Doll Magic

Auntie Meg is the traveler in the family. Her list of 'to see' places is not a bucket list, it is a barrel list, if I may coin a term. Her list of 'already visited' places is even longer, and includes such exotic locations as Narnia and Neverland.

Now, Auntie Meg is 'Auntie' to a lot of people, but she does have a favourite niece. And I'm proud to tell you that I happen to be that favourite niece. As a child, I traveled with Auntie Meg on a couple of occasions, when she wasn't going too far from my home, and my parents didn't think the trip was too crazy. Otherwise, I wasn't allowed to go. I couldn't wait to be all grown up and decide for myself that I wanted to accompany Auntie Meg.

But you know how it is when you grow up. Those childhood wants take a back seat to the daily grind. I had a career, I had a house to run, bills to pay. I didn't do any of those exotic journeys with Auntie Meg.

Auntie Meg didn't mind whether I came along, intended to come along, or didn't. She kept up her tradition of buying me a doll at every location she visited. A hand-made, local doll. Up until I went to university, she would send each doll separately. Then, she waited till she had a half-dozen before making a big package of it.

So one day, when I received a package with a single doll in it, I was surprised. Auntie Meg's card said, "She seemed impatient to get there, so I'm sending her to you."

"Were you impatient to get here?" I asked the little brown doll.

"Yes, I was," she replied. "Careful, don't drop me."

"You TALK?"

"Yes, I talk. You asked me a question, I answered it. There's no need to jump like that."

"But I'm not used to dolls talking. I mean, they do recorded talking, but not have a conversation. And you don't even have any electronics ..."

"OUCH! Don't poke me like that, it hurts."

"Sorry, I was checking to see if you had a computer or something."

"I don't."

"Anyway, so you were anxious to get here?"

"Yes. More than that< i was anxious to travel, to see the world."

"The world?"

"Yup. See that little hole in the packaging? That's where I peeked out from. I saw the world."

"You didn't go all over the world. You just traveled ..."

"I traveled across the world. I invoked the doll magic that we dolls can invoke once in our lives."

"Doll magic?"

"Yes. We have magic that we can invoke once, for one task. I made the address on the package and the stamps change every time we reached a destination. I have peeped at the world."

"How did you know addresses in other countries?"

"Simple. I got them from Auntie Meg's address book. She has addresses from all over the world in there. I went alphabetically for a while, and then at random. It was quite clever actually. I'd address it 'to' someone, and when I was about to get there, change the stamps, make it 'from' that person, and 'to' someone else."

"Tell me about the world," I gasped. "Where have you been?"

"To Asia and Africa and Europe and across America. I've been to the richest countries and the poorest. I've been to glittering cities and tiny, remote villages. And I learned something."

"What did you learn?"

"That there are people and animals everywhere. In some places, people are kind to animals and nature. In some places, they're mean. Where they're mean, the people are unhappy. It's pretty simple actually. I've been to a hundred countries. This is what I've learned. Be kind to nature and animals, be happy."

I hugged my new doll. "Will you remind me, if I forget?"

"Sure I'll remind you."

"And you won't put yourself in a package and go away from me, ever?"

"Nope. I've had my share of traveling. Now I'm home to stay!"