Hello! I am Ivy, a doll belonging to Natalie. Yes, I am a doll, those little figurines of humans which children play with. I once belonged to Isabeau, who is now a “grown-up”. But I wasn’t a hand me down, or recycled or whatsoever. So today, I am going to tell you the story of how I came to belong to Natalie.
To tell a story well, we must start at the absolute beginning. There isn’t another way. So first things first: the factory. I was made in this sort-of crusty place, covered with soot. A minute later I was born, I knew, just like every other toy knew, I would be taken to a shop to sell. As soon as I had made this realization, I was packaged. I felt ever so tired and went to sleep, when I woke up, I was in a blue truck, being shipped to a store. There was my new home.
About a month later, there came a little girl with pigtails skipping through the door. She was Isabeau. That day, I had found my first owner. She reached home and began playing with me. I became her favourite doll overnight. She named me Ivy and wrote my name in one of my shoes. We were the best of friends, and we stayed so for years and years, until she turned 13. She tucked me away in a shelf, and never took me out again. Months went by, and I began gathering dust. I thought and thought of the golden days when we were “best friends”, when Isa (that’s Isabeau for short) and I would play together for hours and hours on end. Those happy days began to seem like a dream, that would never come true. She might not play with me anymore, but I hoped she cherished those memories.
Alas! She didn’t. From my place in the shelf, I heard her remark to her mother:
“All these toys are useless lumps of plastics and clays to me now. We must get rid of them!”
Those were the exact words she said. We toys, sitting on the shelf, couldn’t help but make astonished faces. Gladly, neither Isa or her mom noticed us. I decided, enough was enough. With my suitcase full of clothes and other necessities, I jumped through a nearby window and into The Allies Of Danger. It was raining. I took out my raincoat, which Isa had made herself, from her torn and unfitting one. Oh! It reminded me of her so much. Everything in my suitcase reminded me of her, but our friendship was over, like it never existed!
I was almost sorry I was leaving Isa, but she cared for me not. My goal was to find a new home. I went to the Park, where Isa and I used to play. I waited and waited, and then it was dawn.
Many children came, but they didn’t play with me. I was left alone, lonely and miserable. All I did that day was wait and wait fruitlessly until Dusk. I hid from the human like a spy from his enemies and went into the first house I saw. But there wasn’t a child in that house.
I went to 18 to 20 houses that night, all disappointments in how they treat their things. Especially Kate. It has been a long time since then and I still get nightmares from how ghastly it was. She smashed her things, and kicked and screamed and cried for no reason. Ugh! How I wish to never see that child again. But lets move on.
Of course I ran away from Kate. I walked like a million miles the next day. Okay, okay, maybe not a million, but at least six hundred fifty kilometres, about four hundred and three miles. I wasn’t tired after all this. I have much more energy than humans. And then, I found Nat, or Natalie. I still live with her, in her pink little rosy room in her cozy little cream-colored home by the sea.
January, 2026
