Shawn put his other and in and then...

'Crinch!' There was a snapping sound somewhere at the bottom of the sink and a sudden jolt of pain on Shawn's right hand. Like a sharp knife of some kind or a needle had stabbed him. Or maybe something had bit him.

The water immediately began to turn red with blood.

"Something wrong?" Mr. Clayton's voice could be heard from the other side of the kitchen.

Shawn immediately pulled his hands out of the water, and applied pressure to his right hand. "Ow! Something cut me!"

But Mr. Clayton was busy with the oven. The door to the oven was open and he was bending down, peering into it, the profile view of his Puppet head visible to Shawn.

"Oh? Did you get a little nip?" Mr. Clayton said still looking into the oven. He wasn't wearing the yellow rubber gloves anymore. Instead he was wearing large, white oven mitts, the kind used to handle hot plates in a kitchen. The oversized gloves on his hands brought forth images of Mickey Mouse gloves.

"A little nippy-nip?" He asked absently, voice of a Mother that was slightly distracted.

Meanwhile there was blood leaking out of Shawn's hand. It ran down his forearm and dripped onto the floor. Shawn could see that for all the blood, the cut was very small, perhaps less than centimeter. But it was deep. The skin folded as he flexed his hand, and deep, red blood welled out.

Shawn was generally tired and fuzzy these days, and that made him unsure of the degree to which this was a dream or real or both. What he was sure of was that his hand was really hurting and that it looked like a lot of blood. He did his best to keep his right hand still, and clamped his left hand over the cut. "I need bandaids, I'm really bleeding..." His tone was insistent, but even hurt as he was, he instinctively shied away from screams or whining or complaining. He tried to remember if his parents kept first aid stuff in the kitchen.

Mr. Clayton came over with a rag. The oven was left open and smoke was billowing out, whatever had been inside was now burning. He inspected Shawn's hand. Blood soaked his own wooden hands as he took Shawn's hand in them. Then he produced a rag from behind his back to soak up the wound. Then another rag. Then another. He soaked up the blood and with each rag that was wet, he dropped on the floor with 'plop.' Finally, several piles of rags later, the wound had stopped bleeding.

"Better?" Mr. Clayton asked

Shawn kept his hand still to make sure it didn't set off any more bleeding. "I'm okay....sorry about the oven..." He looked down at the pile of rags at his feet. He'd probably need some kind of bandage.

Shawn glanced back at the oven and saw that there was a large cake on the table. It had somehow gotten there from the oven in a way that only makes sense in dreams. The oven was no longer burning. Shawn knew somehow that the cake was for him.



"That's a very deep cut." Mr. Clayton remarked. "It might go down right to the bone. And beyond the bone really. It might go even into the bone. It's probably deep enough to where it goes into you. Not just your body. But right down into who you are."

Shawn glanced from the cake back to his arm. "What does that mean? What was in the sink?" Whatever Mr. Clayton was trying to show him, Shawn didn't understand it. What he did understand was getting hurt.

Mr. Clayton looked at the sink then at the oven and then at the cake.



"It could mean many things." Mr. Clayton concluded. "It might be something you need to reflect on in the waking ours. Or maybe we could talk about it now."

Mr. Clayton sat down at the table. He had to sit on his knees just to reach the edge otherwise he'd be too short. "Over cake!" He added, looking at the cake.

Shawn kept the remaining rag squeezed tightly on his arm, but this was Mr. Clayton's dream and there didn't seem to be any reason not to follow along. "Sure, let's talk." He gave the dummy a slightly woozy smile, then went over to the table and sat himself down. "I don't really have any free hands to eat with, though."

Mr. Clayton didn’t respond to this. Instead, he cocked his wooden head to one side and opened his mannequin mouth to ask Shawn a question:





"Who controls the magic Shawn?" Mr. Clayton asked with wonder and curiosity"Who controls the magical things that I do? Who changes things like wishes and reality?”

Shawn kept the pressure on his arm tight as he considered. "I don't know...I don't think I can control it, but you said the dummy was a trifle. Is it someone else?" Sure, when he wasn't dreaming, Shawn knew he technically was the one moving Mr. Clayton around and giving him a voice. But he was also certain the dummy had his own independent existence and goals, even if he wouldn't admit it.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:22, Fri 13 Sept 2019.

"That's right. I did say that Shawn. You have a very good memory" Mr. Clayton commented in the tone a doting parent would use to praise a child who colored inside the lines.

"The dummy is a trifle. Do you know what that means? It means that the dummy is nothing. I am nothing. I'm just what I am: A dummy. The name fits me Shawn. I mean, look at me. I'm made of wood. And I have this ridiculous mouth that is always smiling. And these eyes that always look like they are looking out past you or through you. Mr. Clayton elaborated.

"There are all kinds of us dummies Shawn. Sometimes we have strings that hold us up. And sometimes you have to put your hand up my back to get me to move. In fact, I can't even speak without you making me speak. You know why? Because I'm a dummy."

"The name dummy fits me perfectly: Something that is so dumb it can't do anything without being controlled."

"I am nothing. I am a trifle. I am a dummy."

Shawn looked Mr. Clayton up and down. He had to concede the puppet was correct - he was made of wood, his mouth was operated by a hidden lever, his arms and legs had to be specifically manipulated by him. And yet, Shawn never felt in control, felt like he was in charge. "But I don't know how to do stuff with magic and wishes and stuff. If you can only do things by being controlled, who's controlling you to do things?"

"You are!" Mr. Clayton said with furious alacrity. His eyes rolled upward and for a moment it looked like they might roll all the way back into his wooden skull.

Instead Shawn saw that Mr. Clayton was, in fact, just looking directly above him, his head still fixed in the same position.

Shawn followed Mr. Clayton's eyes and saw what Mr. Clayton was looking at, just above the Puppet's own head:

Shawn's hand, the one that was cut, was holding a wooden cross piece above the Puppet's head. From the cross piece, multiple strings were attached to Mr. Clayton's arms, wrists, knees and feet.

"If you don't know how to do something. It means that you haven't practiced enough. You have to give it everything you have. How do you think Bradford learned to bring you the Briar Patch? He learned because he practiced every day and every night until the secrets of ventriloquism began to reveal themselves to him."
This message was lightly edited by the player at 01:04, Sat 14 Sept 2019.

Shawn experimentally tried to move his cut hand, even wrapped in the rags, and watched the cross-piece over Mr. Clayton's head to see if it moved with it. Then he turned back to Mr. Clayton 'himself'. "You know I've been doing that. I'm working really hard to practice like you want."

Mr. Clayton's head jangled about with the movements of Shawn's hand, before settling into a more believable rhythm.



"Exactly" Mr. Clayton said.

"But it isn't what I want you to do that matters Shawn. You have to want it. I'm not someone to please or displease. I'm just a dumb piece of wood. I don't have a voice or a mind. I'm a trifle."

"Through practicing and performing consistently, you're only going to get better and better with this dumb piece of wood. This silly object that looks real but really isn't. Because that's what I am: a dummy. Look at me and see how I don't even have a purpose other than to be toyed about. That's what I am. A toy."

"I can only be controlled by someone who wants to give everything over to the practice of learning. Willingly. Not to please me. How can you please something so dumb? But to give themselves over to the idea that ventriloquism has its secrets. To trust that only through practice and faith that those secrets will show you the way."

"And every once and a while, through practicing, you will see a glimpse of those
secrets. And when you do, you must take them in and let them become a part of you."

"You must act on them, even if you don't fully understand what they mean."

Shawn tried to square that away with other things that Mr. Clayton had told him. It made sense, more or less, but that didn't necessarily mean it was true. He tried to think about what this meant in practice. "So you really can't do anything yourself, and it's just me controlling you. And I need to want to learn this stuff. But since you're just me controlling you, this is basically just me giving advice to myself." He tried to think about what this meant, but his brain just kept going in circles.

"This is all really complicated...what's something I can give to learning ventriloquism right now to make something happen? To see how it's supposed to work?"

Mr. Clayton chuckled and with it, his mouth clacked open and shut over and over again with a 'rackety-rack-rack' noise.



"It's not a science!" Mr. Clayton laughed.

"This isn't something that you can pin down and turn into some formula and then repeat it like the lines you've rehearsed. It's about sacrifice. You have to let go of your attempts to control Greater Ventriloquism."

"You just have to trust it and listen to it as it comes about throughout practice." He finished.

"That's why it is called Greater Ventriloquism."

Shawn felt like Mr. Clayton's answer was evasive, but that didn't mean it wasn't the truth. Still, he felt like if he kept looking, kept searching for answers, then he could find something - if not a loophole, then some kernel of understanding. "I'm not trying to control it, I'm just trying to understand it. What else does it want, anyways? I'm already giving it all of my time and energy, my grades are probably awful now."

"We practice to be better at Ventriloquism." Mr. Clayton said.

"But for Greater Ventriloquism, we practice with the knowledge that every once and a while we get a glimpse at something." He said cryptically.

"What else does it want? The question is, what do you want? You may have to rethink about time and energy. You need to think about if there's another level of effort. This is only hard because you've never been asked to do anything hard."

"And you know it."

"You're just soft. That's all. A soft, whiny kid. It's time that you grew up and hardened yourself."

Shawn had to stop himself from recoiling like Mr. Clayton had slapped him. He'd always been the sort to wilt under judgement, to do everything he could to avoid even the lightest bit of disappointment or criticism. But at the same time, no one liked a whiner, so when the judgement did happen, Shawn always worked hard not to let it show, to take it like it didn't hurt him.

Instead, he took a moment to look up above Mr. Clayton again, to reassure himself that he was in control, and fix his tone to make sure it didn't sound whiny or about to cry. "I'm not whiny, and I'm not soft. I've done more hard things than anyone else I know." If Mr. Clayton was him, then what Mr. Clayton said was also what he thought. But that also meant that by talking to Mr. Clayton, Shawn could try to convince himself that he was wrong about him being weak. He'd done it before, after all. "I escaped from the Circus, I joined the Fortuneteller, I helped Mr. Cherrywinks get all those other kids. I stole souls, I rescued Ralph and Trenk, I sent Eddy to the krinner and I brought him back, I saw myself die. What've you done?"

"All I've ever done is what other people want me to do." Mr. Clayton responded, opening and closing his mouth. Then it was open for a second, before slowly, slowly closing until it was snapped shut. It was like Mr. Clayton was trying to let what he said sink in. Each word. And then the words together. It fit somehow, the idea that a puppet would only be doing what someone told it or made it do.

Mr. Clayton stared a very long time at Shawn.

"I have no control over my mind. I have no control over my body. I am a lifeless puppet. I am a trifle. I am stuck doing the things that those who pull the strings want me to do." he said breaking the silence. He didn't seem said about it. Rather, it seemed like he was trying convey information to Shawn somehow with that vacant stare in his eyes.

"Let's eat some cake!" He said, head shifting attention towards the cake. It was a large sponge cake baked into a cup shape with an icing topping. But it was more than just an average cake. It was an elegant lemon thyme cake, with alternating layers of lemon curd and vanilla buttercream, and then decorated with rich golden icing, candied citrus and sprigs of mint to top it off. Shawn knew without even tasting it that the first bite would be moist, tender and delicate.

Shawn met Mr. Clayton's blank gaze. He thought that the puppet was trying to tell him something, but he wasn't entirely sure what. He wasn't even sure if Mr. Clayton was talking about himself the puppet, or trying to convey something about Shawn...and he didn't like that it was difficult to tell. He sighed a little sadly, then looked at the cake. It looked good, and eating it sounded much better than insulting one another. "I'd like some cake, please."

When Shawn looked up from the cake to meet Mr. Clayton's vacant stare, the Puppet was already busy scooping forkfuls of cake into his mouth.

"All you have to do pick up your fork and eat." Mr. Clayton instructed, a large glob if cake falling from his mouth and 'plopping' onto the table with a wet sound.

"mmmmmmmmmm." Mr. Clayton said, frosting now coating his mannequin mouth.

"It's so good. I'm glad we get to spend this time together! Yucka! Yucka!"