The Magical Wedge chapter 4

A Puppet with a Faint Smile

The two of them hugged each other, talking and crying. Before they knew it, dawn was breaking.

“I have to go,” his wife said, wiping away her tears. She stood up. “Take good care of yourself. If I have a chance in the future, I’ll come back to see you.” With that, she walked towards the door. Mr. Johnson didn’t want her to leave. He shouted, “Don’t go!” and reached out to grab her, but he missed. He got up and chased after her, but he tripped over the threshold. When he fell, he woke up. It was already bright outside. Remembering the dream, Mr. Johnson quickly ran to the next room to look for the mother – daughter pair. The quilt on the bed was neatly folded, and they were gone. There was a small cloth bag on the bedside table. When he opened it, inside was the distorted heart, a symbol of longing.

After this incident, Mr. Johnson lost his appetite and couldn’t sleep well. Two days later, the police came to his door and asked him to go to the police station to claim a body. Mr. Johnson’s heart skipped a beat. He asked carefully, “Are you sure you’ve got the right person?”

The police explained, “The deceased was on a long – distance bus, and the bus overturned on the way. The address we found on her belongs to you. There’s also a young girl who was with her. She’s currently in the hospital, still in a coma.”

Hearing this, Mr. Johnson couldn’t hold back his tears.

The police continued, “These long – distance bus drivers don’t care about people’s lives. They overload the buses seriously. This accident cost more than a dozen lives!” Mr. Johnson then followed the police to claim the body and went to the hospital to see his daughter. Looking at his daughter’s peaceful face, as if she were just sleeping, Mr. Johnson shed more tears.

The villagers all said that Mr. Johnson was very unlucky. His wife was abducted soon after they got married. After more than twenty years, just when she came back, she died in a car accident. What a pity…

Mr. Johnson didn’t send his wife’s body to the crematorium. Instead, he made a high – quality coffin for her and secretly buried her in a beautiful, secluded place. However, this was against the rules. Soon, someone reported him to the authorities, saying that he was undermining the funeral reform. The local officials came and asked him to dig up his wife’s body and send it for cremation.

Mr. Johnson was reluctant, but he had no choice. He dug open the grave. Some young men jumped into the grave and lifted the coffin out. A group of people gathered around the coffin, chattering. The local leader waved his hand and said, “Open the coffin!” The young men who were carrying the coffin looked at each other. No one wanted to do it, but they had to. Finally, they opened the coffin. At that moment, everything went quiet. The local leader stopped talking, Mr. Johnson stopped crying, and everyone looked into the coffin…

There was no body in the coffin. Instead, there was a life – sized puppet. It was a female puppet with a faint smile on her face. Wasn’t this the puppet Mr. Johnson had made all those years ago? On the puppet’s head was the long wig that Mr. Johnson had bought with his meager savings. The hair was neatly tied up at the back, and the small velvet flower on the temple and the clothes on the puppet were clearly the ones Mr. Johnson had prepared for his wife’s burial…