A Night at Mr. Taylor's Toy Emporium

Teddy arrived on a Tuesday morning in a cardboard box delivered to Mr. Taylor's Toy Emporium, as part of a regular delivery.

Mr. Taylor—the third Mr. Taylor to run the Emporium—liked schedules, labels, and things staying where they belonged. The Emporium was empty on Tuesday mornings, so Mr. Taylor reserved it for inventory without being disturbed by curious customers who loved to move the new toys around.

Mr. Taylor unpacked him between a clockwork train and a wooden rocking horse with one painted eye slightly larger than the other. He brushed a bit of paper dust from Teddy's ears, checked a number against his ledger, and carried him to the eastern corner of the shop.

To Teddy's delight, he was placed in the cosy reading corner. The Reading Nook, as a brass plaque called it.

It was a pleasant corner. There was a faded armchair, shelves full of picture books, plush rabbits lounging on the carpet, a lion the size of a small pony occupying one corner, and two monkeys dangling from the ceiling by their tails.

The toy shop was not what he had imagined, but it was close enough. Though he found it slightly eccentric, and the smell was peculiar, too. It smelled like wet moth wings mixed with damp wood, old paper, and pipe tobacco.

Teddy hoped to be placed into one of those toy shops in those new buildings the people called 'malls'. He dreamed of bright fluorescent lights and perfumed shops, loud children running around blowing colorful bubbles, grabbing him from his shelf only to embrace him tightly before their parents took him to the counter, and then: home.

Home.

He had spent his entire (though very short) life dreaming of Home.

The returned toys in the factory spoke of it often.

Home meant warm kitchens and bedtime stories. Home meant little arms squeezing you until the stuffing shifted inside you. Home meant adventures in blanket forts and summer vacations by lakes. Home meant scraped fur, missing buttons, patched seams, and years of being loved.

Though these stories always confused Teddy because the toys telling them were often missing an ear or an eye (or two! or all of them!). One rabbit had returned without either foot. A sailor monkey had lost most of his stuffing. The most unfortunate ones were always the Monchhichies.

Yet they all spoke of being loved. They spoke of Home with such longing that Teddy had decided long ago that love must be worth losing pieces of yourself for.

By afternoon, the small people arrived. A family with two young boys and an infant. At first Teddy was delighted.

Children! Real children!

Boys swung wooden swords around like knights. A little girl dragged a doll by one leg. Someone knocked over an entire display of toy soldiers.

They looked exactly as he imagined and nothing as he imagined.

They ran. They shouted. They touched everything.

Someone picked Teddy up without warning. The sticky hand appeared out of nowhere. A strand of something pink and jam-like stretched between her fingers and his fur.

Teddy nearly fainted. "Oh, no," he thought, a shiver running through his soft body. "Not this one."

Before Teddy could fully process his terror, Mr. Taylor swooped in. "Careful!" he barked. "You break it, you buy it."

The girl pouted. Her parents rushed in to apologize, trying to talk themselves out of buying. Mr. Taylor cleaned off Teddy and returned him to the shelf. He spent the rest of the day trembling.

The returned toys in the factory had forgotten to mention that children were barbarians.

"Please, don't give me to this one!" he prayed to Mr. Taylor silently.

When evening came, and the last customers disappeared, Mr. Taylor straightened the shelves, picked up the toys the small people had left on the floor, turned off the lights on his way out, and locked the shop while damning all the little savages and their non-caring parents.

Silence settled over the shop, and Teddy sighed in relief.

What a strange day. At least it was over.

Then someone laughed.

It was a high, chiming laugh. Not a child's laugh. Not a human laugh at all.

Teddy froze.

His eyes had yet to adjust to the darkness. The streetlight shone through the window, light spilling across the shop, drawing out the silhouette of nearly every toy on the shelves in front of him.

Then another laugh followed. Then another. Being a curious bear, Teddy climbed down from his shelf. The laugh came from the far end of the shop. None of the other plush animals moved. That struck him as odd.

He made his way toward the sounds, but something stopped him on his way. Everything stood exactly where Mr. Taylor had left it, except for the dolls.

The porcelain dolls were gone from their shelves.

Teddy inched closer, following the voices—carefully not to expose himself. He ducked beneath a table covered with lace and peered through the hanging cloth.

Every porcelain doll in the shop had gathered in a circle under the crystal chandelier. Some strolled around with tiny parasols. One pedaled a small tricycle with squeaky wheels. Others brushed one another's hair and exchanged their silken dresses.

They moved with an eerie elegance, their painted faces forever smiling.

"Little Miss Collector's Piece didn't get collected today either." Teddy overheard.

"Look at her with the sleepy eyes and that ugly yellowing lace dress. So outdated. Maybe if Mrs. Taylor would sew you a new dress, the small people wouldn't be frightened by you," the dolls giggled.

"You'll never be touched," someone added.

At the center of the circle stood a doll unlike the others. She was unusually tall and slender. The other dolls seemed robust beside her.

Her milky porcelain skin was covered in blue and gold illustrations winding across her body like grape vines. Flowers, skeleton keys, moon phases, and a bird perched in a cage on her shoulder. Teddy immediately named her Birdie.

Her pale hair drifted around her face like thistle silk. Indeed, she was dressed in a lace gown that seemed old-fashioned and moth-chewed.

She was the most beautiful thing Teddy had ever seen.

And despite the darkness, her aquamarine eyes seemed almost luminous.

"Twenty-three years." A doll in a burgundy dress sighed dramatically. "Twenty-three."

The others gasped. "Tsk."

"How tragic."

"Poor thing."

Birdie lowered her eyes. Teddy realized that her eyes shimmered with tears. He couldn't understand why.

A doll with ringlets stepped forward. "Perhaps this Christmas."

The others burst into laughter.

"Perhaps next century," someone said.

"Certainly not."

"Look at her."

"Far too expensive."

"Far too precious."

But Birdie said nothing.

Teddy didn't understand what was going on. Weren't all the dolls unsold? Otherwise why would they be still living in the shop? He was told the shops were waiting rooms before they all found their new home. Aren't all the dolls waiting?

The dolls drifted away eventually, leaving Birdie standing alone. For several minutes she didn't move. Neither did Teddy.

Then she sat upon a wooden crate in a dark corner; moonlight caught the blue bird painted on her arm.

"You can come out, it's safe," she said, looking straight at Teddy. "I know you're there."

Teddy emerged from beneath the tablecloth. Their eyes met. Birdie smiled faintly. Teddy glanced toward where the other dolls had gone.

"They are so mean to you."

"No, they are frightened. But they always get bored eventually."

But the dolls did not look bored. They looked delighted.

"Frightened? Of what?" Teddy blinked.

"Becoming me."

That answer confused him even more. How could anyone be frightened of being so beautiful?

As if Birdie could read his mind, she continued: "I am worth too much. I am too beautiful."

Birdie saw his confusion and laughed. The sound was soft and sad. She gestured around the shop. "Everything here exists for one purpose."

"To be loved," Teddy said automatically.

Birdie looked at him for a long moment. "No. To remain valuable." Birdie corrected, looking at the silver moon outside the window.

Teddy looked around. For the first time, he noticed the dust settled in the glass cabinets, the price tags tied carefully around necks and wrists. The signs stating: collector's edition, limited release, rare.

Teddy twisted uneasily. Not one of the collector's toys looked happy. They all looked sad, with endless hopelessness opaquing their glass eyes.

"Collectors visit. They admire me. They photograph me. They ask about my value and my story."

"But then—"

"They don't buy me."

All day Teddy had dreamed of being chosen, but the realization that he might never be chosen settled into his stuffing like cold rain.

"How long have you been here?"

"I arrived when Mr. Taylor's grandfather opened this shop twenty-three years ago."

To Teddy, that sounded like almost forever. Twenty-three years was longer than the oldest returned rabbit at the factory had ever spoken of.

Suddenly Teddy understood: a toy could die in a shop without ever being taken home.

"I've watched children grow up," Birdie said. "I've watched them return with children of their own."

For a while they stood there in silence, looking out the window until the streetlights went out. Teddy returned to his shelf before Mr. Taylor unlocked the door. He spent the entire morning thinking.

The small people arrived again shortly after lunch. The sticky-handed girl returned too. Teddy recognized her immediately. Her hair was tangled, and the same sticky, pink stuff stained her sleeves. She looked wonderfully destructive.

As she reached for him again, Teddy threw himself forward. The shelf edge snagged his seam. A small tear opened on his leg.

"Please, please, please," yesterday he prayed to stay on the shelf. But today he begged for the opposite. "Choose me."

Mr. Taylor appeared immediately. "Careful!"

But the girl's face lit up. "Mum! I want this one!"

The parents sighed. Teddy held his breath, while they hesitated. Then, Mr. Taylor sighed, and Teddy's price was reduced immediately. Money changed hands, and just like that, Teddy belonged to someone.

And a few minutes later Teddy found himself being carried toward the door. He was being taken Home.

As they passed the front window, he looked back.

Birdie stood in her display, perfect beneath the afternoon sun.

The bell above the door rang, and the little girl squeezed him tighter. So tight that his seam hurt. Something sticky touched his ear, and for the first time in his life, Teddy was delighted.

The door closed behind him. Birdie remained in her display, beautiful as a fairy tale and lonely as a ghost.

I got inspired after watching the short film called 'Alma' written and directed by Rodrigo Blaas. It's very cute, but the same time creepy.