Anya the Doll

Anya kept a room to her own on the side of the city closest to the forests and farms. She had a window in her home, something the size of a painting like the kind they kept in the lobby downstairs. The glass frequently seemed fogged, or dusty, and Anya found herself dabbing at the spots of dust with a moistened towel, fretting over the detail that no one but her would ever see.

She left her home in the late morning, and took the staircase on the far end of the apartment, down the hallway. She had to risk contact with the dozen culvers that lived on the hall. Down the stairs she encountered only a pair of culvers also descending, and finally at the bottom, she could take the back door out into the weed infested backlot, and from there round the premises and walk onto the street.

All this with not so much as a longer passing glance from the culvers in her building. She didn’t think most of them knew who it was that lived in 4E, but wasn’t it all better that way?

It was a colder morning than most, and Anya’s jacket kept out only most of the chill as she walked down the side of the city street beside her apartment building, Meke Street. From there, a right onto Ash Avenue, and then onto 8th for the better part of six blocks. She didn’t draw so many stares anymore, not with so many other dolls moving into the city, and with the humans turning up more and more often. But still she caught a hiss or a softly spoken culvern curse as she passed. She kept her face averted as well as she could.

She arrived at her intake office, and quietly punched in her clock card before continuing through the staff room to her desk. A few of the other intake workers glanced up at her. Two dolls, like her, and a few culvers. Anya fell into her seat, and eyed the stack of papers in the incoming folder. It’s not so many, is it? It could be worse.

“Anya?”

Anya looked up, almost unaware she’d entered any kind of reverie. “Hello, Mr. Amon,” she said, to her manager.

Mr. Amon, unmistakably human yet still with a hairy beard and thick eyebrows. A tower of a man. “Five new ones today, I’ll give you an hour each. You did a fair job with that witch yesterday. She came back after you left, said she’d like to talk to you more.” He laughed, then, shaking with it. Once he settled himself, he added, “oh, she doesn’t seem to understand the concept of a construct does she?” He patted Anya’s desk and turned to walk off, adding, “I told her, anyway, when your shift ends,” in a dry tone.

Anya smiled, nodded. Then, she pulled from the sheaf of papers she’d left the other day, from the outgoing pile, and leafed through, her fingers slipping sometimes on the pages. “Alice,” she whispered, finding the witch’s outgoing form. She slid the paper out, set it on the front of her desk. She felt a kind of apprehension at this. Alice.

Most humans seemed only interested in crossing over from their world in order to hunt or fight, but Alice had asked a lot about Anya herself, and the culver culture. “Me?” Anya had asked. “Well... I don’t really...” She’d struggled for an appropriate response, and had even felt herself blush at the attention. “No, I think we should finish this last piece here,” Anya had shuffled the papers around to make it seem as though she were turning to some penultimate page. “Ah, yes, your classification choice. With all we’ve discussed, I believe witch would be the most appropriate?”

Alice had nodded, grinning. “Witch sounds great, thanks!”

And now Anya would have to talk to her again.

After five and a half hours or so, though.

Anya sighed, and reached for the pile of incoming documents. She’d have other incoming today, too, and she’d have to give them all their fair time.