To Be A Man

Make resolutions wisely…they do make you. - Michelle Liew

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Thomas' pet resolution was to be a MAN. No skittishness now. He wanted to be brave - not be performing some heroic, daredevil act, but by facing his innermost fears, no matter how deeply buried. The timid often became victims of his scorn.

"You've got no guts." he would say to classmates who refused to partake of pranks he played on teachers. 

So he burrowed through his attic and found it - the cloth puppet his father had given him when he was five. Its features, woven intricately onto muslin cloth, were eerily lifelike. Its glassy eyes gazed at Thomas, devoid of feeling. He abhorred it. 

The lifelike, yet lifeless doll belonged to Uncle Gerald, a ventriloquist. "It's just a puppet," his parents would chide, when Thomas hollered about the way it seemed to change positions whenever he returned to look at it. "It's just you. You're always forgetting where you leave things."

But at the ripe old age of 25, reality bit him, hard. Thomas sat the puppet on a chair in the middle of his living room, the curtains drawn. He turned off the lights and gazed at it. This is courage in the flesh, he told himself. 

The hours ploughed by, and nothing happened. No swinging of legs. No changing of positions.

"You're just a doll." Thomas snickered, relief overcoming him. ""You're nothing."

The doll twitched its hand and lifted its head. Its glassy eyes took on a hollow, greenish glow. 

"I wouldn't say that." It answered. Its scratchy voice was a disturbing echo of Uncle Gerald's.

Thomas stood frozen. In the dark shadows, the puppet, now without strings, stood, its form familiar yet discomfiting. "You're braver than I gave you credit for. But courage only gets you this far." Its laughter bounced off the walls, a haunting ricochet. 

The neighbours discovered Thomas sitting stiffly in his chair the next day, his eyes wide with pure terror. The cloth puppet dangled from his hands, its grin wider than before.