Marionette has a particularly different kind of experience.
When we die, we experience the same thing that we might expect we
experienced before we lived: Pure and utter nothingness. There is a
finite time of nothingness before we are something, and then an infinite
blackness of nothingness after we are not. I do not know, nor can I
reflect on what I was before there ever was a me. Nor can I reflect on
what I am after I have been. That something which I am is that same
something that identifies things as such.
Marionette is an
exception. She is different. Marionette, like you and I, was made in the
image and likeness of her creator. Her purpose and existence is only
ever competent when she is submissive, and her will is not her own. And
like you and I, Marionette will become tangled up, and cannot untangle
on her own. However, unlike you and I, Marionette only is whenever
someone who is, is letting her be. When she is put down, she no longer
is anymore. And unlike you and I, she is, once again, whenever she is
picked up. She, unlike us, is, after she has not been. Her lives and
deaths consist of being, punctuated by dark periods of not being. In a
sense, she is the only one who is, who has not been, and she is the only
one who cannot say what it is to not have been, because what she says
doesn't come from what she is, but rather from who is letting her be.
Marionette will always be, from time to time, until there is no one else for her to be.
She's here, she's there, she's everywhere she cares to be. Marionette is always there for you. No strings attached.
Two comments on the literature itself, and then some philosophy, why not?
Did you perhaps consider the use of a comma rather then a full stop at the end of your opening paragraph, to maintain the tension 'till the resolution kicks in with "Except for marionette", else you have two rather sedate statements one after another, and rather weighty ones, at that.
Furthermore.. your use of the word 'punctuated'- "punctuated by dark voids of not being"- I've read some of your other writing, and such a slip into the prosaic in the middle of a metaphysical questioning session is hardly justified at your standard, I would certainly suggest that you rethink that particular word, at least.
Having said that, as a work of literature, I thoroughly enjoyed it; your claims are gossamer-fine, and fall like silk into a philosophical whole, and despite myself, Marionette, the character-who-is-not, tugs at my critic's heart. Well written indeed, but for..
Philosophy! Or, casuistry, rather. To address you for a moment as a virile philosopher, I would surely question whether you aren't working here behind your time. Human beings have asked questions of metaphysics, of 'being and nothingness', for all recorded history, and I would say to you that for all their self-defining answers, it has come to naught but science, and a science that attacks your very God, no doubt. You clearly have the mind to delve beyond those surface questions- So do so! I say deeper, sir, for if the poets miss the real problems near at hand, then God forbid;
What hope for the rest of us!
For your information. I remember well what it was like before I was I.
We all stood in line, much like marionettes I guess. I clearly recall a very tall chap dressed in..., well the colour and style of his clothes doesn't matter much. It was what he said that mattered enormously. If only I'd known better. He asked us to choose sides. Haves on the left. Have nots on the right. I stupidly went with the majority.
This is an INCREDIBLE piece. Not only did I absolutely adore the play on words, I think the entire concept itself is brilliant. You had me with the first sentence. Then you introduced Marionette and I seriously was so thrilled and intrigued to read this.
Great great piece. This is going into my favorites.