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I hold in my hand high-waisted Hattie, hairless as an egg, slightly knock-kneed. Her unfortunately placed arms grow not from her shoulders, which apparently don't exist, but from the sides of her head. She's not only high-waisted but high-armed. Her clothing is scanty, but what there is of it is exquisite. Broderie anglaise for the bodice, and sheer, pale purple metallic ribbon gathered in for a skirt. The skirt, tellingly, barely reaches her crotch.
Even more embarrassing, her skirt doesn't go all the way around her body; it starts and ends at the side seams. Little Hattie is bare-arsed. Her broderie anglaise bodice does go all the way around her, so one has to wonder about the skirt.
Whim of the creator, I reckon.
Are we all whims of the creator? My short waist, your thick hair, my nose, your eyes—have we no way to account for these except as whims of the creator? Well, of course we do: those things are all genetic. Just look at the family pictures and you'll see more than a creator's whim. You are a direct copy of your father, aren't you? And all your siblings look just like your mother. So much for the whim of the creator.
Hattie, to her sorrow, has no siblings. Hattie was a prototype who failed the test. She came out wrong and she took too long to make. A creator who needed to make dozens of little dolls in a hurry would not choose Hattie as the model. So she sits alone, permanently pinned to a cork-board of ideas, while her totally different, quickly made little sisters have scurried off on their various adventures. Poor hairless, high-waisted Hattie, pinned to this corkboard for life.
Copyright 2010 Ann Tudor
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