A/N - I entered this piece as my A Level English Language coursework, & I’m very pleased to say that it got a top grade A. Not only that, but it was published as part of a collection & also won a prize.

The Dreaming Doll

They thought I had disappeared, and they were wrong. They thought I was dead, and they were wrong. I stumbled as a whole out of the ancient darkness into the shining light of the true world. And all of this had started as a game…

She was deathly pale, just like a waxen image. Hidden from the world, as if she did not exist, as if she were not real, as if vanished.

They watched me as if I was a ghost, or a creature from some weird dream.

“Here she is!” they whispered. “Look at her. Look at the state of her!”

The night hid her from the true life. The life of the living was separate from her existence. Down into the twisted corridors of the oldest city of this oldest planet, was the ancient and forgotten tale of a long lost heart. A heart of porcelain. This fragile heart that did not even exist.

I do much more than just sit. I am not just an inanimate object.

I watch the people walk by, as if my refuge were not even visible to their human sight. I watch them glance hurriedly with frightened eyes at my windows, rushing by like whispers in the wind. But I can do much more than watch.

I dream.

Hidden in the deepest, darkest corner of a distant toyshop, shied away from the rest of the world, sat upon the highest shelf, was an object that had once been filled with mystery. Of desire. Of nightmares.

The doll.

She had once been lovely. A delicate image of carefully constructed china, she was a sight to behold. Magnificent to look at, she had captivated children’s hearts time and again. Her raven black hair flowed with mystery and intrigue like a midnight waterfall, full of hidden depths that no one would be able to fathom. Not even her own porcelain self.

Her almond shaped eyes were shades of jilted greens and greys, the infinite conflict of colours calling out to the children who stared in wonder at her marvel, at her power, her beauty…

And often the children would reach up to stroke the smooth coldness of my skin. I remember it well. I saw the look of surprise on their faces as they recoiled with shock at my foreboding exterior, and how a doll as beautiful as me could be so icy to touch…

And they would turn away from me forever.

The flowing silk of her royal purple gown crafted her slender figure to perfection. She was so lovely, everyone had admired her, everyone had wanted her as their own, and everyone had longed to take her down from that shelf and hug her close to them, and take her home with them.

Yet there was something that glittered in her eyes, and it was not admirable. It was a star of darkness, and it shone with no warmth or laughter at all. Turning the children against her, the eyes betrayed her. Her maker had deceived her purpose. She could never be loved.

Gradually, the children stopped coming. There were no more joyful young eyes looking back at her, praying for her to be their own. She fell into a state of disrepair.

I no longer have eyes to be proud of. My eyes are no more special than the eyes that glare at me from the dusty corners of my refuge. The eyes of the creatures I share this world with.

In fact, I do not have eyes anymore. I have only one.

One of those lovely eyes this hidden doll had owned so gracefully had been snatched away from her. Maybe by the greedy hands of a selfish child, maybe by the persistent teeth of an impatient rat, or maybe by the unwillingness of her own self to use it. Whichever it was, the truth would never be known. Instead, where the eye had once been embedded, was an ugly and gaping hole that leered out at the stillness of the silence that lay around her.

But I still watch the people pass me by.

As you would look back at her, the remaining eye saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in it turned to triumph.

Because she knew she could still dream.

Don’t try to fix me. I’m not broken.

Dreamed of days gone by, old buried days of fun and games, of children, and of being wanted. Her eye shone unnaturally bright in the darkness of the shop during these dreams, and it was during these dreams that she knew she was truly alive. Not just created for purpose. Created for meaning.

My stories are forgotten. Nobody wants to know them anymore. Not even this silence that consumes me day by day, night after night. I have waited centuries to reawaken from my living nightmare of neglect and torture, safe inside myself…

But then the unwanted came back to haunt her. She was alone on her shelf, sharing the night with the scuttling spiders and the rustling rats. She could never have what she used to. Everyone believed this doll to be destroyed, dilapidated, disappeared.

But never dreaming.

And yet this doll could dream of its old days and old ways, and the sun of her heart would shine over her again, whispering lies to her soft ears, deceiving her, telling her she was wanted again…

Yet she had nothing. Nothing except for her dreams.

And, of course, the pin that was embedded in her heart.

At the time the pain of the pin became apparent, her hair would fade, her skin would chip and wound, her gown would become moth eaten, and her one remaining eye would turn milky white in colour and cease to captivate again.

And she would shatter into a million non-feeling pieces upon the accumulated grime of the toyshop floor, scattering fine ceramic dust unto the forgotten time of her own existence.

Then this dreaming doll, she would dream no more.

And all of this had started as a game…

fin