The Broken Wind-Up Girl

The Broken Wind-Up Girl

 

Once upon a time, there was a wind-up doll crafted with such care and skill that it surpassed all other dolls. She had skin of smooth, polished alabaster that seemed to glow with an inner luminescence, as though life were shining through her. Her lips were the dark red of ripe cherries and her eyes were bottle blue, brighter and clearer than the sky. Her hair was spun from the softest silk and was so brilliantly golden that the very metal itself was ashamed. But her true beauty was within her, for the Maker who had created her spent every ounce of his skill in crafting the gears that allowed her to dance. He used the only the clearest crystal which cast rainbows from even the faintest shred of light to create gears that sang when they turned. The Maker had worked with all of his skill so that they fitted together so perfectly that even when they didn’t turn, one could still hear the faint singing of the crystal. And when the doll was wound up, she danced with such ephemeral grace that all who looked upon her fell in love instantly. To watch her dance was to watch the sunrise, to gaze upon the stars, to see a bird in flight all at once. She was not a toy, but a work of art meant to be loved and admired.

But there was another toy, a wind-up boy who was not put together right. The Maker had misplaced the gears inside him and they didn’t turn right. Instead of dancing when he was wound up, he hurt other dolls. And one day, he found the little wind-up girl and decided to play with her. Now, these dolls had been made at the same time and were not supposed to play with each other. But because she trusted him, she allowed him to wind her up and dance. And he forced her to dance for him in secret, far from where the other toys might be able to see her and stop him. The little wind-up girl hurt every time he wound her up, for he did it far too tightly and each time he wound her up tighter and tighter. But she trusted him and allowed him to play with her as he wished.

Until one day, he wound her up just a little too tight. He turned just one little turn too far and all of the delicate gears that let her dance cracked and jammed and scattered on the floor. The other toys ran to help her, but it was too late. She was empty and all of the gears that let her dance had fallen out. They did their best to put her back together and they sent the wind-up boy far away, but she was hurt too badly. She shut herself up tight and refused to let anyone in. So in the brief moments that they could, they placed the gears inside her, but they did it all wrong. The gears didn’t fit right and they had cracked. Eventually, she was whole once more. However, because the gears had been put back in the wrong way, she felt bad inside. She could wind up and dance again, but it wasn’t the same as before and it hurt to dance with another toy now. Sometimes, to feel less wrong, she tried to crack the gears so they would break and she would stop dancing forever.

One day though, she met another toy. He seemed nice and he looked fun to dance with. So, slowly, she allowed herself to open up to him. She let him near her and she let him wind her up. And once more, she found herself dancing for someone else. But this was different. This time felt right, it felt good. She danced and sang and he danced and sang with her. For the first time since she was broken, she felt happy. But when she opened herself up to him to show him the cracks inside, he stole one of her gears and ran away to play with another toy. He kept the gear because it was pretty, but he abandoned her without looking back. He didn’t want a toy that was broken, he wanted a whole one to himself. So he ran off with a piece of her and she never got it back.

The wind-up doll was betrayed and refused to open up again. But she let another toy wind her up and play with her. It was fun, just dancing. She didn’t need to show him the cracks and missing gears when she could still dance. Except that she was still hurting inside and she didn’t want to dance too much. She wanted to sit and just be, but the toy was bored with that. He wanted her to dance, so he wound her up and up and up. He wound her too far and she snapped. The key that turned her gears fell out. He tried to put it back but the gears didn’t turn anymore and she ran away from him. And now the wind-up girl, once so beautiful and perfect, was cracked and broken and hollow.

Still, she hated to be alone and there was another toy, one who she thought might help her. He was sweet and funny and charming and he didn’t want to wind her up. He wanted to be with her and he didn’t care if she danced. All was well for them, except that sometimes she hurt from the cracks inside and he hurt too because he cared about her and blamed himself for not being able to fix the cracks. It got worse because one day he did wind her up. But instead of dancing, she hit him. She couldn’t remember how to dance. All she remembered was how much dancing hurt, so all she could do when she was wound up was hurt the other toy. And the toy loved her but he ran away because she hurt him so much.

It seemed then that there was nothing left for the wind-up girl. Her gears were broken and mismatched and missing and now when she was wound up she didn’t dance, she hurt the other toys. What’s more, she couldn’t allow herself to open up to any more toys because when she did they ran away or they used her cracks to hurt her. She was still beautiful on the outside. But inside she was broken.

Some time passed and she met a tin soldier. The soldier was different. For one thing he had no gears; the Maker had not given him any. For another, he had a peculiar hole in his chest in which nothing seemed to fit. But this didn’t bother the wind-up girl for he was sweet and funny and kind. What’s more, he was a soldier and he made her feel safe, something she had never felt before. And because she felt safe, she showed him the cracks in her gears. Instead of running, as she had feared he would, the tin soldier held her close and told her he loved her. He promised to spend every second fighting away the ghosts of the toys who had hurt her in the past, ghosts who still visited her at night. This made the wind-up girl happy because she had finally found someone who she could trust. And because she trusted him and liked him very much, she opened herself up and gave him her heart.

Curiously, the heart she gave her soldier fit the hole in his chest perfectly. And although it left her emptier, she felt happier that it was somewhere safe. She gave it to him freely and in return he loved her in every way he knew how. He loved her, not in spite of the cracks, but because of the cracks. They made her who she was and he still saw her as the most beautiful doll he had ever seen. He cared for her like he had never cared for any other toy before, and it was because her heart was fitted into his chest.

One day though, the tin soldier was called far away on a campaign. The two could not see each other enough and she became afraid. What if he never returned? What if he hurt her? He knew of the cracks and he had more power to break her apart than anyone else. How could she trust him? And the tin soldier was afraid too because the ghosts kept haunting her at night and he was powerless against them from so far away. The poor tin solider loved her so much he became blind to the fact that a tin soldier cannot fight ghosts anyway.

And so the two fell into despair. The soldier marched onward, trying to get to a time where they could be together, where he could save her from her ghosts. But she faltered. The wind up girl ran away and left her soldier behind. She was afraid and broken. She was alone again.

But the soldier was not so easily stopped. He continued on through time, marching through the rain alone until he began to rust, and waiting for a time when he could be with her again. And though he became covered in rust, he followed her through the rain and hoped. For though his wind up girl had left, she had not asked for her heart back. And as long as the tin soldier had her heart, he would follow her into the dark.

At last the soldier caught up to his wind up girl. He followed her and begged her to trust him again, but she said no. Still he followed her and begged her and still she said no. But after he followed and begged her for long enough, she said yes. She said that he could be her soldier again.

But there were things the soldier did not know, secrets that she was keeping. For while they had been apart, the wind up girl had kept on cracking. The gears inside were not simply broken, they were dark and did not fit right. Now they threw shadows instead of rainbows and they no longer sang, they moaned. The gears inside her did not turn right and they had made her dance for the wrong toy. She was so full of pain that when the toy wound her up she did not say no. She simply wanted her dance to be over with, to dance and leave so she couldn’t be wound too tight again and left broken and empty on the floor. So she danced with this toy and when she told her tin soldier this, he cried until rust had stained his face forever.

But still the soldier loved his wind up girl. And he vowed to protect her anyway, to keep her safe from everything that might hurt her. How the soldier could have marched through a storm alone to reach her and still want her after she had danced with another toy, she could not fathom. And had her gears not been misplaced, perhaps they might have had the happy ending they both deserved.

But broken gears are one thing. Misplaced gears are another. Although the toys had tried to put them back the right way before, they had done it all wrong because she wouldn’t open up enough for them to fit right. So they spun the wrong way and she danced with the wrong toy again.

Upon learning this, the tin soldier realized that he was faced with a choice. He did everything in his power to convince her to come back, to be with him, that he forgave her. Except that he hurt so much from what she had done. He was not simply rusted, he was dented and scarred too. Still though, he wanted her back more than anything.

But the wind up girl talked about how she did not deserve him. A strong, brave solider deserves better than a broken wind up girl. She wanted him to leave, to find someone else to love so that she could be alone. She talked about taking her gears out and throwing them away because she didn’t wind up right anymore. The soldier heard these words and came to understand that her brokenness was not just the cracks. It was the misplaced gears. And unless he could find a way to help her put them back right, she would leave him forever and would eventually tear her own gears out. And then she would never dance again.

There was one thing the tin soldier had in the world that was precious to him and that was his wind-up girl’s heart. Nothing meant more to him in the world because when he had it, he felt good and strong instead of hollow and alone. Nothing except making his wind-up girl happy and safe and whole once more. So the tin soldier went to the Maker and made a request.

The Maker is the creator of all toys, but he never fixes them. Many toys think they can simply pray with their mouths for the Maker to help them, but the secret is that the Maker can only hear prayers of the heart. What good is giving a toy gears if you treat it like a puppet? But on rare instances, the Maker can be convinced to fix a toy. Convincing the Maker always means paying a price and that price is always high. What’s more, the Maker does not fix toys. That would be too easy. Instead, he gives them a chance to fix themselves. Just a chance. Nothing more, but also nothing less.

The tin soldier knew this for he had learned it on his journey alone. So when he realized that the wind up girl needed to be fixed or she would stop dancing forever, he went to the Maker and offered the heart in his chest. If the Maker accepted the deal, the heart would return to the wind up girl to give to someone else and the soldier would have an empty chest again. But in return, the Maker would give the wind up girl a chance to put herself back together again.

The tin soldier loved the wind up girl. He loved her so much that he was willing to tear the heart from his chest and never look back at her again if it meant she was whole once more. So he did. He made the deal with the Maker and gave the wind up girl’s heart back so that she could be whole again, knowing that in doing so his wind up girl might never love him again.

And so the Maker gave the broken wind up girl one more chance to become whole again. He removed the gears from inside her and told her how to put them back. It was a difficult process, requiring all of her patience and strength, for the gears kept slipping back to the places they had been for so many years of her life. But she tried as hard as she knew how to fix herself so she could be with her tin soldier.

But she failed. The gears would not fit right anymore. They kept slipping and twisting from her grip and though she tried to make them fit again, she could not. They kept spinning all wrong and she hated herself all the more for failing to be able to fix herself. She ran away from her tin soldier and danced with other toys because it hurt her and because she didn’t know how to dance with her tin soldier anymore. The tin soldier found out that she had failed and he wept. He begged the Maker to give her another chance but he had already made a deal once and the tin soldier had nothing left to barter.

The wind up girl loved her tin soldier. The tin soldier loved his wind up girl. But in the end, that simply wasn’t enough. Because the wind up girl did not love herself. She hated herself for her cracks and misplaced gears that forced her to dance all wrong. She hated that she could not fix herself, not even for her tin soldier. She hated herself for hurting him so much, for leaving him rusted and dented and scarred. The broken wind up girl was so filled with hate for herself that she could not accept the love of her tin soldier. The tin soldier ran after her because he wanted to save her, but she ran too far away. He never caught her again. And the wind up doll was filled with despair so great and terrible that she tore her own gears out and shattered them on the ground for she would rather be empty inside than filled with despair.

The tin soldier found her like that, her gears shattered and strewn across the floor. He held her, his empty broken wind up girl and he sobbed for he knew she would never dance again. Her skin, once of polished alabaster that seemed to glow with the light of life itself, was dull and cracked. Her eyes, once of a brilliant blue that put the sky to shame, were chipped and faded. Her cherry red lips, before so soft and smooth, were cracked and twisted. But the true horror lay within, for the gears that had once been so pure and perfect, gears that had allowed her to dance with long-forgotten grace, were shattered and scattered around her empty body. Inside of her was a hollowness that nothing could fill anymore, not even her tin soldier.

The broken wind up girl still had a few moments left though, and in those moments she gave him the only thing she had left to give. She gave her tin soldier her heart once more. She whispered in his ear that she loved him and that she was so sorry that she couldn’t be strong enough to be with him, so sorry that she had to leave him, so very sorry that she had rusted him. The tin soldier whispered to her that he was sorry he couldn’t save her, so sorry that she had been hurt before by so many other toys, so very sorry he couldn’t give her the strength she needed to be whole again. But the tin soldier was too late. She couldn’t hear him anymore. She wasn’t his wind up girl anymore. She was just a girl with no gears inside and no heart left to give and no dances left inside of her.