Where The Toys Go

Avatar Author: Zerrakhi Australian, born in 1977, possibly human. Haven't written fiction in a long time, but "Zerrakhi" was a character name I used back in the day and I've always liked it. I dabble in creativity of all kinds. Read Bio

Life’s lessons learned. Never have an affair with someone claiming to be the King of the Fairies.

Marilyn sat on the grass, the scattered toys all around her, eating a pale blue apple she’d picked on her last walk by the river. It must have been hours now, not that time was really the same under an orange sun that never set. She loved her daughter very much, but wished she was more ordinary. Ordinary children throw toys out of cots. Regina threw toys into the other world and was too young to understand that other people couldn’t pick them up again.

They usually turned up, eventually, but it sometimes took a few days. Regina seemed to will them back into her hands in the same way they disappeared. How long would it be before she realised that she really wanted her mother? Or that Marilyn couldn’t simply walk … through? Marilyn watched for a toy to fade, hoping she could grab it and be dragged back before it vanished entirely.

The nurses had panicked and run off. Probably lost, thought Marilyn.

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Comments (3 so far!)

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  1. Avatar falconesse

    It’s very interesting to see where you’ve taken this. The imagery is great — the world that’s familiar-but-not, the discarded things scattered around and Regina’s mother among them.

    Marilyn’s point of view is a nice twist, too, resigned rather than frightened. The opening lines were both amusing to me and bittersweet.

    Nicely done!

  2. Ahfl_icon THX 0477

    Yeah, I really liked this. It took a dire, extremely frightening situation and gave it a glimmer of hope, without really taking away from the ‘reality’ of it.

  3. Avatar Zerrakhi

    Incidentally, the “King of the Fairies” thing was influenced by the fact that the child’s name is Regina, a name that refers to royalty. Of course, it doesn’t have to be true – perhaps they all claim to be King when seducing human women.

    I browsed baby name websites for a while before naming Marilyn, which somehow seemed to fit the character best. I wasn’t thinking of any existing Marilyns except perhaps the horse from Terry Pratchett’s “Night Watch”, but if it turns out she exists then please don’t tell her that she’s named after a horse.

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