Mon Petit Ami
By Sherri Cornelius
Copyright 2011 Sherri Cornelius
I first met my tiny man while picking up toys in my son's bedroom. He was a ninja doll, about eight inches high, and spoke to me when I picked him up. "Will I go in ze box again?" he said.
I let out a squeak, dropped him and took a step back. Actually, several steps. Okay, I ran for the door. Who wouldn't?
In the doorway, I turned back. The ninja doll lay where I’d dropped it, a black melanoma against carpet the color of my son’s pale skin. I laughed. It must have been a neighbor or a car driving by or something. I stalked back, feeling silly for letting my imagination get the better of me, and snatched up the ninja.
I looked into the eyes, which were painted blue above the mask that covered the nose and mouth. He didn't speak, of course, because that had been just my imagination, yet he didn't seem inanimate, either. Did his molded plastic body feel just a little softer than before? Since I'd had no reason to pay close attention to the rigidity of the ninja before, I couldn't say for sure. But it could have been softer.
"No, it couldn't be," I said aloud.
At any rate, I couldn't bring myself to toss him into the toy box to lie among all those hard, cold toys. It wouldn't hurt if I tossed him into the stuffed animals instead. The ninja landed on Goo-goo Bear, and I went back to straightening the room.
Soon it began to irritate me, having an action figure in the area designated for stuffed animals. It totally messed up my organization system. My obsessive-compulsive disorder was mostly controlled by medication, but I still had my quirks. My husband, Adam, always said he loved my quirks, because they kept his home neat and tidy. I’ve always had a suspicion that he was OCD-by-proxy, and had married me for my housekeeping skills.
I scanned the bookcase where George's favorite dolls stood. The ninja was dressed in black, and there were a few black-clad dolls on one shelf, but none of them had masks, and they were all of better quality. Two other shelves held planes, shaded from white to gray to black, and another held racecars.
I took a deep breath, like Dr. Denman had taught me, and ran through the problem as if it were happening to someone else. How would I advise a friend to solve this quandary?
"Duh," I exclaimed, slapping my forehead. "I'll just make a new shelf."
There was a step stool under the bathroom sink that George hadn't used in the past year, and that would go nicely on top of the bookcase. As I retrieved the stool, I mulled over the unconventional idea of having a stepstool on top of a bookcase. Madness! I giggled as I slid the stool on top of the bookcase and arranged the ninja on top of it.
The ninja sat contentedly on his make-shift shelf, and as I left the room and turned off the light, I thought I heard, "Merci." But when I turned around I realized I only thought I thought I'd heard it.
The next day while George was again at school, I rearranged his toys on the shelves. He was pretty good about picking up after himself, but boys will be boys, and sometimes a Superfriend was put on the train shelf.
The ninja was lying on the floor again, and I made a mental note to talk to George about climbing on the shelves. Kids could be squashed, doing that. As I reached up to put him on his make-shift shelf, I distinctly heard, "Merci, madame, please do not put me back up zere."
This time I didn't drop him. I glanced around the room for the source of the voice, peered out the window. No cars driving by, no one in my yard. It had to be the doll, yet of course it couldn’t be. I stuck my head out into the hall and listened to assure I was indeed alone before giving the doll a shake. "Say something else."
The ninja doll obliged. "Ah, oui, I have much to say. What would you like to hear first? How ever since I awoke in zis room I have longed for escape? How I have gradually become mobile? How for ze past month I have seen your lovely face every day, and have grown to look forward to the kindness you show me?"
The lower half of his face was covered by a plain, black mask, which moved slightly but seemed firmly attached. Hm, impossible to discern whether he had a mouth under there.
The doll raised his hand to touch my face. Startled, I flung it away. I had been holding it six inches from my nose, not really listening to its words but trying to discern where the sound was coming from. A talking doll was sort of cool, but one that could move was spooky. And—wait a minute—a French accent?
The ninja lay at my feet, moving in a very human way. A Lilliputian to my Gulliver. I crouched down so I wouldn’t be towering over him, because probable insanity was no excuse to be rude.
His face mask fluttered softly with each groan. "Ma cherie, you do me injury."
“I’m sorry. This is all new to me. Here.” I gently scooped him up and sat on George’s bed. "I thought ninjas were Japanese or something. Why do you sound French?"
"I am only what you want me to be, ma cherie," he countered, looking up at me with adoring painted eyes.
I knew it. "So this is my imagination after all, huh?"
"Oh, no, this is not your imagination, my sweet, this is the manifestation of everything you have ever wanted."
"I've wanted an eight-inch toy ninja who can speak French, is that what you're saying?"
"You want a man who will cater to your every desire. One who is romantic, considerate, good with children." His gaze smoldered. "Am I not the manifestation of that desire?"
For the first time I noticed how his molded plastic muscles rippled in my hand. Flustered, I said, "What do you expect me to do with you? Are you wanting to—to eat at the table, sleep in a real bed, what? I mean, if you're becoming a real person—and you are, aren't you?—then won't you want to—" My lips were stilled by a miniature hand.
"Sh-h-h, no, mon amour, please do not fret. I want only to please you. You must go about your life, tend your husband and your wonderful leetle boy. I will be fine here." His head turned toward the sound of George coming through the front door. "Quickly, you must put me back on ze shelf. We shall meet again tomorrow."
Tiny Man had told me that first day that he was the manifestation of my desires, and it was totally true. He was everything I could wish for in a man: considerate, complimentary, demonstrative. A true companion. We got to know each other while he grew more supple every day, until he seemed human in every way. And I mean every way. Naturally, as we grew closer, physical attraction grew as well. He made up for his size by reaching places my husband didn't even know existed.
"You treat me better than anyone ever has, T.M.," I said lying in bed with him one afternoon. He never removed his clothes, even in our special times, so I assumed he couldn’t. I didn’t ask. "As crazy as it sounds, I think I'm in love with you."
"It is not crazy, my love. You are not crazy, no matter what he says."
"If Adam ever found out..."
"Do not worry about it, my darling. If Adam finds out, it will be because I have whisked you away from him."
I giggled and snuggled closer, careful not to let T.M. fall into the crack between our pillows.
What he lacked in physical size, he more than made up for in romance. Once he slipped out the doggy door—we’d given Snickers away when the dog hair became too much for me to bear—and surprised me with a tiny little purple flower from the lawn. “For you, ma cherie,” T.M. said, climbing onto the table and presenting it to me. “You are more beautiful than ze blue sky, ze yellow sun, ze flowers in ze field. I wish I could give you a whole garden, plant you there where you could be queen.” Only a weed before, the tiny purple flower took my breath away. Or maybe it was just T.M.
As I spent more and more time with him, organization systems throughout the house began to fall apart. Adam felt he had to pitch in, and as a result the towels were folded in halves instead of thirds. Wh
at's worse, I didn't care. I even went so far as to intentionally scatter a few toys around our bedroom so that Tiny Man wouldn't seem out of place lying just under the edge of the bed.
One night, I was reading before bed when Adam emerged from the bathroom and asked, "Um, are you feeling all right?"
"What?” I put down my mystery novel. “Of course, why?"
"I just noticed that the house is a little messier than usual. It's the kind of thing that would normally drive you cr—I mean, that would normally bother you." He plopped onto the edge of the bed next to me to pull on his night socks, and then stopped and held them out to me. “Look, my socks are unmatched, you’ve been squeezing the toothpaste from the top…”
"Oh, that." I closed the book without marking my place and placed it on the bedside table. "I've just been distracted with—with a new game on Facebook. I just can't stay away from it." I laughed. To my ears it