they don't fall down

My good buddy Tim has spent several years teaching English overseas, first in South Korea and later in Japan. When he came back to visit, he would bring gifts from afar: wind-up toy cars shaped like blocks of tofu for the kids, and for dad a magazine that one might find in the hands of men on public transportation systems. (I couldn't decipher the text, but I believed it to be a treatise on the pursuit of education and tartan pleated skirts.) The coolest gift, however, was a Daruma Doll.

A Daruma Dolls can be thought of as early Weebles, in that their traditional design allows them to right themselves if tipped over -- a property they inherited from the little rolly polly priest dolls that preceded them. This signifies tenacity, which is important in light of the doll's intended function.

The doll comes with blank eyes. One is supposed to envision a goal, and color-in only one of the doll's eyes. The second eye is to be decorated only when the goal has been reached. Our doll was given one pupil and a gnarly network of veins on the sclera. The goal: to be rid of our burdensome plastic debt.

The doll did not survive to see with its second eye. During a fit of compulsive cleaning, I'm told, the doll was accidentally swept from its perch only to shatter in an impact that overwhelmed its resilient nature. The body was disposed of before an autopsy could be performed.

If that doll were here to speak for itself, it would be telling its story while I was holding a Sharpie to its second eye -- as of today.