The Girl and her Precious Doll
by Rage
Once upon a time, there was a little girl. Everyday, whenever she walked home from school, she would pass by a toy store that sold the most beautiful dolls. They were of the porcelain kind, custom-made and tailor-fitted to match the taste of the buyer. The other girls she had seen coming out of the store with their own dolls looked so happy, like nothing else would make them happier. The girl decided that she wanted one for her own. No other toy could match it. And she wanted it to be the most special among her toys, unlike any of the ones her parents had gifted her or bought for her.
She wanted to buy it for herself, using her own money.
She was middle class, but she was determined to have her very own custom-made doll that she set aside a portion of her allowance to save up for it. It took a long while, but at last she was able to save up enough to buy one for herself. Her very own doll! With features and clothes she herself chose! Even if others have bought from the same store, theirs would be nothing like her doll! It was unique!
When the store owner gave her the box containing her new doll, he knelt before her, setting his hands upon her small shoulders.
"This is a very beautiful doll," he said. "Take good care of it as there is no other doll like it. If you break it, you can get a new one, but it will never be the same as this one."
Not understanding what the man meant, the girl merely smiled at him, paid for the toy with her hard-earned money, and took her brand-new doll home. She could not wait to open the box! When she got home and finally took it out, holding the thing in her small hands, she felt that it was so much more beautiful than she had first imagined.
The girl loved her doll so much. She took it everywhere with her: to school, to church, and even when she played with her friends. She would show it off to them, but they were never allowed to touch it. Only she could take care of it; it was only for her, of course!
But over time, she found other things that sparked her interests: new toys, new games, new friends. She still loved her doll very much and still took it everywhere she went, but she did not give it the same care and attention as she once did.
One day, her friends asked her to join in a new and exciting game they were playing. She joined in, naturally - nobody wanted to be left out! And of course she took her doll with her. But the rules of the game was complicated, and being new to it, the girl could not keep her hold on the doll while playing.
And so she dropped it.
It was a momentary lapse on her part, a mistake. But the doll fell to the floor and broke. Panicked, the girl picked up the pieces and rushed home, and searched the cupboards for the strongest glue she could find. Painstakingly, she glued back the pieces to make it whole again, to fix it back to what it once was. She managed to do so, and she thought she did a good job at it.
But looking at her doll now, her custom-made doll that no one else has, she could see the cracks that were made by the fall when she allowed it to slip from her grasp while playing her game. They were especially visible when inspected under the light.
Now, she could not take her doll with her when she left home, she was forced to leave it in a special case to hold it up and keep the pieces together. She missed her doll terribly, and often when she was out, she would rush home just to be with it.
She could not play with it as much either, because no matter what glue she used, the pieces would fall from time to time, both from the natural pull of gravity and because the cohesion of the glue eventually deteriorated. During those times, she would be forced to reapply a new layer of glue to make it whole again.
She never considered throwing it away and getting a new one because she realized that what the store owner had said, when he first handed her the doll, was right. Despite the effort she had to give to make the pieces stick together again, despite the cracks, in her eyes, it was unique and still a beautiful doll.
No one else has something like it.
And it was hers and hers alone. |