I hear a car door slam shut outside, the key turning in the lock, the trample of feet on stairs as he scuds up to his room. Here we go again. The door swings open and he glides along the wooden floor, pirouettes and lands less than gracefully on the bed next to me. A sticky hand lifts me to face my master.
'Hi Elmo' he says, practically yanking the cord out of my back. I suffer terrible pains in my neck sometimes from his reckless hands, I wait in vain for mom to bring home Osteopath Barbie.
'I love you too' I find myself saying, unconsciously.
He dives to turn on the TV and we settle down to watch a poorly animated Japanese cartoon. Twenty minutes later mom calls him down to dinner and he hurls me across the room into his mini basketball net, it’s an inescapable routine to which I have become accustomed over the last 6 months.
As I look upon his kingdom from upside down in the tangled net I contemplate my life of slavery. I often find myself pondering my existence in the empty hours of school days. Weekends are too manic to stop and think. The boys' imagination is astounding and the stories he narrates as I'm trampling a highway of Micro Machines to oblivion captivate me. As I find myself terrorising families of his sisters' dolls I look at them and wonder if they, like me, are trapped and long for escape.
My memories are hazy, I guess I must have suffered some kind of trauma six months ago because I remember nothing before that date. I figure that it was this incident that has left me dumb and paralysed, but I honestly have no idea and no-one to ask. I have seen glimpses of my past life; I know that I was a famous TV star. I've seen the repeats of my show on TV and adverts for my merchandise still appear, in them I am bright, healthy and happy. I try not to watch TV if I can help it any more, the haunting images play in my mind over and over at night.
How have I fallen from grace so spectacularly?!
Is nobody wondering where I am?
Why is this boy holding me captive?
As my thoughts wander I hear footsteps on the stairs again.
I freeze.