I land face upwards with a deafening thud. Ooft. Won't be trying that again any time soon. I'm pretty sure that drop left a bruise somewhere. That's if I even can bruise.Seeing as I'm made of plastic, and all. Okay, Barb, focus. l need to get myself out of this wretched box...
Oh. I can't. My hands and legs are secured to the box with metal wires. I'm trapped. Well, this wasn't a very well thought out plan. In my head, I imagined my glorious escape: I would land gracefully, and the box would just fall apart around me, like clouds parting on a summer's day. I would then take my first tentative step on real ground and I would savour the taste. The taste of freedom. After the first step would come the next, followed by another, and then I would be walking. Walking away from my past and into my future, whatever that might be. I didn't imagine what would happen after that, I just assumed everything would fall into place, and I would get my well-deserved happily ever after. How wrong I was.
So now I'm lying here, on the ground, face upwards, in aisle fifteen. Tres embarressant. From the corner of my eye I can see a young boy racing towards the shelf with the Power Rangers. Those guys get all the luck. The young boy absent-mindedly kicks me out of the way in his quest to get his Power Ranger doll, and I go skidding across the aisle, and end up under one of the shelves. Charming. So now, not only am I trapped in this cardboard nightmare, I am trapped UNDERNEATH a shelf where no-one will EVER see me. Maybe I was better off on the shelf. At least then I had a chance of being bought. Who's gonna see me here? I shall just lay here, and slowly decompose like gone-off fruit. No-one will even know I'm here. No-one will miss me. No-one will say "Hey, where's Barb?" or come looking for me because I am no-one. I am nothing. I am but a mere speck of dust floating aimlessly in the wind. I don't exist.
Sigh. Look's like I've hit rock bottom. Literally and figuratively. But what I want to know is this. Why ME? I mean, fair enough, I know I'm not perfect. I'm not particularly kind or generous, and I never really got round to making friends with the other Barbies so I guess I'm not friendly either. But I'm not a bad person. I'm not friendly but I'm not mean either. I just keep my distance. So I don't understand why I'm being forced to suffer, why no-one ever picked me, why I'm so unloved. Am I being punished for something I did in a past life? Do toys even have past lives? I doubt it. All toys are made in China or somewhere.
