A Friday story featuring a sightless doll and mindmap guru Tony Buzan…
I have a little blind dolly. She is stuffed with straw. I have not named her yet. I have only had her for half an hour.
I found her on a patch of waste ground, half an hour ago. I was out walking. I suppose I should say I was out limping, because I limp when I walk. My left leg is shorter than my right leg on account of a mysterious childhood illness. I was limping along near the canal when I passed a patch of waste ground and saw the blind dolly stuffed with straw. She had been abandoned, possibly by some ungrateful infant. Ingratitude is the besetting sin of today’s infants. That is my opinion, not shared by all.
Rooting around on the waste ground I noticed other things, including a pair of blue buttons. I think I can say with some confidence that they were made of bakelite. I supposed that they may have been the eyes of my little blind dolly once upon a time. But they had become detached, perhaps when she was thrown with a certain amount of violence on to the patch of waste ground from the wound-down window of a white Fiat Uno passing at high speed in the back seat of which an ungrateful infant was throwing a tantrum. That would fit the facts as I found them.
I did think about sewing the buttons back on to my little blind dolly’s cloth head, about twenty five minutes ago, but decided against doing so. She has been robbed of her sight and I do not presume to play God. I have placed both buttons in my pocket, however, in case they come in handy for another purpose, a purpose which will be revealed to me at the due time.
For the moment I am concerned with selecting a name for my little blind dolly. No doubt the ungrateful infant who tossed her aside had a name for her, but in twenty thousand years I would be unable to guess what it was. It is not as if she has her name embroidered on the sole of her cloth foot.
At home I have a whole shelf full of books by Tony Buzan. They are all packed with tips to make better use of my brain, but not one of them tells me how to pronounce the author’s name. Is it BOO-z’n or Byoo-ZAN? Until I find out, my little blind dolly will have to have two names. She will be Susan Buzan or Suzanne Buzan.
I am going to make a little black cape for her to wear, just like Tony Buzan’s cape, only smaller, because she is not a living breathing mind-map maker, she is just my little blind dolly. I will find a small piece of cloth for the cape, and if it is not already black, I will have to dye it, or smear it all over with black boot polish.
I have got more black boot polish than I know what to do with. I often think about that song by Jethro Tull, Doctor Bogenbroom, because I bought all the boot polish from a cobbler named Mister Bogenbroom when he shut up his shop. He told me he was going to sea, but he did not say which sea he meant. It could have been the Baltic, the Red, or the Dead, or one of the other ones. I didn’t ask him, because he was quite a frightening man, and in those days I did not have my little blind dolly to protect me. But now I have, and nothing will ever frighten me again.
Brilliant.