JUDY & PUNCH

Judy was a puppet. She was kept in a crimson wooden box so confined that she had to crowd together with the other puppets. In that sunless cage, every character knew when to take the stage and when to crawl back into the dark. So was Judy. She was always the first to appear and also the first to be smashed. Each time the curtain rose, she would walk to the stage center and stand still. Before long, the cudgel in Punch's hand would hit hard on her head. The audience would burst into laughter. Judy would fall from the stage, curl back into the box, and wait for the next curtain to rise on the same old scene. She had long forgotten how many times she had repeated that suffering performance. The number was vast enough to drive any creature with a soul to madness. But Judy didn't have one. She was only a puppet. Punch thought so, too.

Punch was, without question, a shrewd and practiced puppeteer. Punch traveled the market roads with that fine little stage behind him, stopping in town after town to perform. Behind the curtain, he would place the reed in his mouth and produce a voice that was rough and odd. He knew how to work the crowd, especially the children packed into the front row, their eyes shining with an almost fanatical excitement. Few had seen Punch's real face. His sign was the smiling puppet on his hand. Over time, everyone forgot there was a performer. Even Punch sometimes did. Punch loved the feeling of control. Whenever the cudgel smashed a character's head, he would shout his unchanging final line with pride: "Splendid. The stage deserves nothing less!" And under the cold, damp boards of the stage, Judy could hear the applause rolling in, and that arrogant line repeated again and again. She heard every sound. She felt every trace of malice. She simply could not speak. After the crowd left, Punch would throw the puppets back into the box one by one. The patrolman, the quack doctor, the crocodile, the grim reaper, the devil, and finally Judy. Sometimes, before closing the lid, he would look down and stare at her for a while. "What are you smiling at?" He said with contempt. Judy could not answer. She was only a piece of wood, with an outlandish grin frozen on her face. From any angle, that smile looked wrong, as if she knew something, or as if she were mocking him without a word. It got under Punch's skin. Irritated, he threw her back into the box and snapped the latch shut. Darkness swallowed her again. In that silence, still enough to drive one mad, Judy kept smiling. She could not move. But her mind began to work without end. At first, it was only a slow hatred. Each time the cudgel fell, that cold feeling built and ran deeper. But after so long in the dark, the fury cooled and hardened, until at last it became a bone-chilling clarity. She began to study it. She could read Punch like an open book. He was nothing more than a mediocre puppeteer. He knew how the patrolman entered, what foolish lines the quack doctor would say, where the grim reaper would raise his scythe, and when to toy with the devil. But the only reason he knew any of this was that the script had not changed in centuries. He simply repeated it by rote, never truly understanding what the play meant. The play was never about Punch's cudgel, but the first one to fall. Judy's entrance, Judy's breaking. That was what gave every later cruelty its cue. In the box, Judy stripped the play down to its structure. She knew how it worked and its core better than anyone, including Punch. Then she began to rearrange it in her mind. If she held the rods, how would she guide the grim reaper's scythe? How would the devil's tricks be undone? How would she make the quack doctor irrelevant before he could speak? Perhaps the patrolman would lose his place on the stage entirely. In that tight prison, without spectators, without applause, she rehearsed it all in silence. At last, the day came.

It was a usual dusk. Punch went behind the curtain as he always did, placed the reed in his mouth, and took a deep breath. "Judy! Dear Judy... it's your turn." The strings led her toward the middle of the stage. Her steps were slow. Punch had already lifted the cudgel, waiting for the sound that always followed. But this time, before the strike, Judy stopped. She stood rooted to the stage, refusing the pull of the strings. Punch jerked them in panic, but her body stayed still. Then, she turned around. Punch stared. He knew he didn't deliver that command. Yet she was facing him now, that blank smiling face was staring straight through the curtain at the terrified man behind it. The audience was becoming restless. They had no idea why the show didn't proceed. Then Judy spoke. It was not the voice Punch made with his reed. It was a woman's whispering voice, each word sinking into his mind. "Punch, did you really think this play was all about you?" Punch went rigid. The reed in his mouth burned like heated iron. He nearly screamed. "I watched long enough," her voice was flat as still water. "Watched you move the patrolman, toy with the quack doctor, trick the grim reaper, and choke the devil..." Outside the curtain, the audience was none the wiser, shifting restlessly as they stared at the silent stage. Losing their patience, someone began to urge the show on. "And you," her voice stayed soft, "know only how to break me at the beginning." "Every time, I enter first. Every time, I am erased first. And not once did you ask... why me?" Punch's hands shook violently. "I understand this place better than you ever did." Judy looked at him calmly. "Now it's my turn."

No one could say exactly what happened next. Some said that just before the stage collapsed, all the strings drew tight at once and wound themselves around Punch's wrists like ropes turning on their master. Others said the puppet's smiling face cracked open, and what reached out were not splinters, but a woman's hand. What the audience remembered was the collapse. The stage seemed to tear open from within. Dust rose in a rush and drove the crowd back. When it settled, a woman stood in the ruins. With long, slightly disheveled hair, she wore a crimson dress, as if she had only just escaped from some impossibly narrow place. The woman held the control rod tightly in her hand, which had once belonged to Punch. At her feet knelt a large and grotesque puppet, its face fixed in Punch's signature wild grin, yet the eyes that should have held life were hollow now, empty as bottomless pits. From that day on, the puppeteer was never seen again. Only an old glove was found in the ruins. The leather was twisted and shrunk in on itself, as if something inside had fought to get out and at last split it open from within, leaving only a vacant shell behind.

In time, the woman called Judy raised a new stage and traveled with it from town to town. No one knew how many nights it had crossed, or when it had come to Oakenfell. The audience was unfamiliar with this ancient play, and had no way of knowing which long-forgotten theater had first given it life. Judy did not mind. The old play had found a new stage. This time, it would open again in a different world. The players had not changed. The patrolman, the quack doctor, the crocodile, the grim reaper, and the devil. But their fates had been completely rewritten. Whenever the curtain rose, she would send the puppet named "Punch" to the center of the stage and touch its cold shoulder lightly with the control rod. A red light would flash in its eyes, like a struggle born of pain, and like rage being bent into obedience. Then the slaughter would unfold as it always had. The patrolman was smashed. The quack doctor was ripped apart. The crocodile, the grim reaper, and the devil were all reduced to pieces in a series of mechanical, brutal movements. Numb to it all, the audience clapped, laughed, as if watching a farce. And Judy watched "Punch". Like she once had, he was pulled to center stage by strings and the weight of a script already set. The smile that had once belonged to the old master of the play was now fixed forever on another empty shell. "Splendid. The stage deserves nothing less." She lifted the control rod and spoke the old closing line softly. Only her voice had quietly become Punch's, and the smile on her face was no different from the one she had worn as a puppet.