From a distance, the sun’s luminescent beams struck the porcelain doll at ostensibly perfect angles, illuminating all the innocence the toy was manufactured to embody. It had a tidy appearance, as if someone had once taken time and effort to groom the petite figure. The doll had hitherto lived a full life, complete with jubilations and petty annoyances. It had been cuddled and kissed whenever the owner needed a friend to celebrate with, and it had played the role of a mainstay whenever the owner needed to share some sorrow.

The doll sat haplessly on the windowpane, staring dejectedly at its owner, who was too busy writing down thoughts into a diary to pay it any attention. The only sound in the room was the pen hastily scratching the surfaces of the diary’s blank pages. By now, the doll understood that inside that undeserving notebook were written innumerable silent secrets, words that had once been directed to the ears of the doll from the owner’s very own mouth. Now with each stolen word being indelibly penned, with every flick of the writer’s wrist, it became increasingly overcome with jealousy: if only my owner had not outgrown adolescent pleasantries…

From a closer angle, the doll’s saturnine emotions were almost palpable. Like bees circling around a human prey, clouds of dust floated around its periphery, gradually collecting on its eyes, cheeks, and even its ragged dress the owner had once sewn so meticulously for it. The doll pined for a human touch, evidence that the love it had felt was not merely a dream gone by. By now, it understood that the most tantalizing type of love was the very diminishment of it, and yet, it could shed no tears from its ceramic eyes.