I am at a loss. Lost. Los amigos. Lost boys. Lost boy. I am a real boy! My nose grows.

I want to stomp stomp stomp my wooden legs with Geppetto but he gone. He no home. I am alone.

Me and my nose — which is only sort of long right now because there is no one here to lie to except myself — which I am becoming extremely good at but temper so that my nose doesn’t trip me when I am walking through the workshop. God, I fucking hate that whale. Remember the whale? What a strange turn of events that was. I am afraid there are no whales anymore, that it’s just me, Pinnochio, singing and dancing and not needing food because I am made of wood. Even the television stopped working because there is no one to run the networks. So I make shit in Geppetto’s shop to pass the time. He never let me do this before, but he is gone now, so, like Bad Bunny, I do what I want.

I am not gay, but I am a gay puppet for Bad Bunny.

It’s been, gosh I don’t know how long it’s been. 

One morning—if it was morning, who knows anymore, the sun had been doing what it does, making me squint my sticker eyes—I heard a sound. A tiny one. A tink. Like someone flicking a thimble. Or tapping a tooth. Or knocking on the inside of a dream.

At first I thought it was my nose hitting a shelf again. But no. This was external. 

I followed it out of the workshop, past Geppetto’s worn leather chair, past the mannequin I dressed in his clothes so I could yell at him for abandoning me. The sound came from the town square, which was usually quiet except for the wind whistling through abandoned gelato carts.

tink.

There, sitting on the fountain’s edge, was a cricket.

Not the cricket. Not Jiminy. 

Oh Grillo Oh Grillo, I sang in Italian.

He looked at me and screamed.

I screamed. He screamed some more. We both screamed for a while longer because, honestly, it felt good to scream with someone else.

When we calmed down, he told me his name was Sliminy Cricket, Jiminy’s cousin.

He had survived the end of the world by living inside a hollowed-out Alexa device.

“You’re the last one,” he said, hopping onto my knee. “But you don’t have to be the loneliest.”

I didn’t know what to say. My nose twitched, ready to grow if I lied, so I told the truth.

“I miss Geppetto,” I said. “I miss… everything.”

Sliminy nodded like he’d heard this from a thousand sad puppets before. “Then let’s build something new.”

Sliminy climbed onto my shoulder and said, “Looks like you’re not alone anymore, kid.”

Off we went to the workshop to build a new world, one that wouldn’t be stupid enough to vanish just when you were getting used to it.