Friday Fiction: The Dolls

 

THE DOLLS

 

     Once there was a doll that lived in a patch of trees between two highways.

     She hadn't always lived there. Once upon a time she had lived with and been loved by a little girl. The girl talked to her, gave her pretend teas, and took her everywhere she went.

     One day the girl's parents took her far away to visit her grandmother who lived in another town. The grandmother's house was right off the highway. After visiting a while the girl's parents began talking seriously with the grandmother, so seriously that they paid no attention to the little girl.

     The girl grew tired of listening and decided to explore. The doll went with her. The girl came to the edge of the highway, and thought the trees on the other side looked interesting. She crossed the road (looking both ways, of course; she wasn't entirely foolish), and for a while she and the doll were happily exploring and playing.

     When the girl's parents and grandmother were finally done talking and looked up, they were scared to see the little girl so far away. They yelled and called, and the father ran over (he did not look both ways) and grabbed up the girl. In her excitement and fear the little girl dropped the doll to the ground.

     There the doll lay, forgotten in all the commotion and concern. The girl felt so bad about scaring everyone that she forgot all about her poor doll. It wasn't until very late at night when they had got back home that she remembered, and then her parents said it was too far and too late to go back for her.

     The next day the father had to go to work, and the mother telephoned the grandmother and told her about the doll. The grandmother was too old and tired to cross the highway and look, so that was that. The little girl was sad about losing her doll, but that afternoon she and her mother went shopping and bought a new one. In time she became very fond of it, but she never gave her heart to it as she had the old doll.

     So now the doll lived in the patch of trees between the highways.

     She came to look quite different from the way she was when the little girl had lost her. The sun bleached much of the color from her bright clothes, and the dust and rain had turned her body gray. Her hair, once golden, faded almost to white, and stuck out every which way. Every now and then, when she looked into a puddle of water or the shiny surface of tinfoil, she would sigh at the changes that had come over her.

     For toys, as you know, live secret lives when no one is looking. Every child knows this and knew it long before there were any stories or movies about it. Toys can move around on their own, but they cannot, as a rule, go far from where they are put; otherwise, the doll would have gone across the road to the grandmother's house where she could have been found and rescued. As it was, she could only look wistfully over the road and dream about her little girl. After a while she quit doing that.

     The doll began to make a life for herself amid the trees. There was really not much to do most of the time but sit and watch the cars go up and down on either side and think. Sometimes she would look through the bits of newspapers or magazines that came blowing through the trees; sometimes she gave herself imaginary tea parties with the cups and things that careless people tossed out. When it rained, she went under the leaves of a spreading bush with red flowers that grew right under the border of the trees, but it never kept her completely dry.

     There were the animals, but animals live a secret life of their own that has little to do with people, or even toys. The sparrows would have gladly used her hair to make their nests; the field mice wanted her stuffing to line their holes; the crows would have liked her button eyes and shiny safety pins to put in their treasuries. So, while the doll enjoyed watching them and admired their neat feathers or furry coats, the animals were no real company for her.

     Everything changed in early autumn.

     The leaves started to turn brown and the grass yellow. The birds began to leave. More and more the east wind blew, hurrying gray clouds along. The doll grew more wistful as everything around her thinned and faded. Then one day someone driving by very fast threw a boy doll out the window. He sailed through the air and landed with a bounce on the shoulder of the highway, then rolled a little way down. The doll could see him quite clearly from where she sat under her bush.

     She looked at him for the rest of the afternoon. Although he had clearly seen some wear and tear, he was in good shape, clean and bright, and even carefully mended once. The doll stared at him, wishing she could talk to him, as the cars and trucks went noisily up and down the roads. She stared all afternoon and into the evening.

     Finally, when it was late at night (but not yet midnight) the boy doll got up and shook himself. He looked around, peering into the dim twilight, and started to walk shakily to the trees. Then the girl doll did a strange thing. She left the bush and went quietly and quickly to the other end of the woods. Throughout the night she kept watch and listened, and if she thought the boy doll was coming near, she scurried away and hid somewhere else, until the morning light came and both dolls were still again. Then she cried.

     The girl doll was very lonely, but she was also afraid. She was afraid the boy doll would look at her tattered dress and faded face and laugh at her. When she saw how bright and well-kept he was, she felt that even if he would have talked to her, she would feel unworthy.

     So, for a whole month she kept out of his way. After a while he must have known he was not alone, and she could hear him searching for his elusive companion under the trees. Now and then he had a glimpse of her as she ducked into hiding, but he never caught up with her. Because she was always running away, she hardly saw him, but only heard him coming through the crackling yellow grass and fallen leaves.

     More and more leaves turned brown and fell or were blown away by the winds and autumn rain, to lie with the papers and throw-aways that collected in the trees and weeds between the highways. Then one day while the girl doll was looking at a discarded catalog and thinking that soon there would be no place to hide, she had an idea.

     She gathered pins and rubber bands. She found brightly colored paper. She carefully bound all this fresh finery around until no part of her dull and tattered body showed. Finally, she put a mask made from the face of a fashion model over her own, and then collected her courage and went to meet the boy doll.

     She came to the sheltered clearing under the trees where she knew he had been living. She saw him sitting under the bush, now blossomless and getting spiky. As she drew near, she noticed that he looked different somehow. He saw her and stood up, and as she came close, she saw what had happened.

     The days had not been kind to the boy doll either. The sun and rain had bleached and worn him. But the girl doll could only see this in bits and pieces because the boy had hidden himself under borrowed scraps as well. The only part of him that she could see clearly were his eyes, which looked at her through the face of a famous movie star, and which looked rather frightened.

     Shyly they introduced themselves and began talking. At first, they talked about the weather, and life in the trees between the highways, and the various birds and animals they had met. But as time wore on, they began to talk about their life before, and the children who had been their friends, and the families they had belonged to. Then the boy doll asked the girl doll to dance, and they danced and played games and began to think that life was not so lonely with a friend. If they had any anxieties, it was when their protective coverings would come loose, and they would hastily tie them back on before the other could see. The other would see, of course, but would turn away and pretend not to.

     So engaged were they with each other that neither paid attention when dark clouds began gathering toward evening. They paid little heed when the wind began to blow hard. Even the first scattering of rain seemed harmless enough; under the trees they scarcely felt it. It was only when the first lightning bolt crashed right over their heads that they were startled into realizing what was going on.

     It was a storm, a terrible storm, unlike any either had ever known. The sky turned black, and the wind howled, and the rain poured down by bucketsful. The dolls ran blindly to and fro, trying to find shelter, but there was none. In moments the last leaves had been stripped away, and the rain drenched the dolls' ragged finery until it hung forlornly and fell apart. But they gave little thought to that but ran together holding hands, trying to find a safe spot.

     Then the boy doll slipped and fell into the swift stream of water that had begun to flow in the drainage ditch. There was no danger of him drowning, because dolls do not need to breathe, but he could see, and the girl doll could see, that he was headed for the black hole of the culvert that led they knew not where. The girl doll ran along the stream, not knowing what to do but determined not to lose the friend she had just made.

     They got to the drainage pipe's edge, where the water poured roaring into darkness, and by luck there was a tangle of branches stuck at the entrance. The boy doll might still have been sucked away if he hadn't reached out and grabbed it, and even then, he might have gone down if the girl doll hadn't been there to pull him the last few inches to the concrete side.

     They climbed over the pipe where there was no chance of the water rising to take them. There was a little overhang where there was some shelter from the rain. The dolls sat together, hand in hand, and neither cared what the other looked like, only that they were together through the storm.

Notes

Not entirely sure where this little fable came from, only that I felt compelled to write it. Its point is fairly obvious, I hope. I'll only add that its scenario, with roadside stands of trees and bushes and drainage ditches, is based on the highways that ran by my grandmother's house in San Marcos. I had many occasions to cut across them to catch the bus. Also (to the side), I notice my spellcheck does not recognize the word 'fro', as in 'to and fro'.