“Hey, Stephanie, do you have the Manhattan repo…Whoa!” Donna said as she came into the office with a stack of papers, stopping as she finally looked up.

Stephanie, for her part, went stiff and still, wanting nothing more than to dive into a closet. Her stomach churned as she was being seen like this. Like a doll. That was a private thing, never to be known to anyone else. She stammered as she was observed.

“What the hell?” Donna asked.

“I can explain,” Stephanie started. But she couldn’t explain. Not because she really didn’t want to admit her daydreams, but because she didn’t know how this had happened. Recently, she had found this website where you could design cute dolls, and Stephanie had spent most of that week creating cute doll versions of herself. It had been a better use of her time than coming up with useless reports.

Today, she noticed a new feature. The company could custom-make the doll and send it to her. While investigating the shipping options, debating whether she should actually buy it, Stephanie saw a strange shipping option: Instant Delivery. How could a custom-made doll be made and shipped instantly? She selected the option more with curiosity than anything else; she still wasn’t sure if she was going to buy a mini-version of herself.

The screen shimmered, Stephanie woozed, and the next thing she realized, she was plush and dollified. Which, admittedly, was a long-time fantasy of hers. Just not in real life; not at work. She gulped.

“A website did this to me!” Stephanie said, prepared to deny any and all accusations that she had ever wanted to be a doll.

For her part, Donna was taking it well. Maybe too well. She tilted her head, a soft smile on her lips as she took in Stephanie Doll. “What do those little circles on your hands do?”

Stephanie blinked and looked at her hands—well, mittens—and for the first time noticed the red patches. There had been so much else she was focused on. But the moment she saw, them, her bright doll eyes went wide.

“I don’t know!” She lied. But she had designed the doll with a squeeze buttons. She had even typed in what the doll should say when they were pressed.

Without warning, Donna stepped forward and squeezed Stephanie’s mitten hand. Stephanie’s mind evaporated into her plush, she sat up straight, and put on the biggest, doofiest grin she could muster. Then, in a high-pitched voice laced with a giggle, she spoke.

“I’m Stephanie and I’m just a silly dolly!”

As she reclaimed control of herself, the echoes of that phrase kept playing in Stephanie’s mind. She clapped her mittens over her mouth with such force that she would have hurt herself if she wasn’t made of plush and cloth. She looked at Donna, watching in real time as her coworker went from startled, to amusement, to adoration.

“Aww, you really are a silly dolly,” she said.

Stephanie shook her head, “No, I’m not!” She said, still speaking in that high pitched voice, making her words coming out more like a tantrum than a protest. It was as if the phrase she had spoken made it true in the world.

I’m Stephanie, and I’m just a silly dolly!

She was fully panicked as Donna took hold of her and stood her up, both gentle and firm somehow. “Well, I guess the Manhattan Report will have to wait.”

“I can…I can do it…” Stephanie tried to assert, without considering how she could type without fingers. She had to try to go back to normal, right?

“An office is no place for a doll. Let’s get you somewhere more appropriate.” Stephanie was too light, too weak, to fight with the woman who had already made up her mind.

“Wh-where?” Stephanie asked with her eyebrows furrowed in worry.

“There’s that cute little donation store down the block. Just imagine, by tonight, you could be owned by someone who will play with you all the time!”

Stephanie had imagined and fantasized about that very possibility countless times. It was never supposed to be real. But then, Instant Delivery was a fantasy, too.