Face down in the dry dirt beneath a shading tree, a crooked cracked doll lies. There’s been no water for ages and the craving has grown.
The dress that once adorned it is nothing more than tatter, at least the sun and the sand are well calefacient enough.
A drop, a single drop of water falls from a leaf of the overhanging tree. Landing on the rounded back of the doll’s head, to feel the rare sensation of wet streams running down the dehydrated plastic, bringing it to life once more was a revolutionary taste of comfort, something the doll had lost long ago.
The doll, rebirthed, gets to it’s knees to see if the world is just as dry as when it left, just a bit paler than before. The longing growing tensing more by the minute. Shaking, entering the old crooked stance it wore before… Before the hunger left, before the thirst came.
The island is still here, the big, bloated, dried out piece of dirt floating around the ever-dark sea.
North, to the north. That’s where to find it. As the doll leaves the shade of the tree, the mix of sand and dirt beneath the ragged shoes warms the feet wearing them. And as the sun evaporates the very drops of water that got it up, the doll can’t seem to feel the same discontent as before. Nothing but focus holding its head in place. North, that’s where it is, that’s where it lies.
Lying still for so long, but still not regained the endurance of the past. Perhaps it would be regained, in the north where water must lie.
The doll moves faster and faster as the sand and dirt is blown out of the cracks. The breeze of the morning hours is truly something to relish, but the doll had no time to. Its only concern was the water that must lie in the north.
After some time, when the breeze has diminished. The doll can finally make out a great mound mostly consisting of rocks a hundred yards up front. From the east, a great horse calmingly trots to meet the doll. The doll does not seem to pay any attention to the large horse approaching. “Hello there..” the horse declares in a highly official voice. The doll focusing on the rocks ahead of it ignores the horse. Puzzled the horse tries again. “Hello..?” Suddenly the doll spins around to look at the horse with a worried expression on her face. “Would you care to tell me where i could find water?” it asks. “I’m heading for a garden not too far west of here, there should be plenty of water there.” The horse replies.
“Oh what a relief!” The doll exclaims before turning from the horse and carrying on toward the pile of rocks. The horse expectantly waits a few seconds. As the doll starts to climb the horse yells after “Aren’t you coming with me?” “I must get some water…” the doll says, too low for the horse to hear anything. “Weren’t you looking for water? I told you there’s water in the garden not far from here.” The doll was not going back to the garden, It had been thrown out long ago.
The uphill climb is hard for the small doll, the plastic hands don’t offer any grip and the rocks are larger than the doll itself, but after some perseverance the doll manages. When the doll gets to the top it has a good view of the surroundings, a little further north a town can be seen, a small huddle of houses covered by stone walls in the middle of the desert. The doll’s body has already sustained a ton of damage, this wouldn’t hurt. The doll steps of the edge of the highest rock, beyond the tipping point of its balance sending it plummeting down the rocky pile.
Dusted off, and when all the stones have been plucked out of the newly generated bulges, the doll starts for the hideous town. The town is displeasing to look at, wooden houses painted in heinous colours, all spread across a small plane brown area. Some pristine, some rotten. There’s no system here, no signs, a mess. Upon entering the offensive-looking town, a small road going north between the houses, a large blue building to the right. On the stairs of the larger building there’s a giraffe sitting in a leaning chair.
As the giraffe spots the doll it flies out of its chair, down the wooden rotten stairs. It nearly runs to reach the doll. The doll still angry because of the symmetry of the town, or the lack of it, straightens itself up and with folded arms waiting expectantly the giraffe has arrived, a worried look on it’s face. “Oh dear child!” An ear shattering voice, the doll has to cover its ears as not to get another headache on top.
It has to leave this god-forsaken town. ”Are you okay my child?” the giraffe asks in a caring tone. The doll can not bring itself to answer such an imbecile. It was clearly fine walking in here. “Wait, come inside.” The giraffe beckons the doll inside in a hurry.
The doll sees no interest in this place and turns to leave. The giraffe stops in the middle of the stairs and watches as the doll walks calmly out of the town. “Aren’t you thirsty!?” the giraffe whines in the most ear piercing manner. Stopping dead in it’s tracks the doll processes that one sentence around in the tiny plastic head. This might be it, be all its looking for, but a giraffe holding it?
As the doll turns the giraffe get’s to witness the widest grin the doll has worn since it satiated its hunger, the apple, the wonderful, savoury, watery, most beautiful apple, that’s the last time. The giraffe, a worried smile on it’s face point’s to her door at the top of the small rotting wooden staircase.
Grin intact the doll cocks its head back, takes one heavily delayed step forward, followed up by dragging the hind foot up to level with the leading. Looking up at the sky, feeling the crooked back bending in the opposite direction, the wind in its nostrils. Hope.
After taking a good long skyward stretch in silence, the doll pins its eyes on the giraffe, a windy second later and the doll is standing on top of the stairs. The puzzled giraffe pryes the old door open, “Alright, let’s see...”
The doll still wearing that heinous grin waiting impatiently by the door, the giraffe pours a small pool of water into a glass, hands it to the doll.
The drops on the wet glass truly brings the hope to a new level, it takes a deep breath before devouring the contents of the glass in mere seconds. “More, we need more!” it shouts with a crazed gaze directed at the empty glass.
A few glasses and some more shouting later the giraffe is cowering by the sink, waiting for orders to continue filling up the glass. But the doll has gone silent. The giraffe pryes its left eye up to see the doll standing there, that crooked stance. The grin is gone now, so is the crazed look, in its left hanging arm the glass. The doll looks up at the terrified giraffe, “We need more…” It stands unmoving for a second or two before launching the glass out of its hand toward the giraffe’s frightened expression. Out of instinct the giraffe, eyes closed, plunges its head downward for a ducking position. The second she looks up again the door is already slammed in, and the doll is gone.
The light pristine dunes carried by the bitter, biting winds of the island bury their corns in the doll’s ragged coat, as it’s climbing the horizontal plane of the hostile island. The doll couldn’t take its mind of the sensation it had back at the town, however that couldn’t be what it’s searching for, it was too permanent. It must be further north.
The storm is gone, it’s close I can feel it. Just beyond this crooked hill, crooked like me, but overcomable. Everything for the invigorating taste of water. It’s been days since last time, now I will have it forever. As I reach the top I can’t help but be amazed, for down there a pond. Surrounded by a dale of rocky hills, the pond, more like a hole filled with water actually, so deep so dark.
You slide down the last obstacle between you and the pond. The water, the sight of water fills your mind as you approach, you’re finally here. Still in the same crooked stance as you started in, but you are at your goal. Claim your prize.
The doll takes a quick glance around itself assuring that it’s alone. There’s no one around to share the water with, it’s all for the doll.
Eyes unyielding to get off the pond, the doll steps up to the edge of the little pond. It extends its foot straight out as it begins to lean forward.
Surpassing the point at which they can hold themselves up, they fall.
The water is cold, colder than the air, and the sun above. The coat only helps dragging their body down.
Finally, it’s here, and it’s going to be here forever. This is going to fix everything. The doll feels good and accomplished, which it hasn’t in a very long time. The revolution of being covered in water, washed clean of the dry sand and dirt, is truly something the doll relishes. Still slowly descending into the darkness, the doll suddenly feels it’s skin pushing hard in on her.
Suddenly the sensation is replaced by pain, immense pain. His chest is caving, and he feels as if he needs to breathe. He opens its mouth in desperation, surrounded by rock, trapped floating down a tube of darkness, there’s no air down here.
The doll’s flinging arms don’t contribute to it getting closer to the surface, the coat is too heavy, the pain is too heavy. Its lungs are growing incredibly weary, it can no longer think straight. Air, it needs air! But it knows there’s no air where it’s going.
At this point the doll doesn’t have control anymore, it’s nothing but a shaking piece of plastic. Its arms have shattered, its legs have knotted themselves into knobs. The chest is the concave piece holding it all together. The pain is so strong, it must be alleviated at any cost, however the doll doesn’t think it’s that long until that very moment.
The shaking is gone, so is the panic and the pain. We are now nothing but a sinking, crooked, cracked, piece of plastic lying at the bottom of some hole. We drowned, never to see the light again.