The puppet
He charms you with his singing and dancing. He makes you feel good, he makes you feel seen, listened. You love spending time with him, you have fun, you feel you have found a friend.
But patterns arise. His set of actions is limited, his movements constrained.
You catch the glimpse of a shadow in the corner of your eye. You ignore it.
After a while you see it again, and again, ever clearer. It bugs you. You cannot ignore it anymore: his every limb, every joint, the most minuscule action is controlled by thin and skillfully concealed threads. You follow the intricate paths, through endless knots and twists; you struggle to find their origin.
And there it is: you are holding the threads.
There was no will in his actions, it was all along a mirror of your own desires. How could this happen? Why? You don't know. But you don't want to hold the threads, you want him to be free.
Deeply, you know you share something with him. The moments you spent together, they have a meaning. Clearly, he would have not given you control if he didn't feel a real connection to you. It must have been insecurities, the need to fit in, the fear of loss, something like that.
As you try to disentangle this mess, to free him, you finally realize. Your hands are caught in his threads as well: it was all a show, you are the puppet and he's leading. You are just one among an endless expanse of other puppets, mindlessly dancing to the swing of his desires, stroking the master's ego in unison, in a never-ending circle of egotistical masturbation. Onanistic ouroboros.
You are hurt. You are disgusted. You hate him. You hate them.
But now you have seen through the veil. You can finally free yourself, forget about him. None of it all was real. It was all but a play.
You try to warn the other puppets, they think you are just jealous. Maybe you are.
Sometimes, you still catch yourself putting your hands back into the net. It feels warm and comfortable for a while.