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todayiamadaisySomewhere my love (ding ding ding ding)... I found the pink musical doll, wedged behind my desk, cobweb-covered, blue ribbon bow undone, and neck cocked in a near-fatal rictus. A Christmas gift from a cousin years ago, I've kept her out of guilt; I've never liked her much.
I thought I'd play her once more before I threw her out. I held her in my palm and wound the key, and listened as she played her music-box tune, the first two lines of that song, rolling her head slowly to the music.
She was begging for her life.
Her french-knot eyes were pleading and the heart-shaped felt appliqué of her mouth spoke mute volumes. I saw her little cloth hand resting on my thumb and felt a jolt of recognition. I put her on the desk instead, uprighting her as she overbalanced, and I stood still, sole judge of this appeal.
She was dusty and bedraggled, playing those same two lines of tinkly music, and she radiated sadness. She was pleading, but all she could do was play a song and roll her neck, and only that as long as she was wound. The music slowed and in the silence between notes the sadness grew so loud I wanted to scream to drown it out. Finally she wound down, powerless at last, eloquent unto her final, weary ding. She sat, unable to move, head drooped, one woollen curl unravelled, exhausted.
She has been reprieved, and sits there still.
I wrote that a couple of years ago and I can't remember why I didn't post it at the time. I saved it in my drafts folder instead and it's been there ever since. The pink doll, meanwhile, has been in the hard-to-access top-most cupboard in my room, with a handful of other toys and a typewriter and a microscope and a broken alarm clock and similar assorted detritus.
Until today, that is, when, searching for something to unclutter in my monthly uncluttering, I fetched the ladder from the garage and looked in the cupboard. The doll was up there with a couple of stuffed toys -- a fluffy yellow rabbit and a paisley cloth dog -- that were also given to me as gifts in my teens. I'm not really a stuffed toy person, so they've been kept out of affection for the givers, but out of sight. They were in good nick, so they were put in my box of stuff to go to charity and I can tell myself that they will be bought by someone who will give them a good home.
The doll, though... her neck is at a very strange angle and her woollen hair is unravelling and her dress is faded and discoloured and she's in no condition for charity. I had to throw her out. I put her in the rubbish box but she kept looking at me, so I had to put her in a bag (I had to close my eyes until I tied it shut) and then take it out to the bin. As the bag landed, she gave out a couple of final, sad dings. Oh, it was traumatic.
I don't know why this particular doll upsets me so much. As I said, I've never liked her much: she's pink and twee and I would have loved her as a littlie. But I was over dolls when she was given to me and so I've kept her all these years out of politeness to the cousin who gave her and guilt towards the doll herself. Those toys like Winnie-the-Pooh or Puff the magic dragon or the toys in Toy Story that love the children who love them, even when the children grow out of them... I feel bad for this poor doll that I never loved her at all.
I should probably stop anthropomorphising things. It would make my life so much easier.
I thought I'd play her once more before I threw her out. I held her in my palm and wound the key, and listened as she played her music-box tune, the first two lines of that song, rolling her head slowly to the music.
She was begging for her life.
Her french-knot eyes were pleading and the heart-shaped felt appliqué of her mouth spoke mute volumes. I saw her little cloth hand resting on my thumb and felt a jolt of recognition. I put her on the desk instead, uprighting her as she overbalanced, and I stood still, sole judge of this appeal.
She was dusty and bedraggled, playing those same two lines of tinkly music, and she radiated sadness. She was pleading, but all she could do was play a song and roll her neck, and only that as long as she was wound. The music slowed and in the silence between notes the sadness grew so loud I wanted to scream to drown it out. Finally she wound down, powerless at last, eloquent unto her final, weary ding. She sat, unable to move, head drooped, one woollen curl unravelled, exhausted.
She has been reprieved, and sits there still.
I wrote that a couple of years ago and I can't remember why I didn't post it at the time. I saved it in my drafts folder instead and it's been there ever since. The pink doll, meanwhile, has been in the hard-to-access top-most cupboard in my room, with a handful of other toys and a typewriter and a microscope and a broken alarm clock and similar assorted detritus.
Until today, that is, when, searching for something to unclutter in my monthly uncluttering, I fetched the ladder from the garage and looked in the cupboard. The doll was up there with a couple of stuffed toys -- a fluffy yellow rabbit and a paisley cloth dog -- that were also given to me as gifts in my teens. I'm not really a stuffed toy person, so they've been kept out of affection for the givers, but out of sight. They were in good nick, so they were put in my box of stuff to go to charity and I can tell myself that they will be bought by someone who will give them a good home.
The doll, though... her neck is at a very strange angle and her woollen hair is unravelling and her dress is faded and discoloured and she's in no condition for charity. I had to throw her out. I put her in the rubbish box but she kept looking at me, so I had to put her in a bag (I had to close my eyes until I tied it shut) and then take it out to the bin. As the bag landed, she gave out a couple of final, sad dings. Oh, it was traumatic.
I don't know why this particular doll upsets me so much. As I said, I've never liked her much: she's pink and twee and I would have loved her as a littlie. But I was over dolls when she was given to me and so I've kept her all these years out of politeness to the cousin who gave her and guilt towards the doll herself. Those toys like Winnie-the-Pooh or Puff the magic dragon or the toys in Toy Story that love the children who love them, even when the children grow out of them... I feel bad for this poor doll that I never loved her at all.
I should probably stop anthropomorphising things. It would make my life so much easier.