Muñeca

Muñeca means doll in Spanish

In the room where she is seen, Muñeca sits on a shelf and looks from wall to wall.  So much activity she hears outside the house.  So many things to behold but she feels the world passes her by.  She is not a doll children play with.  She is special and not to be touched.  Muñeca knows that is not how she was created.  It is how the house requires her to be.   Consequently, she wants to be held, touched.  How she longs to be someone’s plaything.    

When no one is looking, Muñeca’s spirit carries her to the arms of a child.  In her mind’s eye, the two frolic in green meadows and climb trees.  They love to chase butterflies and marvel at the beauty they see around them.  Their days are carefree and filled with smiles and laughter.  Muñeca and her friend hold hands as they watch the setting sun.  In her make believe land, nighttime doesn’t mean their time together ends.  There is no end to their friendship.  Time and space are not limits and the happy pair spend the night catching fireflies, but never hurting them, and gazing at the night sky.   When the child decides it is time for rest, they lie down in a bed a fragrant petals.  Muñeca beams with love for her friend who appears angelic in the moonlit glow.  The child is her best friend. 

Instead of this heavenly life, Muñeca exists within the confines of her real world.  She is pressed by the many dictates to which she conforms as she rigidly stands in place.  Though her heart screams to be a doll, held and loved, she remains on her pedestal with a face painted into the perpetual smile for all to see.  She is a good doll.  She does all required of her though her heart isn’t in it.  She knows the part she must play.

Suspended in the tension of her life and fantasy, Muñeca feels continually pulled.  As time wears on, the strings holding her in the balance fray little by little.  She cannot live in the manner expected of her.  Muñeca knows she is not a doll to be high on a shelf.  She has a heart full of love and wishes to express all of it.  She also cannot be a disappointment to those who see her and squelches such fantasies. 

Muñeca is two diametrically opposed dolls.  She is pure porcelain, never touched.  She is a carefree toy who loves to bound across the rolling hills with her friend.  But she can’t be both.  How will Muñeca survive?