When I was very young my family had this puppet. It had pale white skin, its hair was made from real horse hair and all its limbs were in different proportions it also had a movable jaw which went up and down. Oh God how I hated that fucking thing, I always hated it and I always will.
My name is Josef Yamadayev and this is my story.
The puppet had belonged to my father who run a toy shop selling various toys and games to the local children in the small town I lived in. He sold fairly ordinary gifts such as legos and barbie nothing too weird although he did have a few strange or old toys in his shop including the puppet. He would always put that damn thing on the kiosk and I would have to deep breath before going in.
I went in and brought some toys and then I went home to play with them as I was playing with them, my dad came home and as annoying joke he only opened the door partly and poked the puppets head out. As he moved its jaw with the string its back, he put on a squeaky voice and said. "Hey bro, watcha ya up to can play too?"
I was startled, but I knew it was only my dad so I put on fake laugh and said. "Ha ha ha, I know it's you dad."
My Dad then put the puppet down and ran towards me with opening arms and hugged me. I spent the rest of the day playing with my toys and talking to them with dad. I should probably say why I have not mentioned my mother, this was because she left when I was very young, she was unstable and what you could call a deadbeat mum. I was my dad's only family since he had no brothers or sisters nor cousins and his parents were dead. Meant that we were always very close, it was also why he was protective of me and of nearly every other child in our neighborhood. They all saw him as a kind uncle like figure to them, he was always laughing and telling jokes.
As it was Friday, my dad let me watch T.V. until I fell sleep whilst he went to bed. As I watched reruns of cartoons on T.V, I was at first enjoying my self I had my favorite blanket and glass of warm milk and some cookies. I looked through the programs there were the usual programs, I checked on the T.V. guide which episodes these were going to be but I had seen them all before. So I decided to flick through the channels, since my Dad did not have any horror movie or adult movie channels, he let me freely skip from channel to channel letting me watch anything I wanted.
I saw an old black and white channel, its name was in language I could recognize well I was only ten at the time. Although as I grew up I did learn that it was Cyrillic but it was not in Russian. I understood some Russian, but could speak let alone read or write any I had heard a few words from my dad whose parents were from somewhere in the Caucasus. Not exactly Russian because well they were not Russian, but they did speak Russian.
It was comedy but it was fortunately subtitled it contained a lot of singing and was fairly enjoyable. After the program finished, enough show went up it was only five minutes. It showed a grainy image of a puppet very similar to my dad's puppet dancing with eerie music. I started screaming and crying, my dad rushed in and picked me up and quickly turned off the T.V. I slept in his bed and had night terrors for the rest of the week.
As a few years past me and my dad moved to Edinburgh since the toy shop was not doing too well, and we would get more customers if we moved up there. I quickly settled in, the locals were nice and the we get lots of customers. We could afford a nice big house and I did not have to put up with the puppet for it had got lost in the move. As I grew up and turned 17 my dad let me travel on my own, I decided to go back to my home town. So I got on the train.
When I got home, I saw the town was very similar to how I had left it all those years ago. I came to a jumble sale and I saw the puppet. I did not particular want to buy it but I knew my dad would have wanted it. So I brought it and took it back up to Edinburgh. I let myself in and I put the thing on the table. I studied it, I found a something carved into its foot it said murderer on the other foot it had bro written. I then looked at its back and it had a small opening its back which had an old piece of paper it read. "Josef Yamadayev and Maybrek Yamadayev medical report. Josef and his twin Maybrek were both born to Mary Yamadayev and Bashir Yamadayev. Josef is fairly healthy and is the dominant twin he took most of the oxygen whilst Maybrek got less. Maybrek was weak and was still-born due to his brother being taking all the nutrients from the womb. The experience of the birth had caused Mary Yamaedayev to die from a heart attack.
I put the paper down and cried it was all my fault, it was all my fucking fault my mother had never ran away I had killed her, I was never an only child, I had killed my brother. My first action was murder, to cause death that was the first thing I did in this world. Now I knew why my dad said. "Hey bro." All those years ago.