on. The audience, the big, fat, rich audience is away from your sight. Coughs are heard here and there. Cheers The wine glasses are clinging together as they hit the tables. Cheers Crickets overwhelm your act as you and only you have become the act. Cheers Here’s to a long night… You start dancing involuntarily like a puppet You swing your leg to the left, you swing Your arms out, hideous smile overlapping Your face. You dance to one side You dance to the next Snap Your strings are cut and you dissolve into a split with your head hanging and your arms seemingly clenching the ground. Snap The audiences stitched mouths are cut and the jaws attack the floor. A close nit stitch fixes everything. The puppeteer re-ties the strings and you’re the toy once again. A close nit stitch fixes everything. The jaws get there fill of rotted popcorn and sticky juices. There mouths stitch back up and go back to slurping the wine filled candy. The show ends as the strings force you to bow down, pull the plug, disappoint the stitched patients, kill the lights, whatever. And the curtain falls. Red covers the show. I met that puppeteer once. He was mean. He says, “Do you realize how much power I have?” I shake my head, no. “I’m like God.” He says I pull up a chair and get relaxed with my feet propped up on the puppeteers rotting desk. Revealed Scissors. In a way, I said, so am I. And he says, “No, no you’re all wrong.” Yeah. Well. You’re a puppeteer. Who cares what you think?