The Puppet Master
They called him the Puppet Master because he was the greatest puppeteer of all, not only in his native France, but also in the entire world, but he simply called himself Renault, because that was the name he was given at birth, and, as he often said, he had neither grown greater or lesser than the simple, honest man he had always been.
Renault was never without his children, his marionettes, hand-made of wood and plastic and dressed in exquisite costumes that he painstakingly made with his own hands, they were crafted so masterfully that if not for the strings attached to their tiny backs and limbs, you would have thought them to be real children. He had given each of them a little piece of his heart, and each held a special place in that same heart.
After every show, where princes fought dragons to save princesses, and witches flew over the painted countryside, a great crowd of children and parents would gather around him and ask how his little marionettes looked and acted so real, and always he would say, "Each set of strings is attached to a tiny soul."
"But how do you control them?" They would cry.
“Non. Non." He would say, throwing his hands up in mock horror, "The strings do not control, they simply guide."
In orphanages from one end of France to the other he put on shows for free and often for weeks afterwards he taught the children how to make their own marionettes, and as the children worked, he would say with a gentle smile, "You must work carefully and with love, just as God did when he made Adam and Eve, for if you put all your love into your little wooden doll, then it will have a soul, and if it has a soul, it can return your love."
Each time he left behind a group of smiling, waving children who had once had nothing, but now each clutched their own little dolls with love. They would never feel quite as alone again.
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On a dark and moonless night, as he was returning to the boarding house where he was staying, after an especially late night of laughter and fun with the children at the local orphanage, he was caught by a pack of men, looking for trouble after finishing the last of their cheap wine, who chanced to see him walking alone on the darkened street.
They were drunk and violent, and little Renault had his nose broken in seconds, and then was beaten to the ground before one of the men tore open the battered suitcase that held his marionettes. He tried desperately to stop them as the man pulled a large knife from one of his dirty, worn boots and began to cut the strings, but he was held down and made to watch as each string was severed, and with each slice of the knife, a little piece of Renault's soul was cut too.
But if you love something hard enough it will have a soul and return that love, and one by one the discarded marionettes picked themselves from the cobbled street and went to their beloved Renault's aid.
The little dragon breathed great bursts of flame that scorched the nearest men, the witch crooned magical words in ancient Gaelic, and the large, red headed leader of the pack of bullies began to croak and jump. Angry marionettes swarmed all over the men. The little strong man lifted one bodily from the ground and hurled him into the nearby trashcans. Not one of them held back, not even the timid princess or the foolish jester, for Renault had given each of them his unconditional love for so many years, and now his tiny wooden children were repaying that debt. Facing such rage it was not long before the drunken bullies were running in fear.
But the little Frenchman's rescue had come too late, and as he lay in a pool of his own blood, his precious children, his wonderful marionettes, gathered around him to hold him one last time. A tear crept from the princess's eye and the jester had stopped laughing as they all moved close for this final goodbye.
The police found Renault early the next morning. He had died from his injuries during the night, still clutching his beloved children, his marionettes, to his chest, and despite the beating he had taken, there was a gentle smile still on his face.
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But the story does not end there.
Little strings are attached to little souls, and in years to come hundreds of children from orphanages around the France took up the art of pupeteering, calling themselves the Puppet Masters, and each of them had a very special marionette, called Renault that they used to introduce their puppet shows, in honour of the little man whose strings had never controlled, but guided.
