It’s amazing what you find in the depths of your My Documents folder. Like this piece, based on the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea, only instead of a statue the lifeless woman is a Real Doll.
She came in a box.
No, she came in a cardboard coffin, simple and plain, and lined with bubblewrap to protect its precious cargo. The coffin waited there on the floor of his lounge, with his gaming consoles on one side, and the remnants of his dinners from the previous few nights.
Pizza on Monday. McDonald’s on Tuesday. Chinese Wednesday. Pizza again on Thursday.
As he carefully slit the tape around the edges of the coffin and lifted the lid, Leon could not help but feel like Prince Charming must have when he drew back the curtains to find his Sleeping Beauty waiting there.
For there in the coffin was Téa, more beautiful than her picture, lovelier than he had imagined. Her eyes were closed and the faintest flush of life was in her cheeks. She was waiting, Leon knew, for him to lean forward wake her from her deep sleep.
But Leon was no Prince Charming and he knew it. If he was anyone from the world of fairy tales – that world of brave knights and monstrous dragons, fair maidens and wicked witches – he would be the frog. The slimy, disgusting, ostracized little frog forever waiting for a princess to pass by.
No princess ever came. No princess ever kissed him. His stumbled attempts at getting women to notice him always failed; oftentimes he lost his nerve before even opening his mouth and dashed away before the woman in question actually noticed him. His witty (well, he thought they were witty) comments were always met with blank stares, or laughs. At him, not with him, of course. His compliments were received awkwardly, but never returned. The only things women gave him with refusals.
Until Téa.
The moment he saw her picture on the website he was in love. He could not explain it. Just deep down inside he knew she was the one. The only thing he thought about was Téa, and how once she was here she would become the center of his lonely little world.
So how could anyone think what Leon and Téa had was wrong?
She was always there, waiting for him to return. The sight of her smile made even the hardest day better, and it was such a relief to be able to tell her all about his day over dinner; she ate like a bird, always finishing first, but she never left the table for him to finish alone.
Friday night was movie night. The tradition never changed. On his way home he would pick up two DVDs: one for her, and one for him. He never complained about being forced to sit through one of her ‘chick flicks’, and Téa always smiled indulgently when Leon explained the minutiae of scene X from his choice.
When winter – and Téa’s birthday – rolled around, he baked her a cake (although he did burn it, quite badly too) and presented her with the coat he knew she admired.
For their one-year anniversary, he saved up for months to buy the ring that would be good enough for her.
If Leon had had friends they would have intervened by then. It was not right, they would say, for a grown man to act as if a doll he had bought off the Internet was his wife. It was simply not done for a man to bring a doll presents, buy her clothes and jewelry. It was not proper for him to sleep beside her in his bed, one arm draped over her waist and with his face buried in her hair.
But as there were no friends to say these things, no one ever dared to try to wake Leon from his dream.
And so when Aphrodite finally sent Gail, a lovely and real woman, into his life, he told her he was flattered.
But he was already married.
