Stories That Warm the Heart: Three Short Tales

By Robert A. Pauker

William, the Puppet Master, and Delbert, each different in his own way, are all controlled by their fears. But when unforeseen events provide them with the chance to escape their emotional bonds, they must first confront the torments of their pasts.

William, a star seventh grader, just wishes he could escape the disappointed voice of his deceased father. Mortified when he sees his only friend tortured by a bully, William is frozen with fear. Driven by personal shame for years, he finally does something out of character that changes everything.

A puppet master, consumed by his memories, is happiest when his marionettes transport his heart to another placeuntil he hears a tiny voice calling for help.

Delbert is the loneliest person he knows. As he desperately searches to find some meaning in his desolate life, he is forced to shed the burdensome chains of his childhood in order to escape his internal prison.

In this compelling trio of tales, three people struggling with vulnerability and personal demons attempt to understand their spirits and resolve their inner conflicts as they learn to surrender to fate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Mar 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781480800212

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Copyright © 2013 ROBERT A. PAUKER.

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ISBN: 978-1-4808-0020-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-0021-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013902911

Archway Publishing rev. date: 3/06/2013

THREE SHORT TALES

WILLIAM’S REDEMPTION

Part I

Part II

Part III

THE PUPPET MASTER

Part I

Part II

DELBERT’S REBIRTH

Part I

Part II

Part III

William’s Redemption

Part I

William looked down on the school steps and saw an old, crumbled, yellowing piece of paper. The way the paper looked reminded him of his father’s note he had discovered three years earlier. The association was too much. His mind could not turn off his father’s voice. Don’t let your friend starve. The voice repeated over and over. William’s whole body shuddered. Soon the voice was gone, and he continued down the steps.

Before this moment, William’s day at school had been mostly typical. He was, as usual, a star in every class.

As for Aaron, he was light years away from being a star student. That was why he asked William if he could borrow his math notes for a couple of hours after school. Both had a math test the next day. Aaron knew he could learn more from William’s notes than from any book.

Aaron especially had looked forward to getting home and watching a movie on TV. Both friends had learned to love old movies. They would rather watch Mr. Smith Goes To Washington for the tenth time than go out and play. Not that either one of them was a loner. They had some friends in the neighborhood. Actually, you could call them acquaintances. The neighborhood kids would always let William and Aaron play in their football, baseball, or whatever games.

Aaron was not a great athlete, but he wasn’t uncoordinated either. He could field a grounder almost as well as Johnny Adkins who was a star on the little league team. Part of the issue was interest or, better put, enthusiasm. Aaron would begin playing, let’s say baseball, with these other local kids and do fine, but then he would get bored after an hour. So he would stop concentrating on the game and begin thinking about a movie hero. Of course, the inevitable error or strikeout would follow.

William could have been a pretty good athlete, but he didn’t have anyone at home to teach him. His father died when William was two months old. Aaron’s dad spent some time teaching William how to play ball. However, it was not the same thing.

William was really Aaron’s only special friend. He would come over to Aaron’s house after school, and they would watch The Early Show at 4:00 p.m. On weekends, the two friends would walk around the neighborhood talking about different movie and comic book characters. Do you think Humphrey Bogart should have gotten on the plane with Ingrid Bergman? Aaron had asked William a few days before. William was the only one Aaron could ask this kind of question. Anyone else would have answered with an Uh or That is the dumbest question.

On this particular day, Aaron was in a hurry to get home because The Early Show had The African Queen on channel two. He had seen the movie nearly a dozen times, but that did not matter. Aaron loved Humphrey Bogart. During the commercial breaks he planned to study William’s math notes. Usually William would come home with him, but, on this day, William said he wanted to work on his science project. So Aaron was going to watch Bogart alone.

Aaron’s parents both worked. When his mother would come home around 5:30, she would receive a distant hello because her son would be mesmerized by the behavior or action from The Early Show.

When William walked out of the middle school on that day, he took his normal route out of the side door facing Argosy Avenue and turned right to walk across the playground. As he began walking across the huge playground that was divided into several playing fields and blacktop, William noticed a crowd in the distance next to the baseball field bordering Garry and Fairfield Streets.

At first he figured that one of the eighth graders was showing off as eighth graders do. Just last week, Barry Hopkins drew a crowd showing off the new karate moves he had just learned. But this seemed different. The crowd appeared agitated. William could hear yells and screams although he could not make out what anybody was saying.

At first William continued to walk at his normal pace toward the crowd. He was curious about what was causing the commotion. Besides this was his normal way home. He would walk across the playground and turn right on Fairfield Street for three blocks.

Then William heard a familiar voice cry out. Who is that? He thought to himself. Finally, he realized the voice belonged to Aaron. Why was Aaron’s voice heard above everyone else’s? He began to run toward the crowd. Is Aaron in trouble? He thought.

The crowd seemed to get exponentially louder as William approached. What from a distance had seemed like thirty or forty people now looked like over a hundred. He found it difficult to make out what the students were saying. He saw Johnny and Harold and Stevey and all the kids from their neighborhood- the kids with whom they would play ball- screaming. After struggling to make out the meaning, he finally could make sense of what Freddy Ironword was yelling. Hit him, again. Yelled Freddy.

William was just a few feet from the back of the crowd. The number of students was so dense that he struggled to see the main event. He, again, heard what he thought was Aaron’s voice crying out.

Realizing he would have to push his way to the front of the crowd, William used the sideways technique Aaron’s uncle had shown him. When you want to get through a crowd, his uncle had said, "line up sideways so your shoulders are perpendicular to their bodies. Then pick your spots with small