The Gardener's Doll

In an enclosed garden, alongside a timber cottage far within the countryside, there once rested a marble platform hoisting a blushing china doll. Surrounded by cheerful chrysanthemums and lively lilies, the delicate attraction curtsied proudly from her stony stage. She was the garden's Story-Spindler, entertaining her flowery friends and toadstool neighbors with wild adventures of the lands beyond the garden's stone wall. She weaved tales as intricate as the spiderwebs catching against scattered bushes and morning dew.

The garden's caretaker, an old man was well-known in the region for his humble advice; which helped many aspiring gardeners grow prosperous flowerbeds. Even so, I believe the true vitality of the garden spawned from the splendor of the china doll's stories. The enchantment of her words flowed through the pigmented petals, the luscious green stems, down to the very roots of those that heard her tales and if you listened closely, you could hear the birds sing a little more vivaciously around her platform; the soil hummed near the pebbled path surrounding her. Although, this humming was often mistaken for the communal buzzing from a nearby beehive, hiding in the fork of the garden's Willow tree.

One early summer evening, Thunder heard of the legend involving the doll with the "silver tongue;" He heard of her whispering words with a power greater than its booming roll. Thunder was a jealous rival who did not appreciate a challenge, especially one by so small a foe. Thus, it bent its resolve toward the countryside garden, moving with great veracity across the land, intent on snuffing out the fragile figure.

She would tell her tales no more.

Wind, a servant to Thunder, remembered an earlier era when it waltzed among the seaside waves and played amidst the seagulls. It remembered the amber sunset which emblazoned a sandy beach; remembered when the sun once kissed the moon at twilight and the beach sang for the first time. With what little power Wind contained, it thinned itself across the land, spreading out as to warn the china doll that her destiny would soon arrive.

The china doll's heart listened. She spun the tale that she saved for her last performance atop the marble stage. This was a story from long ago, when she, the china doll was scattered across that same seashore in the form of a thousand sandy specks. As the wind warned her, those thousand individual memories involving the whispering waves and distant cries of wandering seagulls flowed out of her through salt-water tears. She remembered how each particle of sand within her held a single word and how she once could not comprehend the rhythm of the story. That is, she could not understand the story until her pieces were gathered, burned, and molded into sheening china glass.

That story, she believed, created her. Now, she would pay its tribute.

It was the story of a princess who saves her dragon from an evil prince.

When she gathered everyone's attention, the air paused and listened. The world stilled, quiet in anticipation. When everyone focused on her, only then did she begin to speak. Smoggy clouds manifested across the sky as the garden was entranced.

The skies above prepared.

The rumor was, the gardener locked the garden gate with a skeletal key shaped like a rose with a toothy stem. He protected this object by his back-right jean pocket; to keep his garden safe. However, even a locked gate could not barricade the storm from its rampage. Just as the china doll's story reached its climax, the storm's rage unleashed, surpassing the old gate, trespassing the garden walls.

For hours, the storm tormented the inhabitants. It uprooted fledgling flowers, whipped at the vine appendages of the willow tree, ripped the moss off the pebbled path, and frightened off the smaller animals. All the while, the china-doll teetered on her marble platform. She weaved her last tale even as her curtsied figure inched towards the platform edge. But just as the brave princess was to block the prince's fatal strike from the dragons star-dusted breast, the china doll plunged headfirst into the pebbled path below. She was never able to reach the story's end.