Graphic by Kayleigh Woltal
A lonely little girl snaps her fingers and suddenly, I am no longer human. She carries me everywhere, swinging me around by my fingers. She knocks my head into the legs of tables and the arms of chairs, giggling. She lets me go when her mother calls her for dinner. I am under-stuffed, so when she drops me, my arms and legs crumple beneath me. They bend backwards before I topple and land in a heap on the carpet.
I revert to human form when the little girl is away and twist myself back into place. My joints pop and I am covered in bruises. Every day I find myself hoping she’ll forget about me, that she’ll never turn me into that stupid doll again. But she always comes back and snaps her fingers again. She latched onto me, made herself a part of me, and I need to learn to make playtime mine.