The Man, The Doll, and the Little Girl
They met in the frozen food isle. The man had been pulling a packet of chicken out from the freezer, grasping his lower back with his left hand as he bent down. He had closed the door and glanced to his right- at the little girl who immediately halted, in what resembled terror.
Her big green eyes that widened on him, were red from crying. A teardrop ran down her plump cheek, to join the others that hung suspended at the bottom of her chin.
“What..happened.. to your face?” The girl asked. Her voice was choked, and she sniffed between her words to hold back free-running snot.
The man looked down at her- at the light blue T-shirt with the unicorn in the middle, at her jeans tight and high above her ankles, at her well-worn shoes.
“I-” He was about to say something, but stopped. He looked down at her sad face, at the innocence in her eyes. Then he raised his brows, “I was attacked..by a lion.”
The little girl looked at him. She sniffed, “A lion?”
“Yes. I was in Africa. I was helping look after elephants. But then a lion came, and wanted to eat one of the baby elephants. So I had a fight with the lion, and it did this.” He pointed to the gruesome, four-inch scar that ran from his left eye to just above his lip.
The girl stopped sniffling. She wiped the back of her bare arm across her face. “Did you kill it?”
“The lion?”
The girl nodded.
“No. It.. ran away.”
The girl stared at him. Then she looked down the length of the aisle.
“I lost my dolly.”
She was about to cry again. The man put the chicken in his shopping basket and glanced down both sides of the lane. “Where is your mummy, or daddy?”
“Don’t have a daddy. Mummy said I have to find Cuddles by myself. She said I shouldn’t have being stupid. She-”
“Hey. Hey! Don’t cry. We’ll find her. C’mon, where did you have her last? Can you remember?”
The girl walked at his side, her blonde head at the height of his waist, her little legs swinging in a slaloming motion. She stared at the ground hopelessly, “I had her here. But she is gone.”
“Did you look around the other aisles? Where you get cereal, and milk and-”
She nodded. “Every-where!”
They walked around the corner, where the checkout tills were. Then the man halted at the confectionary shelves. “Maybe she just got hungry?” he said. “Cuddles? Cuddles?” He picked up a Kit Kat bar and inspected underneath it.
“Nooo!” the girl grinned.
“What? Oh. She doesn’t like chocolate?”
The girl’s smile grew, her eyes shone with a fun curiosity.
The man asked about the doll at the main kiosk. But it hadn’t been found. The man and girl searched the supermarket once more and the store manager even joined them for a while. The man and girl walked out of the store. The girl seemed upset. The man led her to a park across the street and stood before a bench. The girl stared at it. Her shoulders were drooped, her head hung low.
“Come back here tomorrow. At the same time, okay? Four o’clock, at this bench. Take your mummy with you, if you can?” The man told her.
The girl looked at him strangely, and nodded. “Goodbye.” She said in a small voice. “Thank you for helping me.”
The next day at four o’clock, the man sat waiting on the bench. The girl turned up, alone, and sat down next to him, on his left.
“Where is your mummy?” asked the man.
“Mummy is in bed.” She said matter-of-factly. “She has the headaches.”
Her eyes glazed over at the grounds around them.
“Oh. Well, okay.” The man’s right hand reached into his pocket. He pulled something out. “I received a letter last night.”
“A letter?”
“Yes. Would you like me to read it?”
The girl’s big eyes looked up at him. She nodded.
“What is your name again? I just need to check?”
“Abbie.” replied the girl. Her brows squinted in a funny way.
“Ah yes, of course! That makes sense then.” The man unfolded the paper in his hands, and spread out the page. He cleared his throat and began
“Dear Abbie, I am really really sorry I had to leave you at the supermarket. But I was called on a very important and urgent mission.”
The man snuck a peek at the girl’s surprised face, her mouth wide open, and continued, “There are monkeys in the jungle in a country called Uganda. And they need help to build a special place for sick monkeys. I didn’t tell you this, because I am very very shy around humans, and so that is why I don’t talk when I am with you. I am now helping the monkeys, and I am pleased to tell you that we have very nice plans to build a special monkey treehouse hospital. Maybe some day I will come back. But you should know, that because I am here, I am helping many many monkeys all around the world.”
The girl sat upright, her hands either side of her gripping onto the bench. She looked out across the park in amazement, “Wowww!.. You-Gan-Da!” Then a thought passed across her face, “How did she get there?!”
“Well, let’s see.
I wanted to tell you, that you are a very special little girl and I love you very much. I arrived yesterday at dinner time by airplane.”
Suddenly, the man’s left hand broke into a violent shaking. He winced, squeezing his eyes tight, and squirmed on his seat. He forced himself to settle, and tried to remain composed.
“Are you okay?” Abbie’s high voice asked.
“Yes. Yes, I’m okay.”
“What happened to your hand?”
“Oh, this? Nothing. See. Nothing happened, it just shakes sometimes.”
“Because of the lion?”
“Yes. Because of the lion.”
“You are very brave.”
The man smiled.
“Does the letter say anything else?”
The shaking fully subsided, and the man continued to read. Abbie gradually, subtly, wriggled closer to him on the bench. She tried to lean her head against him and he looked up quickly, his eyes scanning her and then the park. Her head was now resting lightly against his shoulder.
He stopped reading. “I’m sorry,” He told her, “It’s not very comfortable for me. I have to watch my hand.” He sat up straight and the girl disappointedly removed her head.
“You said it wasn’t sore?”
“Well, yes. Only sometimes.”
Every day after that, the girl came to the park at four o’clock, often straight after school, and the man would read to her of the doll’s adventures. And every day he asked her where her mum was, and she replied with a jumbled answer. Mummy was in bed. She was out with a boy-friend. She had gone to buy some sweeties. And every time he would begin to open up the piece of paper, she would lean in closer, try to rest her head against him, and every time the man would shimmy himself away. Sometimes, when he walked home, the man would cry, remembering her tattered shoes, her too-small clothes, the longing desperation for affection in her eyes.
And then his cough started. And it gradually got worse.
One early evening, they were sat on the bench, the golden leaves raining gently down all around them, when he pulled a backpack up from the ground. He opened it and handed her a doll.
“This is for you.” He said.
“But-,” The girl peered at the thing in her hands, her huge green eyes displaying a more than usual trace of anxiety, “-This is not Cuddles! This is not my doll.”
The man took out the note from his pocket. “I am back, and I am so happy to see you again. I must tell you though, all my experiences and travels have changed me. I might not look the same, but still, I love you very very much.”
The girl listened in rapt attention. Then stared at the doll thoughtfully for a long time. The birds tweeted around them. Some geese honked overhead. A brown leaf twirled slowly past the man’s ear on its way to the ground. Then all of a sudden, Abbie pulled the doll close and hugged her. She squeezed her as tight as her little arms would allow.
That evening, when the man had told her that he had to go away, the girl had burst into inconsolable tears. For the first time, as he stood at the roadside about to leave, he let her hug him. He even bent down and put his arms around her too. Then he stood up swiftly, and turned down the street, and he didn’t look back.
Many years later, the girl grew up into a young woman, and was sitting up in bed, when something drew her attention towards the doll she had sat up on the window sill. She got up and went towards it. She felt a sudden strange compulsion to push her fingers into its eyes. She was surprised to see a little slip of paper- tightly folded up- concealed inside. She pulled out the paper and spread it out, and she burst into tears reading
“All that you love, you may lose. But love will always come back in some other way.”