snoo10

25 years ago Puddles was a kicking bundle of joy. The sways of innocence were marked on his face. Now it was filled with terror. He looked into the mirror and tears streaked down his face. He was meant to love her but he also was meant to like the porridge they had given him every day for the last 25 years. All that time ago. A kicking and twitching bundle of blood and guts hidden and contained by a single wrap of skin. Complete package had come from deep inside his mother, with a little help from his father. Then the operation took place, when he was four days old. Surgically and precisely � he was split into sections.

It was completed by the masked raider Zorro. He was the technician at the village where he was descended from. He performed the rite. A look of concern called itself flush on his mothers face as she saw him complete for the last time. It seemed cruel, but it was tradition.

He was taken into Zorro�s hands. His soft palms held him skyward towards the sun. Force looked proudly as he was removed from the world for a moment, to be stripped down to pieces. Puddles would become incomplete. He would be broken up and the pieces neatly stored. Allowing him to grow up into a shadow of himself.

Lightening struck fear into Puddles Mother (Jane) but Granny rocked in her chair nearby. Pride was beaming from her. At this tender age Puddles would be separated from his imagination and divorced from the other, unnamed (taboo) elements of him. He would, at the careful but skilled hands of Zorro, be diffused into sections. Each in a jar and the living force of Steven would be thrown into jail. The bright sword. It shone. Yes. It did.

Zorro held it aloft and Granny cracked. Her head snapped back and laughter poured from some deep place like water coming out of a cave, flooding the world for a moment then closing and leaving bare dryness for generations to come. The sword. Of course.

Zorro clutched the boy loosely in his left hand and Jane winced. Her heart fell down. Jumped down two notches inside her. The sword grazed the top of Puddles head and its power came flowing forth. In a burst of light there was a ghostly white shadow floating in the air, parallel to the boy. The same shape. More laughter and Jane froze. She wanted to cry but it was not allowed. No matter how deep the roots of the emotions or how polarisingly strong the current � the surface had to remain untouched. Intact. Years had made her push it all inside. She could be killed in silence.

It was Steven. An embryonic Steve. Although small and tactile, that cluster of a ghost contained more bright ideas than the entire cabinet. They just regurgitated the same old stuff. Steve was a creator. Zorro placed the sword in the place where it sat snugly. A compartment over it hung it was specially made. Steven floated and now Puddles took to the air. They both were attracted, almost magnetically, to one another.

The floated in the pull of each other � Zorro batted them apart. Then called for Julian, his assistant. He wore dungarees and a shock of red hair. His body crumpled into subversion at Zorros every request. He had asked for a chain. One of the contain imaginary power like a coat prevents rain � but also the passing of sweat. With that on he would be safe. The vibes could not go through the atmosphere � until then, he wore goggles.

Julian returned with a suit of chains and Zorro nods him to the imagination. It seemed to buzz and when he approaches the buzz grows higher and more intense. Julian advances gingerly. The suit of green chains in his right hand. He approaches and steps forward. He holds it like a net. Within distance he hovers. The cloak is ready to pounce and form an external grip that would never release its hold. Then � at the last moment, Steven moves. He jumps towards Julian who drops the chains he has been hesitantly holding while stalking his prey. The imaginary baby clasps its legs around Julian�s throat. Puddles laughs and cries. A streak of a smile is an invisible line on his cute buttoned face with its chubby smile. Julian falls to the ground and family looks on in the gasps of amazement.

Jane, perfectly contains, feels an inexplicable hope that the imagination will escape. It rises and is squashed quickly. She doesn�t know where it came from exactly. A part of her removed in a glass jar. Yet it feels right. Julian slaps Steve with broad appetite and Zorro hurries forward. His thick anti imagination gloves hang loosely on his hands.

Julian need � to steal some help or be drenched. His body seemed slapped at every touch of Stevens power. Zorro clutches his stomach in surprise and the wealth of all his experience comes flooding into his consciousness. He picks up his courage (in a jar) and puts it in his pocket again. He lurches forward and in a robotic series of movements takes the baby Steven away from the flailing Julian, encasing it in the blanket of green chains that it struggles in (like a dog in a bag).

It kicked and glowed. For a couple of seconds then was deadened to the world yet strangely transmitting rings of nothing. Little waves that could not be seen but would break through occasionally like consciousness through sleep. Encapsulated and easily ignored. Zorro held up the bag that now ceased its wriggling.
�Nasty little blighter that� he said. �Glad we got him young�. He presented it over to Force. �Your son had great strength. Power beyond his body: A strong imagination. Fortunately it is under wraps. This deadly power will not escape and be labelled and thrown into a dungeon. We had a near miss there�.
Granny clapped. The entertainment value of the ceremony had been better than anticipated. A great value.
Force looked concerned at the developments. �So�he�ll be alright?�.
Zorro considered.
�He was exposed to it for a while and I hope the edge can be taken off. He will certainly be a dreamer in childhood. His powers departed, but the shadow shall twitch and strain for more light to define itself against. We cast no light�.
Jane shrieked as baby Puddles plopped to the ground. He landed dudly on a rock and stone.
�I�m sure that wont help� cautioned Zorro. �sorry�.

Julian murmured into some kind of movement. He looked worn and almost frightened. Of both the effect of the encounter and his master. The audience looked away as he got up. Imaginary flames danced in spots of his body. Like having just been electrocuted. His sharp mane of red hair was a brighter colour. Smoke seemed to come from his mouth as he cried distant groans. He struggled to his feet and Zorro stood back.
�You have been infected!� he cries. The noise stung into Julian and rattled whimpered cries deep in him. He didn�t show it. With the sound of the voice vast gates opened and emotion swelled around his body. Fear, excitement, imagination? All like a ghastly, foaming soup.

Zorro raised his hand. He said one word �isolation�. And with that, from his pocket he produced a full size suit of green chain which he flung over his employee, masking the emotions from the dull world he was fighting to maintain. Julian didn�t put up much of a struggle and Zorro wrestles both the encased bodies of spirit or infected by it to the hallway leading to the dungeon. Steve and Julian were to have the same fate. In a glaring eyes of structure, both were impure. On the way to the door of his place he nodded to a small boy of seven who was buckling some shoes.
�You�re promoted� he said.

Granny laughed long into the night. The night. Yes night. She rocked back and forth with the rhythm of two kangaroos on speed hoping to buy a deckchair but the one who got there last had the worst ones. In a complete scramble. Zorro came back for Pud baby and the rite was over.

Later he laid him out on the workshop table. Like the sorcerers version of a Black and Decca workbench. Several modifications were needed. All excluded, exiled, divided, kept. In jars that brimmed different colours. Liquids of different natures. Some with bits swirling around. Some of them glared by themselves. Others stirred constantly. All were popular pets.

The process of exhuming each stand of unacceptable trail was a complete and mysterious one. Many tools were used. All boasted a mystical quality that was explained in a twisted wrecks of the books of acceptance. Each verse held a mystery � the mystery was to find it as it all looked pretty straight forward. Yet these books held the docraine of life. The rules. Don�t change. Traditional values. The Guide.

The Zorro technical surgeon continued his work. Puddles was to be starved of these things for life else the kingdom would face a ghastly �I did� situation. With Steven at bay several new forms spring forward and were contained. Away, far away from the Indians. Out of reach of their excited paws. Beyond the clouds the Fairy moon transmitted. Like a lopsided circle it spun around. A Catharine wheel of ideas that turned exhaustedly. Stitched and shaking it grew nearer. Puddles was staring into the mirror.

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