Once upon a time,
In a world not unlike your own,
There existed a puppeteer.
He was a happy man,
And he loved to put on shows
For children who would wander by.

Using puppets he created
With his own two hands,
He would tell stories
Of the olden days,
When knights roamed
Looking for dragons to slay.

One night, he was making a new puppet
For his show the next day.
It was his proudest work,
And he was excited to show it off.
As he sat back to admire his work,
The man saw something that shocked him.

The puppet moved.
It clicked and clacked,
As it rose from where it sat;
And to the puppeteer's dismay,
It began to look at him
With awe.

The puppeteer was terrified;
Not because his puppet was alive,
But because his show would be ruined.
The puppet fell to its knees,
And gave thanks to the puppeteer
For giving it life.

But its thanks was quickly spurned,
As the puppeteer set to work
Trying to fix his mistake.
Hitting and scraping his creation
Despite the puppet's cries
For him to stop.

It was to no avail.
The puppet was here to stay.
The puppeteer sobbed
As he asked why he had been cursed
With a puppet he could not control;
And with that, he had an idea.

The next morning, to the children's delight,
A new puppet danced along with the rest.
It looked like a clown!
The children laughed
As the puppet bounced about.
Such a pretty face.

If only they knew about
The nails keeping the string attached,
The paint covering the puppet's true face,
The whimpers it made as it hung;
But it could do nothing
Without the puppeteer's approval,
And so, it lamented.