Featured Flash Fiction
The wooden people are common in this part of the country, at
least, that’s what I was told when I moved here. The main thing to
know about them is that they mean no harm. I say this as someone who
finds them unsettling. Yes, their movements are mechanical and
repetitive. Their faces, blank and doll-like. But as I said,
they are harmless, so harmless in fact that when encountered, they
do not seem to know that you’re there. They’re not really alive in
the normal sense of the word. Rather, they are more like wind-up
toys moving in a set pattern, unable to sense the surrounding
environment. Some say they’re sentient because they’re able
to choose when they show themselves. Those that disagree claim that
they don’t choose to show themselves at all. These people say that
they’re always here among us, hiding in plain sight. They’re simply,
for whatever reason, difficult to notice.
In most sightings, they’re usually found acting out some
kind of role. An acquaintance told me he once saw one acting as
a ticket agent at a movie theater, complete with booth and uniform.
One may wonder how to tell them from a genuine human playing the
same part. Even without looking at their face, it’s easy. In the
example just mentioned, the wooden man was alone, the theater was
deserted. And yet, there he sat, repeatedly extending his arm
forward, collecting imaginary tickets from an imaginary line of
customers. A wooden person always acts in a role that is
incongruous to the surrounding environment. That’s how you can
tell them apart from the real thing.
One night, many years ago, I encountered a wooden
person in a deserted intersection in town. He was acting
as a traffic cop. He stood in the middle of the street,
swiftly extending his hand this way and that, directing
traffic that was nowhere to be found. I remember studying
the man intently as I sat in my motionless car.
He was silent and expressionless. He didn’t care that I was
disobeying his orders half the time. He simply continued on and
on, going through the motions. Stop. Go. Stop. Go. Stop.
After a while, I lost interest and sped away. I watched him in
my rear-view mirror as he receded into the distance. A part
of me was hoping he’d do something unexpected, a glance in my
direction, anything. But nothing changed. Even when I
encountered another at the next intersection and the
next and the next and the next, all remained the same.
Stop. Go. Stop. Go. Stop.
Zach Docter is a writer and composer from Los Angeles, California. He enjoys writing about strange things, head scratchers, and the bizarre in the mundane. His work has been featured in Joke’s Review and his debut short story collection, “The Great Pyramid and Other Stories,” was released in June 2022 by Curious Curls Publishing.