“Would you like some tea?” the small girl asked, taking her pastel purple teapot and gesturing it towards me. She paused, awaiting my reply, and then grinned as she poured the liquid into my little cup. I’m quite certain it was mere water in the pot, but that did not matter. She called it tea, the finest tea in the entire universe, and I believed her.
Next she took up a small bowl, which was empty to those who lacked imagination, and gestured to me again. “One lump of sugar, or two?”
I always asked for two.
After giving me two lumps of pretend sugar, she took up my little teacup and made me drink. The tea tasted lovely, sweet yet not sickly so. However slowly the flavor changed, and became bitter. Suddenly it was not tea at all, nor water, but dust. Liquid changed to solid, and I began to choke on it. I wanted to cry out, to tell her to stop, but I could not.
I could not speak.
Everything grew dark and cloudy. The vision faded, and suddenly I was back upon my shelf.
I had this dream quite often. I would get lost in the nostalgia. I craved these memories. Even though the ending was unpleasant, I enjoyed the beginning and middle of it immensely.
My beloved Eleanor, the girl who cared for me and played with me for as long as I could remember, had ‘grown up’ as humans call it. She is no longer a child like I am (if I could even be called a ‘child’). She placed me upon the highest shelf and left me there to rot.
I can still vividly recall the day that it happened. The day my Eleanor had ‘grown up’.
I had begun to notice a change in her. We didn’t play together nearly as often as we once had. She seemed to be preoccupied with other things – her human friends, boys, and ‘going out’. She went out often before she had ‘grown up’, but she usually took me along with her. Suddenly she was leaving me behind. Setting me on her bed, or upon her nightstand. I would sit there quietly, waiting for her return. When she came home I would call out to her, but she couldn’t hear me.
Some nights, when she was sad, she would pick me up and hug me tightly.
One night, however, she was angry, and threw me to the floor. There was a snap – my small porcelain leg cracked. The pain was agonizing. I stayed there on the floor for weeks, suffering.
She did eventually pick me back up, repairing my leg with glue. But then she did something strange. Something she had never done to me before. She put me up on a high shelf – the highest shelf in the room – and left me there.
I had never truly been alone before. For a few hours here and there, perhaps. But years? I did not understand why my Eleanor did not love me anymore. We were the closest of friends. She shared secrets with me that nobody else knew. For example, that she broke her mother’s favorite flower vase and hid it behind the sofa so she wouldn’t get in trouble.
But I suppose that now that she had ‘grown up’ she had more important people to confide her secrets in.
I do not know quite how many years have passed since that day. Ten? Twenty? One hundred?
The room has changed much during that time. What was once the beautiful bedroom of a young child had now evolved into what I believe is a sewing room. Not that it’s ever used. I can’t recall the last time someone has set foot in here. I’ve grown accustomed to the dust and lonesomeness.
In this time I’ve learned many things.
It took days, months, years of practice. Slowly, slowly I taught myself to stand. To walk. To tread carefully and silently. To fall to the floor and land upon my feet, like a cat (or so they say).
If Eleanor couldn’t come back to me, I would come back to her. And at last, I could show her how I feel. I could make her feel the heartbreak that I felt on the day she threw me aside. On the day I was abandoned and placed upon this shelf. I want to feel her heart break. My heart isn’t real. But her heart can be stabbed, shattered, broken.
I’ve only ever seen blood once. We were playing out in the garden – Eleanor had tripped and fallen onto a small, sharp rock and cut open her knee. It was scary then. She cried and she cried and she cried. It took weeks to convince her to play outside again after that.
Would it be scary now?
There were many other objects in this little room. When nobody was around to hear or see, I would walk about and search for useful things. A pair of scissors would do nicely. I found one in a small hat-box full of sewing supplies. I carefully took it and concealed it behind me upon my shelf. Nobody hardly ever entered this room anymore, so I doubted anyone would even notice that the scissors had disappeared.
I was sitting quietly on my shelf one evening, when I heard the pitter, patter, pitter, patter of footsteps headed in the direction of this room. I was very pleased, and also a tad surprised, by who I saw enter. It was an older woman with dark, graying hair. She seemed almost unrecognizable at first, until I saw her eyes.
Those eyes.
I was taken aback when I saw the woman’s eyes. It couldn’t possibly be her eyes. But indeed they were. They were the very same bright blue, shining eyes of my Eleanor.
I was ready to strike at any moment, until suddenly something odd occurred. Eleanor reached out and picked me up.
“Hello there,” Eleanor told me, her voice dripping with affection. “My goodness, I haven’t seen you in years! You’ve collected much dust and cobwebs, haven’t you dear?”
What was this? How could she even think to speak to me in this way now of all times? And yet, although I was furious, I listened to her intently. I tried and failed to ignore the fact that I desperately missed the sound of her voice, even despite the fact that age had changed it slightly. It was still her voice, and I loved the sound of it.
She proceeded to surprise me even more, brushing off the dust and cobwebs that decorated me and giving me a brand new red dress to wear (as the green one I had worn for years had faded into a dull grey, and was torn in a few places).
“Now then! I have someone that I would like for you to meet,” Eleanor told me. I was even more confused now. However there was nothing I could do. The scissors were still upon my shelf, lying untouched, and I was held gently in Eleanor’s loving arms. I wasn’t sure what emotion I was supposed to be feeling in this moment. This was not in my plans.
She took me away down the hall and into a different room that I did not remember. In the room was a small girl, who’s appearance startled me at first. She was the striking image of young Eleanor. Even her eyes had the same shining glow to them.
“This is my granddaughter, Sophie,” Eleanor told me. “She’s going to be your new friend.”
New friend? I started to feel upset again. ‘Sophie’ was not Eleanor. I didn’t want anybody else besides Eleanor! But…did I still want Eleanor? I wanted Eleanor to suffer, but now… I was unsure what I wanted.
Sophie reached out for me, smiling brightly. It was the same smile I remembered on Eleanor’s face the day we first met. I spent the whole rest of the day with Sophie, playing some of the games that Eleanor and I used to play, and some new ones that I’ve never heard of before.
“I love you,” Sophie whispered in my ear after the two of us were tucked into her little bed that night. She fell asleep soon after, her small arms wrapped around me. Her words resonated in my head.
I love you.
Those were words long forgotten.
I love you.
Eleanor once told me those words, when she was much smaller. At the time I cherished it. I would repeat those words in my mind over and over again. I love you. I love you. I love you.
I loved Eleanor too, once.
But love is an emotion I can no longer feel.
Later, in the morning, Eleanor would find my message written on the wall by Sophie’s bed. Letters drawn from dripping blood –
I LOVE YOU ELEANOR
I seated myself on the windowsill – the window open, a slight breeze ruffling my auburn hair. I heard the sound of a mockingbird announcing the morning’s arrival minutes before Eleanor entered the room.
I heard her scream as I slipped, falling, falling, falling from the window.
My last thought before I thought no more…
Now Sophie will never have to grow up.
Wonderful Meep 