Marrionetta spent Demucking Day the way she always did. She traipsed off into the woods wearing a pair of brand new clogs that Ungulen had carved for her out of imported mahogany. She had her favorite parasol as well and acted every part the lady, gliding through the dappling sunlight and ancient trees.
A scattering of toads throbbed and trembled among the dead rot. They too had sought refuge in the forest from Demucking Day. Marrionetta croaked and chirped back at them, inciting a few to fight among themselves, mistaking her for a potential mate.
Eventually she grew tired of the ladylike stroll. She stashed her clogs and her parasol in a holed out tree and tied up her hair with string.
Glancing from trunk to trunk, she strung herself up from the numerous boughs. Thus suspended, she cracked her neck and arms to make them nimbly extra limber.
Floating in the carve of trees, she raised her toes one at a time. She held her fingers aloft and swayed this way and that until she had a momentum of rhythm. She began to dance. It was her private dancing. Graceful swoons checked by jittery and jolted punctuation. It was nothing like her circus work. It was melancholy trapeze for no one but herself.
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