Of a doll who lived to sing.

Once upon a time on the mountainside, there flourished a town called Pupa. It was a quaint little town, full of small cottages and well kept gardens. The town of Pupa was known for one thing and one thing only, and that was the trade they specialised in - dolls. The townspeople were interested in nothing but doll-making and it was a good thing they were so focused on their task because people from all over the world flocked to the mountainside to see their dolls. The men fixed the dolls and the women dressed them up and blew life into them. Oh yes, the dolls could move. They sang and they danced, filling the streets with lovely tunes and merry vibes all year long.

Every year, on the last week of May, the townspeople would all come together to create the perfect doll for their festival. This doll was to outshine all the other dolls in existence, be it in terms of appearance or skills. She was to have hair woven from the ways of the sun, the colour of her eyes to resemble the deep blue of the sea and her voice to bring luck and happiness to those who heard it. She was to entertain all who were in the town for the festival for a whole day on the last day of May and one day only. They feared that her beauty might tempt even the purest of souls.

However, even after the bells of the church chimed twelve times signalling the end of May and the beginning of June, the doll never stopped doing what she did best. She performed the day after the first day of June, the day after that as well and many following days. In the beginning, the townspeople thought nothing of it, assuming that the magic of the night would wear off eventually. They named her “Lala” and she was the pride of Pupa. But when she never stopped days after she was supposed to, people began to doubt. Something must have gone wrong, they whispered amongst themselves. Dolls thrived on attention and as Lala garnered all the attention in the vicinity, all the other dolls were cast into the shadows and their owners could only watch on helplessly as Lala shone brighter with each passing day. The merchants lost faith in the people’s craftsmanship and they left Pupa. Although they did not admit it, the glitch in magic struck fear in their hearts. Magic was a formidable force and none of them were willing to tinker with it any more than they should.

The townspeople tried every means possible to stop Lala without harming her but to no avail. She did not obey their instructions and she only lived to sing and dance. At their wits’ ends, they were left with no choice but to pack their bags and leave for another place. They could no longer make their living there. They left Lala behind as she would only hinder their progress and they wish to start afresh. What used to be a vibrant town was left to fall to ruins. 

Abandoned, Lala was left exposed to the workings of time. Her hair hung down in matted locks and cracks materialised on her face. She wandered from home to home, asking if anyone wanted a song but the only voice that answered her was her own. Years passed. The history of Pupa was buried underneath the rubble and a new rumour took its place. They spoke of a ghost doll living on the mountainside, singing a haunting melody. They said she was calling for her lost lover and twice, foolhardy travellers left to never return. It only strengthened the people’s belief that something unworldly resided amidst the ruins and no one visited ever since.

What they didn’t know, however, was that those men were deliberately chased away by the inhabitants of the ruins of Pupa, namely a small boy and a doll. They were too ashamed to show their faces and hence they ran away, never returning back to where they came from.

Lala met the boy one moonlit night. She was making her routine, going from house to house when she heard a soft shuffling behind her. Turning, she came face to face with a young boy. His hair was stuck to his scalp in a mess of brown and he had the warmest eyes she had ever seen. Bending down, Lala asked, “Boy, would you like to hear a song?”

His eyes widened but what was reflected in them wasn’t fear. No, he was looking at Lala with something akin to hope and longing.

“Boy, would you like to hear a song?”

The boy crawled forward, tilting his head up and placing a hand on the doll’s cheeks.

“You would sing a song for me?”

In the form of a reply, Lala lifted her face to the heavens and opened her mouth. The haunting melody echoed through the broken down structures of what used to be a prosperous town and even though the boy understood naught, he listened with rapt attention and awarded Lala with a round of applause and a smile when she was done.

He found a brush after digging around in the waste of the people who once lived there and restored Lala’s golden locks to their former glory. There was nothing he could do about her cracked complexion and their tattered clothing but he made the best of what he had. The boy thought Lala the most beautiful doll in the world and he finally provided Lala with a companion she could sing for and whose attention she could live off. They spent every singlee day together and the boy taught Lala as many things as he could. He sought to understand how the magic worked. He sought to understand her.

However, time once again interfered. While Lala did not age a single moment from the day the two met, the boy grew old. The poor living conditions took their toll on his frail body and after fifty long years, he could feel his time running short. He lay in her arms and gazed up at the doll, the very same look hr had cast upon her the first time he heard her sing. Tears pricked at the corner of his eyes and his heart grew heavy. He reached up and cradled her face with a hand. There was no way a doll could feel for a man but that didn’t matter as long as he loved her. A fit of coughs interrupted her glorious voice and Lala paused, fixing her blank stare at him.

“Boy, would you like a song?”

The hint of a smile graced the man’s lips as a single tear fell from the corner of his eye. He nodded, unable to speak. His heart was heavy and he could feel Death beckoning. His hand found its way to the back of her neck where he knew the switch to turn her off was located. He was the one who added it there after figuring out how she worked. The townspeople viewed her as a thing and not a human and that was the secret to their downfall in the town of Pupa. The man did not want her to live in loneliness after he was gone and neither did he want her to sing with anybody else. Lala was the only one who cared for him and the only one to sing because of him after years of being overlooked and abandoned as a child. She needed him the same way he needed her. As the song reached its end, the man closed his eyes, losing himself in Lala’s voice. It was getting harder to stay awake. Perhaps it was time to let go. As the last note of the song echoed off the walls, his fingers moved. That was the last thing he ever did and the doll of Pupa never sang again.

I wrote this at 2am and I realized I didn't think it through too well. What do you guys think? :/