In the Lives of Puppets

by T.J. Klune

Vic turned around to see his father watching him. The skin of his face was wrinkled and soft, his bright eyes kind. His hair hung in white waves around his ears, his beard extending down to his chest. When Vic was younger, he’d asked why he looked nothing like his father. Dad was a barrel of a man, his chest thick and strong, his stomach sloping outward, fingers blunt. Vic didn’t have the presence his father had. As a boy, he’d been as thin as a whisper, sprouting up instead of out. He’d grown into himself as he’d gotten older, but he was still awkward, his movements clipped. His father’s skin was pale. His own was tanned, as if he’d been born in the sun and never left. His father’s eyes were blue, Vic’s brown, and in certain light, they looked black. They weren’t the same. They never had been. But this man was his father. This man had raised him. This man who wasn’t a man at all.