Toy stores were once magical places to me. Everything was bigger, brighter, and the best it could possibly be. There were trucks that could turn into robots, dinosaurs that roared with electronic voice boxes, and stuffed animals that you could cuddle, just not around my friends. And then there came a time in my life when toy stores were sad. The fluorescent bulbs were too harsh and bright. The shelves had chips in their paint. The store clerks were all bored or weird. And everything was just smaller now.

But that all changed when I found out that I was going to be an uncle. That little big discovery brought back that missing spark back into toy stores again. It made me feel like a kid again as I roamed the aisles for toys for my niece. I thought about what she might do and how she might like each and every toy in there, even though it might be years before she could even play with some of these toys.

I wandered down to the stuffed animal aisle, the aisle that peer pressure had once forbidden me from, and looked for the perfect toy. Most were cute animals with googly eyes, which I had been told were not appropriate for baby’s. A few had their eyes made of stitching, which were ok.

And then I saw an adorable blue hippo . . . cow . . . horse . . . thing. It had big bean bag legs and a plump and round snout. Whatever it was, it was adorable and would be eight dollars of limitless fun.

“Hey, you. Don’t buy that toy. You should buy me, instead.”

I heard someone whisper, barely there behind the poppy music piping through the speakers above, and I thought it was someone playing a prank on me. Some kid or a goofy advertising scheme that I was not going to let work. Besides, I already found the perfect stuffed animal for my niece.

“I’m serious, turn around.” The voice said again from behind me.

I ignored the voice and flipped the hip-cow-orse toy over to see if the tag might explain what animal it actually was. If you ignore things, I’ve learned, they have a tendency to go away.

“I know you can heeeaar me...” the voice said, “I promise that . I’m a much better doll than Hippy.”

I sighed, finally, and did what the voice wanted of me, and I was stunned at the toy sitting on the basket shelves right behind me. I wondered how I had missed her, because she was a nearly full sized and well made Raggedy Anne doll. Full of stuffing, she leaned on another toy for support. Her cloth skin was perfectly smooth, almost without seams at all. Her costume as cute as a button, too, what with red and white striped tights and a short blue dress and white bonnet.

But even though she was a toy, her plastic eyes were full of sparkling life, painted smile thin to almost being invisible, and head cocked to the side as if she was curious about the world. Or just curious about me.

I didn’t feel like I should be a spectacle for a doll. I was just an average guy, just shy of six feet with a stubbly beard that I could never get to grow and short black hair that I only just learned how to manage.

“Hi!” she said, whispering again in a clearly feminine voice. I couldn’t tell if the doll was really whispering of if it was in my head. I looked around, down both sides of the aisles, but saw no one else nearby. No one who could be throwing their voice and making me feel crazy.

“Hello,” I told the doll, tentatively, still on the lookout for any mischief makers, and feeling a bit silly about talking back to a toy. But I swear I saw the her painted smile get just a tad broader.

“What’s your name?” The doll asked.

“Patrick,” I told her. I couldn’t believe it. I was talking to a doll, and the doll was talking back. I shook my head and mumbled, “I really need to go see my therapist again.”

“Why’s that, Patrick?” The doll asked, and this time I thought I saw her mouth actually move.

“Because toys can’t talk.”

“Of course we can talk. Haven’t you heard a toy talk to you before?”

“No,” I said.

“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” the doll said with a laugh, “didn’t you have dolls when you were a kid? And didn’t they talk to you?”

“I had action figures,” I said, crossing my arms.

“Action figures are dolls. And you didn’t answer my question.” I could almost see the doll cock its stitched black eyebrow, as if to say ‘your move.’

“They didn’t talk to me. I made them talk. Big difference.”

“Maybe,” she said, “maybe not. If it makes you feel any better, though, I should tell you that I wasn’t always a doll.”

“What were you, then?”

“A person,” the doll replied quickly, “a lot like you.”

I dropped my crossed arms and looked at her a little sideways. I didn’t want to believe the doll, but I kinda did. “That’s impossible,” I said.

“I thought so, too, until it happened.”

I paused again. I realized I wanted to believe the doll. How crazy is that? I wanted to believe this doll who could talk, who was telling me it used to be human. I always thought I would wind up in the loony bin. I just thought it would be when I was much, much older.

“Suppose I believe you,” I said to the doll, “how did it happen? How were you transformed?”

“I’ll tell you,” the doll said, “but only if you buy me.” I was certain now that it had a coy smile on her face and leaned back just a tad. The doll knew she had me. She knew I believed her, knew I wanted to know more.

“How can I buy you if you’re human?”

“Oh, Patrick, Patrick, Patrick. Haven’t you been paying attention? I used to be human. Now I’m just a doll. If you don’t buy me, someone else will.” She said, and then the doll sighed, “If only my feminism professor could see me now.”

“You were in college?”

“Yep.”

“Hmmm,” I wondered, pulling my iPhone from my shorts pocket, “where did you go to school?”

“Are you testing me, Patrick?”

“Maybe,” I said, pulling up the browser.

The doll laughed, “I went to UBA, and my feminism professor was Christie Milton.”

I searched ‘UBA Christie Milton’ on my phone and waited the ten seconds for the page to load, keeping my eyes on my phone. I could feel the doll staring at me. But then, she was just a doll and couldn’t do much else. Then the search results loaded and my eyebrows jumped up. Sure enough there was a sociology professor at UBA named Christie Milton who specialized in feminism. I looked at the doll, and found it slightly harder to not believe her.

“Satisfied?” The doll said with that same smile that meant so many things.

“Not quite,” I said, and returned to the search field, “What’s your name?”

“I don’t have a name, Patrick,” The doll said, “until someone buys me and gives me one.”

Now I smiled a coy smile, “Well, I won’t buy you unless you tell me your name.”

The doll paused for a very long time. So long that I began to wonder again if this was all a prank. But then she said, “Lindsey. My old name was Lindsey Cale.”

I put her name into the search field and hit enter again. This time I felt my neck burn and hairs stand up while the progress bar turned from white to blue. Would it be better if I found a news report or Amber Alert for a Lindsey Cale? I wouldn’t be crazy, but she would have lost her entire school, her family, and her life. I’m not sure I wanted to know that. I wanted . . . I wanted her to be just a doll and for me not to be crazy. For just a little while longer, at any rate. I put my phone down before the results loaded.

I looked up at the doll. It...she was still flopped over a little, legs dangling off the shelf, head lolled just to  the side. Yet she looked alive in a way I couldn’t actually describe. If she was just a doll, she would be more flopped over. Her smile wouldn’t be so coy. Her eyes wouldn’t be so sparkling. My mouth was dry, I realized. I wanted to buy her and hear her story. But after that . . . I didn’t know what I would do with her. I was only in the store to get a toy for my niece.

“What’s the matter, Patrick?”

“I was just thinking that if I did buy you, I wouldn’t know what to do with you.”

“Sure you would.”

I smiled, and maybe blushed a little. The doll smiled back, as always. “How much are you?”

“Dunno,” she said with a shrug I wasn’t sure if I imagined, “look at my price tag.”

I looked down and saw a tag tied around her left ankle. I reached for it, grazing her striped leg and feeling that it was definitely plush. She laughed at the touch. I pulled her leg up by the tag so I could read it.

“How much am I?” She asked excitedly.

“You’re a bargain,” I told her.

“So what are you waiting for?” I smiled at her and put my arms around her plush waist, gently lifting her out of her spot on the wire shelf. One of her arms flopped and landed, as if on purpose, on my shoulder as I lowered her to the ground. I let her slipper feet touch the white tile floor and I looked into her sparkling plastic eyes. Her head was tilted in such a way that it felt like she was looking back at me.

“Promise to tell me how you became a doll?” I asked her. And she nodded. I saw it. I was sure I saw her nod. That’s when I knew I wasn’t crazy, even though I was talking to a doll.