The Doll

The Prologue

All children of the world, no matter boy or girl, time or place, love toys.

I know you, the reader, must have loved toys when you were a child. Every kid does. We’re all the same once we get down to it. But the thing about the universal need for play differs in why children want it.

There are three main reasons. First, many children want a bear, a doll, a plush toy, as a friend. In an isolated world, where a little boy or girl’s only companions are Poverty, Loneliness and Sadness, the touch of a soft, gentle figure that will never judge, will never hurt, will never shout, will never abandon, is the most beautiful thing in the world.

The second reason is simple fun. The adult world is way too busy for the land of innocence, so many little ones preoccupy themselves with games, a band of dolls with a tea set, or a march of stuffed animals. With these, they can play out any story or activity in their head to busy themselves while the grown-ups are at work.

The last of the three reasons is the most dangerous, and I am disappointed to say that it is the growing reason for the craze of fashion dolls, electronics, games and numerous other products in our world today. It is for the sheer greed of having as many pretty things as possible - the want for more.

This, my reader, is the route of a spoiled child. Children who demand their parents to give them every single fleeting thing their hearts desire. Children who cry, scream, stomp, punch, kick, swear, thrash, shake, any form of violent behaviour to get what they want right then and there, only to be amused by it for a short time until their greed screams for something else.

I was one of those children. “Daddy’s girl”, they’d call me, a princess in my own household, a white mansion with marble floors and staircases running all over the house, golden statues positioned divinely at every corner, Oriental carpets, luxurious furniture, antique paintings that were worth eye-rolling amounts of money, surrounded by grounds the side of a football field. Every whim of mine was brought to my nanny’s attention, every want pleased, every tantrum soothed by anything I desired. But even though my bedroom was perfectly decorated, my food scrumptious, my dresses designer, what I really wanted were, as you could predict, toys.

I wanted every doll that could speak, that had a wardrobe almost as grand as mine, the toy made of the latest technology, of the most cunning engineering, the game that was most publicized on every children’s channel on television.

I had two rooms full of toys, but did I play with every one of them? Not really. I’d play with the toys for a few days, consumed by that only object from the second I woke up until the second my eyes closed for sleep, only to find something new.

My greed progressed into a dangerous cycle, worsening and worsening into I became a young monster. Everyone wanted to come over to my house to play with my things, but did they ever hate me! The only thing on which my hunger stumbled on was the Christmas Day when I was 8 years old, when I got one present that changed everything.