Paint stained fingers, hardened, cracked and yellowed held his fragile figurine with steady intensity as he painted a ruby lipped smile. On his large oak desk were scattered the tools of his art. Tubes of oil paints in varied colours and sizes, along with scissors, glue and other odd accompaniments sat waiting in agitated anticipation for the puppeteer's gentle grasp. Within his work shop huddled a large couch, a wooden cabinet and varied draws and cupboards that housed his previous creations with the array of specialised tools needed to mould them. The winter's night hang in icy desolation about the heavily wooded pines that surrounded the puppeteer's home. Its inconsolable sigh was interrupted by the puppeteer's routine playing of his violin each evening and early dawn. The only other sound was this man's cheerful chatter to his lifeless creations that would resound in empty echoes down the corridors of his home. Tonight, he whispered sweet nothings to his prized puppet, Aurora.

For Aurora, he had successfully procured two sapphires, the size of an average button through shady, undercover dealings involving mainly opium. Marching on the sordid streets of London the people's price of living and life could be reduced to shillings in seconds. For those whose souls were steeped in the desire for opium, anything was attainable within the grasp of their lust. As he was sure on the score, the puppeteer's main earnings were gained within this lucrative death market.

He felt Aurora's presence, like his other pieces, manifest in an unseen future. Deep within the lucid colourings of his imagination, she spoke to him fully formed. The conversations were typically of daily routines, her observations, preferences and hints of secret longings and desires. The tone of their conversations was jovial and on occasion, as he came closer to completing her, he could discern a deep Russian accent.

The shell of her body was porcelain, which heighten the feel of her fragility and value. Her features were framed by raven black hair that he got from an urchin girl laying in an unnamed, open grave. Combing out the clods of dirt and grit from that tangle of knots was not as unpleasant as one would imagine. He enjoyed the therapy of watching a grotesque mismanaged thing start to shine and glisten under his fastidious care.

One brutally cold morning, pitch black, as dawn was a swarm of billowing snow clouds blanketing the sky, the puppeteer was interrupted from his violin playing. There was a long persistent moaning deep in the thicket of the woods. He was not a man to answer to any other person's distress, however he was a man to answer his own curiosity. Also, seeing that the moaning was dismembering the harmony of his playing, he was particularly keen to put an end to it.

The large wooden door, the entrance of his home, was warped from years of lachrymose weather. That morning, it creaked violently decrying the puppeteer's decision to move past the sanctuary it guarded. The twists and knurl of wood stood out like an old harridan's hand pointing displeasingly at a clearly ominous future. Nevertheless, on the puppeteer moved steadily through the trenches of brilliant shimmering snow.

He could not make out much as the thicket of wood was inundated by mist. It hung longingly about the tall proud pine trees like an enraptured lover. It's shadowy form a forlorn, elegant yet haunting presence. The puppeteer huddled against the insistent cold and continued slowly throughout the woods.

Not easily frightened the puppeteer was surprised to find the hair at the back of his neck rise. He became fraught with misgivings and unnamed fears. What he found most disturbing was that the distance between him and the moaning remained at a constant. Also, the position of the moaning moved and therefore he could not discern its whereabouts. That is, the deeper into the woods he moved so did the source of the moan.

Walking into a small clearing the puppeteer looked up at the thick blankets of clouds and decided it unwise to continue. Turning his back on this morning's eerie curiosity, the puppeteer navigated his way back to the stiff solitude of his home.

The rest of the morning saw sheets of snow shower down. Those tiny ice crystals layer upon layer wept inconsolably across the evergreen landscape. All the while the puppeteer worked furiously on Aurora. The workshop scented with the deep spicy coffee he managed to procure from one of his Arabian dealers, brought him small comfort. Energized from the morning's events, he moved with fevered anxiety his face an unnatural glow, luminous against the deep dark backdrop of middle winter.

Aurora was fast becoming the most beautiful creation he'd ever pieced together. With practised dexterity he gingerly painted her skin. Holding her tiny foot in his rough calloused hand and with small steady strokes he permitted her a pearl, translucent complexion. The evening crept up with clandestine stealth noticed only because the temperature dropped drastically. Little Aurora's form became painful to touch it was so cold.

With a sigh, the puppeteer resigned for the evening, put a cup of coffee on the boil and moved his tired body to the warmer parts of his home. He always prepared a pipe to indulge after the evenings play with his coffee. Throwing another piece of wood to the fire he began to exercise those mournful notes. Unbidden, tears would always flow when playing as it took him back to happier times when he was young and in love. Her name was Angela and she introduced to him a whole new part of the universe where hope, opportunity and potential burgeoned unapologetic for them alone. Angela was 22 years old when she died, consumption had torn her lungs in shreds and stole the last whispers of her life, with it the puppeteer's soul.

Finished for the evening, his face ashen and tear stained the puppeteer took his pipe and coffee and watched the winter world from the large window of the room. Puffing contemplatively, he thought of the scene he would carve for Aurora, she was definitely Russian and he began to piece recollections from his tired memory of Saint Petersburg, to design the set for the back drop of this little gamine child. The logs collapsed into ash and the temperature of the room dropped. The puppeteer in his musings fell into a deep troubled sleep.

In his dreams Aurora was standing as a young girl in the clearing of the wood a simple white dress was the only thing protecting her from the onslaught of winter. He walked towards her and asked

"Why are you outside?"

She just looked at him, ruby lips slightly apart giving away nothing.

"Why are you outside?" he asked again feeling an inexplicable uneasiness creep up on him.

Her sapphire eyes twinkled, their intense beauty penetrating the dark of the night while she fixed her gaze on him. The wind roared throughout the trees each moving their burly limbs in creaks and contorts to the whim of the night.

"Why are you outside?"

This time her lips opened and her face spasmed into that same moan that plagued his previous morning.

He woke startled, shocked his body glistening from the sweat drenched dream. The room was below freezing, a sheet of ice covered every surface. Brittle, stiff and aching he got up and tended to the now dead fire. Dawn like an absent hostess to her own party was once again a no show. Feeling his way blindly the puppeteer was still troubled by the remaining vestiges of his dream. He looked forward to the morning's routine play of his violin if for nothing than to appease the dark misgivings sprouting in his soul. And there moving past the angry roar of the winter's wind was that anguished moan.

At first, he tried to ignore both the sound and the effect it had on him. The accumulating fear came in tides and waves inundating his psyche and obscuring his otherwise sound reasoning. The sound was almost bestial its anguish a mixture of pain and deliberate jeering with a malice that mocked and teased him.

On all fours searching frantically his body shaking erratically the puppeteer eventually found the matches needed to light the fire. It was the first win against the morning's taunts and he felt it like a surge of confidence and power. Lighting the room with a single stroke the resplendent flame threw its form displacing the dark ruminations that had previously saturated the room.

The fire now ablaze the puppeteer's resolve to stay strong against unnamed elements enabled him to put a fresh cup of coffee on the pot and to toast his bread. Waiting for breakfast he lit his pipe and breathed deeply the calming tobacco. The scent of warm bread, spicy coffee and burning fire fused with his puffing pipe and brought calm and order to the morning. He decided if he was going to maintain his sanity, he would have to seek out the source of the moaning. He reckoned it probably a wounded animal and if that was the case he could only benefit from its spoils.

Strengthened by breakfast with shot gun slung over his arm, he once again pushed past the protests of the harridan that was his door and out into the blinding snow. The mist had not departed and its love affair with the woods was still strong. A cuckoo's cry broke the haunted tableau of the forest. Yet, on the moaning persisted, and on the puppeteer trudged. New misgivings worried him. The moaning was inexorable. There was no stopping for breath as any wounded creature would have done. Distinguishable from the wind by the inflections rising and lowering from evident distress and pain, the moan seemed to exist as if a life of its own.

The puppeteer's calm began to crack like the thin veneer of paint that covered his creations without the extra layering of protective coat. He lost track of time obsession gaining ground and taking over reason. Exposed to the elements, his skin peeled away revealing bright raw strips of flesh on his face and knuckles. Still, he kept hunting down the cry as best he could. Wafts of pine and sap rode the icy breeze as needles continually littered the floor filling the previous white canvas of snow with shards of green and brown.

Deep into the morning he happened upon the same clearing. Coincidently, the clouds resigned from their dramatic siege of the sky allowing a brief flicker of the sun to light the clearing. The effect was dazzling the ice crystals refracted the strong lean rays of the sun's shine sending shimmers of soft white tinted in a myriad of colours across the puppeteer's vision. Within the tangle of his mind seconds passed like hours as steadily the boggy morass of his tainted perception began to mirror the pristine clarity surrounding him. The moaning that had engulfed him dissolved in the distance of both the past hours and the thicket. Reclaiming the day, the puppeteer made his way back to his craft and to his beloved pieces.

Aurora was laying stiff and cold on his desk. He couldn't help but feel resentful about her complete indifference to the struggle that made up his morning. Then, shaking off his coat and with it the remaining remnants of his warped thinking he went back to work.

It was around one thirty in the afternoon when one of his clients arrived knocking on his door. Irritated at this interruption he and his door stood sullenly regarding this, his source of income.

"I've come for the usual." The bald bearded man spoke. His voice shattered the gathered quiet of the forest its accent heavy with London's tell-tale rabble.

Without saying a word, the puppeteer motioned the man in. Adding a log to the fire the puppeteer said

"You are welcome to try the first pipe here, to ensure its quality," his voice stiff from misuse, "stay for half an hour and then leave. This isn't a den." He handed the man the package and moved to make two fresh cups of coffee.

"Why are you out here in the middle of nowhere?" The bearded man asked as he placed a pipe between two thin, cracked, lips, clearly enjoy the taste of metal lingering, teasing.

"Your place is almost impossible to reach and I would not come here if it were not for the high-grade quality flowers you serve."

Saying nothing the puppeteer handed him a cup of rich Arabian coffee sweetened and spicy whilst choosing a seat opposite. He watched as the user sucked on the shaft of the pipe, deeply and slowly exhaling, his pupils with equal leisure extended to the far reaches of his irises. The man appeared at immediate ease and clearly forgot the line of conversation directed at the puppeteer. Leaving the man to his drug induced fugue, he went back to craft Aurora's jewellery. Aurora, he decided was upper class bourgeois and nothing short of genuine gems would grace her neck, arms and hair.

Once again, the evening discreetly quelled the day and the brilliance of twilight with its deep hues of azure and aquamarine, surrounded the home of this master craftsman, announcing with diffident grace, nights imminent arrival.

Sighing he resigned from his workshop. In tight awkward movements he hobbled steadily down the corridors to the warmth of his pipe, coffee and violin. Suddenly he stopped cold, there passed out was the bearded drug taker eyes shut and chest heaving contentedly. Berating himself for being so absent minded he tried unsuccessfully to shake this intruder awake. When he failed to do so, he resolved to charge extra for each hour spent. That being decided, he returned to his violin.

Those evocative melodies strung out his heart ache welcoming the vacant black of the night. Looking upon the almost comatose guest the puppeteer felt something close to sympathy crack the cold of his glass heart. After throwing a blanket on the heaving body, he turned his attention back to the comfort of his pipe and resumed the usual stance in front of the large window, watching the steady swirling of snow footprint the earth. Falling into his usual sofa he fell asleep.

This night he dreamt of a brick house covered in ivy creepers surrounded by a pine forest. There in a large window was a man playing with unmatched elegance his violin, streams of tears coursing down and washing out the mournful expression of his face. When he was done, the man in the cottage in his dream, puffed on a pipe staring intently out, with searching coal black eyes.

Awaked by a distant screeching probably of an owl, the puppeteer realised that in his dream he was watching himself. He felt strange, removed as if experiencing thoughts and emotions beyond his own.

The fire was a dim glow the heart of it simmering out fast as deep scarlet made way for grey and ash. In a quick attempt to rekindle both warmth and light, he violently threw a log at the stove. The crashing sound woke his guest whose glazed eyes searched the room frantically trying to reconcile the foreign environment to an otherwise blank memory. Landing on the puppeteer, recognition sparked in an almost perceptible chain reaction his face uncloaking as pieces of yesterday were strewn together.

"What time is it?" The bearded man questioned.

"Well, you have definitely stayed longer than half an hour and I will charge you for every extra half an hour spent," The puppeteer responded stiffly.

The wind roared its tyranny silencing the conversation. Getting up to prepare his coffee and toast he turned his back on the bearded man.

"I suffered strange dreams throughout the night," he said looking at the bag of opium in hand "I dreamt of a strange moaning, shifting and transforming," he said bleakly his expression grim, "a shadow without form only despair."

The puppeteer stopped and slowly turned around drinking in the sight of the defeated form. An incomprehensible angst seized his heart and he saw without clear reason that this man had a larger role to play with the recent happenings that tortured his mornings.

"Do you let all strangers into your home?" the bearded man enquired

"You're not a stranger, you are a regular, why would you ask that?" asked the puppeteer

Over his shoulder, the man looked at the craftsman; conviction framed his dark eyes and forced a reckoning between them. The puppeteer dropped to his knees under the force of the stare. He swallowed hard, desolation and awareness crept in as steadily he began to understand.

"Every man will one day meet me," said the bearded man, "You see the moaning in my dream and that of your mornings did not come from a wounded animal but it came from a dying man, it came from you."