[THIS IS SOMETHING THAT I'D WRITTEN WAY BACK IN 2003/4]
Her eyes scanned every inanimate object that lay around in her room. She frantically searched for the dummy. She had just returned from school & wanted to play with her new found toy & nothing else on earth could seem to stop her. She is very fond of this toy.
She belongs to a very rich family, but hardly have any friends, atleast not live ones. Her parents are quite overprotective & she was not allowed to make any friends. Even in school, she was quite hesitant in making friends. For this reason she stayed rather gloomy & as an alternative, turned towards toys.
It is in this context that she grew a habit of collecting dummies, which would in way replace live humans as her friends. And for her 18th birthday, she got herself a brand new dummy – me. Instantly, I was her greatest object of desire. All the time she spent at home, she would carry me around. She would share with me her inner most feelings. I was more human to her than any one else. She would act at times, as I was her ‘real’ boyfriend & would occasionally treat me physically as one! She treated me in way which was enough to make me look down upon the other dummies with pity. She had over the span of these two years, grown dependent on me. I would make her laugh as well as provide a shoulder to cry on. In these two years, her fondness for me had been consistent, if not increased. I knew about her more than her parents did.
But yesterday, while she was sorting out her old stuff, she came across an old dummy she used to play with. I was still in her arms when she found the old dummy from among the heap of the old stuff. She immediately picked it up & started caressing it & meanwhile, had dropped me in that heap of old stuff like had no existence. She now hugged the new found dummy & started playing with it, & a bit later left the room with the new found toy in her arms & me still lying in that heap.
And as I still lay in the heap, I helplessly watch, through my lifeless glass eyes, how she frantically searches for the same dummy she found yesterday, & how she is jubilated on finding it.
Maybe one day she will again think of sorting out her old stuff, take a look at me, & try to recall my presence that I once had in her life. But for the time being, I will console myself just by looking at the smile on her lips, which in a way had instilled life in me. In a way she always made me feel alive, no less human than her.
And with my glass eyes checking my ‘tears’, I bid farewell to her.
