Once upon a time, there was a Tall Man. He was a dour man too, which was a word usually associated with miserable people. But he wasn’t miserable because ‘dour’ also meant ‘obstinate’ and this is what he was.
In his pocket, everywhere he went, the Tall Man carried a tiny matchbox. Tucked inside the matchbox was a gift — five tiny dolls from Guatemala.
The Tall Man carried the tiny dolls because once, many years ago, a girl he had loved had given them to him. She told him they were ‘worry dolls’.
In the note with the dolls, it was explained that every night, the Tall Man should whisper his deepest worries to the box and the dolls would take them away.
Where the worries truly went, no-one really knew, except the dolls. It was their secret.
It was said that the dolls were extremely effective and powerful. They had brought good luck, health, happiness and prosperity to many.
Every night, the Tall Man opened the box and whispered to the dolls and they took his worries inside them. Then he slid the box closed, placed it under his pillow and slept soundly.
The Tall Man secretly loved the dolls in the matchbox because he had once loved the brown eyed girl who had given them to him. By keeping them with him every day, he also kept the young girl with him. This way, he never had to think about the end of their relationship. She was still with him every day and it gave him joy to think that he could just reach out his hand and find her there, still pressing against him like she had done the first night he had kissed her.
As the years went on, the Tall Man continued to whisper each night into the box. He did it so quietly that even his wife wouldn’t hear him. One morning, when his wife was changing their bed linens and he was in the shower, she found the tiny box under his pillow. When she asked what they were, he tossed them casually into a drawer as if they meant nothing.
When his wife left the room, he snatched the drawer open and whispered his apologies to the tiny dolls until he knew that they were once again happy.
One day, the Tall Man’s wife left him because she was tired of coming second to the beautiful girl with the brown eyes. The Tall Man whispered all night and all day into the box.
The dolls became anxious. There were only five of them in the box and whilst they knew how to dispose of the worries of one day, they did not know how to cope with the worries of fifteen years and the hatred which poured day and night out of the man’s mouth.
‘Please stop’ they begged, but the man did not stop because he was obstinate.
Every time the Tall Man opened the box, he thought of the beautiful brown eyed girl and then he thought of how much he despised his ex-wife.
He whispered to the five little dolls about his wife, pouring out his hatred.
The dolls became ill and one of them died, but the man didn’t notice anything.
‘Please stop’ cried the dolls again. ‘We can only take your worries, not your hatred.’
Still the man did not hear them.
The four remaining dolls wept for their sister in the matchbox.
Now dealing with the man’s hate became even more difficult and each doll became sicker and sicker.
The Tall Man carried on taking the matchbox with the dolls in it everywhere he went. Then one day, he noticed how much heavier the matchbox had become.
He opened it and looked at the little dolls, but they still appeared the same although one doll at the end looked somehow corpse-like but he supposed it had always been so.
There seemed to be no reason that the box should be heavier and so the man thought about the beautiful brown eyed girl and how she had loved him and then he thought about his ex wife and how much he hated her and he slid the matchbox back into his jacket pocket.
Eventually the matchbox became so heavy that the Tall Man developed a stoop. No matter how hard he tried to sit straight, the weight of the box pulled him down.
The Tall Man went to see a doctor about the stoop, but still he would not take the dolls out of his pocket because the girl with the brown eyes could never be far away. The doctor ordered exercise.
Every night and every day, the Tall Man whispered and whispered into the box and every morning, he took the box and placed it into his breast pocket so that the beautiful girl with the brown eyes would be closer to his heart.
The Tall Man tried to exercise but his stoop made it so difficult that he stopped and over time, his back hunched over and he gazed at the world through hooded lids, straining to stand tall whilst the weight of the little box pulled him to the ground.
One day, the Tall Man realised that he wasn’t tall any longer. The box had so bent him over that he needed two sticks to keep himself upright and he shuffled along the ground as if he were a turtle looking out from under a shell.
Inside the box, the weight of the man’s hatred was so heavy that the four remaining sisters died one by one, each passing the mounting debt to the other until they all lay there, corpse-like in their little Guatemalan dresses and hats. There were no more tears to be shed.
And the man kept the box in his chest pocket so that the beautiful brown eyed girl would be forever close to his heart.
