‘Melanie Morkovich doesn’t want you to try to guess what puppet you’ve got a hand in when you visit Butte County’s ‘Inner Puppet Journey.’ She’s been quoted as saying the practice is “infuriating” and “in direct opposition to the spirit of the project,” though she fails to go on record as to what might better suit that “spirit.” Her insinuations, and demonstrations of her own technique, lead the author to believe that, like much of modern self-care, engaging with the ‘Inner Puppet Journey’ is a means of staying in the moment. Trying to guess what puppet your hand is not very ‘present.’’
I’d like to say that I’ve got a personal rule about sticking extremities into places I can’t see, but the Wayside stripped me of basic survival instincts years ago. This is how I find myself crouched in the lower half-floor of the ‘Inner Puppet Journey,’ able to reach up through a series of anonymous holes and into the dark anuses of mystery puppets. I suspect I have my hand in a turtle, though, it’s difficult to say which is the right direction for the puppet to be facing. It may be a figure with a hard plastic mask and, rather than working the turtle’s mouth, I may instead be squeezing the tip of a velvet top hat.
I move on to another puppet, one whose inside fits like a glove. I sense that something is sewn into the fingers- that something might be sewn across the fingers, actually. I wonder if it isn’t a spider web. It would make for a weird puppet, but I’ve seen worse.
The next is long enough that I can feel around on the floor above. A snake, maybe, because my point can just fill the thin fabric of something shaped like a tongue. I waggle the tongue this way, change direction, and waggle the tongue backward. I do this a few times so, later, when I dig through footage of the puppet floor I might figure out what I had been puppeting all along. My understanding, though, is that it’s nearly impossible. Morkovich doesn’t police the use of her puppets on site, but most people believe she mixes up past and present puppet floor footage to discourage the guessing. My hand will be lost in a sea of-
Something grazes my finger through the puppet and I freeze.
I’m not the only one on the half-floor. A teenage couple flirts near the exit. A father lifts his son to the puppet holes about ten feet away. Nobody is close enough to be touching me.
“Stop!” I hiss at the dad, “There something up there.”
He carries the kid several more puppets away in order to more efficiently ignore me. The thing that grazed my finger is still there, unmoving. I feel for it with the snake’s tongue: two eyes, a nose, and a gaping mouth. I pull back instinctively. The fabric is wet. When I reach for the face I find it still gaping. And closer.
I pull my arm back so quickly that the snake turns inside-out. The teens are looking at me now. The dad never really stopped.
I head for the exit when the kid says: “Daddy, look!”
The snake’s body is filling with an arm from above. It’s tongue pokes out and it turns its head to waggle at me. The teens think it’s a riot. The dad is bemused. The kid is freaked, and I side with him. I take the exit and wash my hands in the camper.
There are clips from the ‘Inner Puppet Journey,’ largely considered parody, of a nude figure slipping across the puppet floor. Bizarre, artsy stuff, I guess. And probably not parody.
-traveler
