Short Stories by Me

The Wooden Soldier

Fun fact, a little over a century ago, many people made toys by hand. They carved and painted and sewed and hammered out the little people and everything.

In a toy shop, where the old toymaker handmade everything, there are almost two hundred or more toys sitting pretty on the shelves, waiting for the children to come, dragging their parents behind them, and grab them off the shelves to play with them until they have worn down.

One section of the shelves, in an aisle near the middle of the shop, a proud line of tin soldiers stand at attention. Their shining red coats are brand new and very clean, their muskets at their side, ready to define the rest of the shop. Of course, the toys would never be able to defeat anything, since they are only toys, but please don't tell them that, it'll definitely lower their self esteem.

Among the many tin soldiers stood one toy that stood out tremendously.

His wooden toothpick-sized sword hung at the side of his blue uniform, and his warm, happy face was painted very carefully over the wood. He stood out like an elephant in a herd of hyenas. Anyone would notice him right away.

Mind you, the wooden soldier has a name. Blue, he calls himself. Yet one more thing that differentiates him from the other toys. He has a name.

Now, every night at exactly 12, the toys all creep down (slowly and quietly, so they don't wake the toymaker sleeping next door. Of course, as you learn in a second, all of this is completely pointless) to the ground, where they assemble at the end of the very first aisle, to begin a series of festivities.

Back to the soldiers as they march down to the first asile, Blue is still standing out tremendously. He isn't even marching. He's leaping and twirling and dancing. The others thought he was such a monsterous disgrace, but I'll let you decide.

One night, Blue and the rest of the soldiers trekked up to their shelves.

"That was fun," Blue smiled at his comrades. He had tried before to make polite conversation with them, but they had walked away, looking bored. This time they looked highly annoyed.

"You make us look like such fools," one of them muttered. "If you want to dance, go join the ballerinas.

The Wooden soldier frowned. "I will do no such thing. I will stay here and continue to be a soldier. You can't stop me from dancing, either. You should know that, men. I thought you were honorable and would stick by your fellow soldiers."

One of the red coats groaned, and pushed Blue in the chest. "Who do you think you are, saying things like that to us? We are honorable! You are the one bringing shame!" The soldier looked around. "You are the most embarrassing toy in this shop, and nothing could convince me, or any of the other real soldiers, otherwise!"

Blue stood in shock. An embarrassment? He had always thought he danced beautifully. And he did, but no one else paid enough attention to notice.

"I-" Bue started. But he didn't get to finish, because three of the soldiers shoved him off the shelf.

Blue did not scream as he fell, he was in too much shock. He knew that the soldiers had never liked him, but this was low.

When he hit the floor with a loud drop, there was a silence in the shop. All of the toys in the aisle looked down at him with little pity. But nothing else happened. When Blue got over his shock, he tried to sit up, but something terrible had occurred.

Blue could not move. He immediately knew why.

The whole reason that one of the toymaker's toys can move in the first place is because they are told, from the second that they remotely resemble their final product, that they are enough, that they are loved, that they are perfect. A toy would usually take these thoughts with them even past when their future child-master has abused them with love.Of course, humans wouldn't know this. The toys have enough common sense not to move when in sight of a living being. Not even the toymaker is aware of what his amazing abilities can do. When a toy loses the feeling of the toymaker's love, or feels too much hate from another thing, they lose their ability to live, to move. The toys call this dwindling.