Mr. White came into Davy’s room yawning and nursing a steaming styrofoam cup in the hand that didn’t hold his clipboard.
“Morning, Mr. White,” Davy said, not looking up from his coloring book. They’d awoken Davy an hour earlier and given him mild stimulants, and it was still black outside through the windows at the end of the room. He’d had his breakfast at the big table, and the nurse had left him there to color while he waited for Mr. White.
“Morning Davy. Sorry we had to be so early — time zone differences.”
“Yes.”
Mr. White put his clipboard down and slurped from his cup. He looked at Davy. He looked around the room — a colorful collage, the universe of an eight-year-old boy done up in constellations of dinosaurs and soccer balls and rugged toys of all kinds. Mr. White smiled at a radio-operated big-wheeled monster truck, and plinked its whiplash aerial idly with a finger. “Some new toys here, Davy.”
“Yes.”
Mr. Dance came in then, nursing a white cup in the hand that didn’t hold his big, brown envelope. He had dark circles under his eyes, and brought the smell of cigarettes and burnt coffee with him into the child’s room. “Tina says it’s a go,” he said.
“How is she?” White.
“Irritable; vast; difficult. And infallible. We go in twenty, better hurry.” Dance.
Davy looked at the adults, wrinkling his nose. He knew Tina well, but had only met her once. She lived upstairs and when he was taken to her room he had stood as far away from her wheelchair as he could. She was one of those people that said they loved children, and you wondered if she meant to eat. She could see better than anyone in the world, though, and Davy knew it.
“Are we getting the toy box out?” said Davy, a kernel of excitement stirring in his torso.
Mr. Dance said, “Damn straight,” and Mr. White said, “Yes, Davy. Patience.”
Nurses arrived, wheeling in equipment on carts. They checked and prodded Davy, doing the squeeze-cuff thing, the light in the eyes thing, the “say ahhh, Davy” thing. Ears, eyes, nose, mouth. Davy squirmed, thinking all the while about his toy box. “Quickly, please,” Dance said through his teeth a couple of times.
At last they brought it and sat it at the end of the big table. Big as Davy, steel all over, cold as window glass at night. The toy box. Mr. White typed the code on the lock and it clacked open.
“Army men?”
Mr. White sighed. “Not this time, Davy. Sit tight please.”
Mr. Dance emptied his envelope and mumbled over his maps. Davy had seen them before, and they never looked like the sort of maps in books. Mr. Dance said they were pictures taken from cameras in space. Davy colored a while, while the nurses hooked up his looker. He squirmed some more, wanting the toys in the box.
“Ow,” he said as the nurse adjusted the looker over his head, tugging his hair. “Can’t I play without the looker, Mr. White?”
But Mr. White ignored him, as he always did. He and Mr. Dance were setting up the table for playtime. It didn’t look real great so far. Sometimes they pulled out the best army men, and arranged them all over, and let Davy smash them with a hammer or burn them or cut them with nippers. And tanks and trucks and planes and tank-things called APCs. And buildings and bridges and, one time, a big boat. Davy liked the boat, they had played with it in the bathtub and he’d sunk it.
This time though, it was just one guy. A little plastic guy in a suit like Mr. White and Mr. Dance wore beneath their white coats. The little guy was in a building, with a lot of other buildings around it. Mr. Dance was very fussy about how everything was set up — that much was always the same.
“Okay, Davy. You know what to do. Make sure you wait for Tina to guide you to the target — the, uh, the guy – before you do anything.” Mr. Dance said, checking his watch. “And hurry a bit, kid.” He put a pair of pliers on the table next to Davy.
Davy looked from Dance to White. “Just one guy, Mr. White?”
“Yes, Davy.” A note of impatience had crept into Mr. White’s voice. “Just one. You know what to do.”
“Jeez, Mr. White, can’t we do some trucks and stuff, too?”
“No!” Mr. White said. “Davy, I’m not going to tell you again. Eliminate the target.”
Davy didn’t like that. He thought of all those army men and tanks and things, thought of smashing them. Thought of how good that felt with Tina there. Not like anything in the room, his other toys and things. The looker, the toy box — those made really real feelings.
Tina was there now, in his head like a piece of hair tickling him behind the eyes, wanting to take him halfway around the world. He went. He could see the building and the room. It was daytime. A man in a pale suit sat and read a newspaper in words that were all squiggles and dots. He was the plastic man.
“Come on please, Davy. The target.” White.
“We’re down to three minutes.” Dance.
“How should I do it?” Davy said.
“Davy! Just kill him, use the pliers, pull him apart, it doesn’t matter.” Mr. White said, very angry now. Davy didn’t like at all what he was feeling from Mr. White.
He reached his child-small hand through the window and picked up the plastic guy. He looked hard at Mr. White. Davy was completely in the moment, hardly noticing Tina’s protest somewhere in the back of his mind, when he put the plastic guy in his mouth.
Davy bit down.
They never did find Mr. White’s head.
Bill Ward is a freelance writer out of Baltimore, Maryland. He has sold fiction to Murky Depths, Darwin’s Evolutions, Kaleidotrope and the anthologies Northern Haunts, Return of the Sword, Dead Souls, and Desolate Places. In addition Bill has written background material and serial fiction for fantasy and science fiction games, has done editing for small press ventures, and is co-editor of the Magic & Mechanica Anthology from Ricasso Press. To read his fiction or check out his weekly book reviews please visit www.billwardwriter.com.
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31 Responses to “DAVY’S TOY BOX • by Bill Ward”
Comments
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February 6th, 2009 at 12:53 am
Can you count to five, Boys and Girls? I knew you could!
Good story, Bill. I hope no one reads it at the breakfast table.
February 6th, 2009 at 2:25 am
5: a certain scott card novel taken to the next level. nasty thing that, if other countries got ahold of the same. telekinesis wars. strange assassinations. rogue agents, schisms. the power balance in shards,the human race finding itself on the verge of extinction by sheer xenogenesis. there’s a comic book right there
February 6th, 2009 at 3:25 am
[...] it already, it won’t hurt you. I swear it won’t.The first thing I have for you today is my story Davy’s Toy Box, which is Every Day Fiction’s story of the day. You should read it, for not only is it [...]
February 6th, 2009 at 3:26 am
Ender’s Game meets Necroscope, while sufficiently novel to stand on its own. Nice.
February 6th, 2009 at 3:30 am
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February 6th, 2009 at 3:50 am
Excellent story! Five from me.
February 6th, 2009 at 4:25 am
Yikes! What a horrible end! five from me!
February 6th, 2009 at 4:26 am
I just got that feeling somebody would get it in the end
Nice one.
February 6th, 2009 at 4:32 am
Agree with the others, a little derivative of Ender’s Game but with enough of a twist to make it your own. A few quibbles (there’s that word again) with mechanics, but overall really, really nice.
And the last sentence? Absolutely perfect!
February 6th, 2009 at 5:14 am
Blimey. What a corker! Gave it 5.
February 6th, 2009 at 5:49 am
I think we can forgive the one or two typos.
It’s five from me.
February 6th, 2009 at 6:30 am
I didn’t understand the story at all; nor the use of the words “Dance” and “White” following a line. What were the mechanics of White’s head becoming the target? Does anyone have an explanation for me?
February 6th, 2009 at 6:41 am
That was totally awesome! Definitly worthy of a five.
February 6th, 2009 at 7:08 am
Nice take on telekinesis, familiar situation, well-plotted. But why does it always have to be an innocent kid who has the power?
February 6th, 2009 at 7:51 am
Loved the ending,Bill and a strong voice thoughout.
February 6th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Telekinesis is not the hard part. It’s the rest of the story I don’t understand. Why does the child blame Mr. White more than Mr. Dance?
February 6th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Nice one, Bill. I’ve often felt the target of a cadre of psychic soldiers. The bastards. Good to know it’s just a stupid kid.
Great story.
February 6th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Thanks for the comments everybody, always appreciated.
Hi Roberta, I must not have constructed things quite as well as I thought. Davy’s ire at White as opposed to Dance basically boils down to how they treat him, which I hinted a bit at with dialog, but also what he senses from each of them (which is only in one line, I believe). In retrospect, I would have made White a bit more nasty, closer to the beginning of the piece.
‘Dance’ and ‘White’ were used without dialogue tags at a point when I wanted maximum concision, and I thought the reader could follow what I was doing. White’s head became a target because an irate Davy focused on him rather than his distant target (‘the guy’), breaking away from Tina’s guidance to do so.
Again, thanks for all the comments, I always get great feedback here, and criticism is more than welcome.
February 6th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Reminded me of the Twilight Zone eppie where the boy could wish people into a cornfield. Chilling and well written.
February 6th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Great voice and flow–as usual from Bill.
I think making White a bit more nasty might have been better as well. But I did catch that Dance was more sympathetic to Davy. It speaks alot as well to the desensitivation from video gaming–how easily Davy could switch ‘targets’–since it was only a game.
–dj
February 6th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Fantastic final line, really pushed the story over to great for me. I was thinking the same thing as dj regarding video games and desensitization, how this is sort of a ‘next step’ in that department. Well crafted and well told, very enjoyable.
February 6th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
I agree with the “Ender’s Game” observation, but it’s a solid effort, Bill.
I would have liked to see a little more pettiness/hostility from Mr. White to truly get the picture that the boy had snapped. If you don’t hit that hard enough, you run the risk of readers concluding he’s just a little monster.
… And don’t have both adults “nursing” their coffee. Sounds not only redundant, but kinky.
Good job and good pacing!
February 6th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Very nice. Definitely Ender’s Game taken to the next level.
I understand the desire for concision; however, I don’t think it works in the shortened dialogue tags. The story is from the perspective of a little boy. Would he really think of them so starkly as “White” and “Dance”? Everywhere else he uses “Mr.”
February 7th, 2009 at 5:33 am
Bill Ward and others:
Thanks for answering, though I’m still a bit cloudy on this story. Maybe my knowledge and experiences don’t correspond with the story as might those of other readers.
February 7th, 2009 at 5:37 am
Kevin Shamel -
I would rather the intelligent focused on choice of target.
February 7th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
I LIKE this one. It flowed well for me,and though I knew too far in advance what would happen, it was a satisfying ending.
February 8th, 2009 at 7:16 am
Well written story. My favorite line was, “She was one of those people that said they loved children, and you wondered if she meant to eat.” Poor Davy!
The shortened dialog tags didn’t bother me. I did wonder for sure about the target swap at the end, but your explanation above was what I assumed happened, so yay, I got it.
February 8th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Good stuff, Bill.
That Davy would target White rather than Dance made sense to me.
The use of “White” and “Dance” by themselves in the dialogue, rather than, for example, “said White” was a bit of a distraction for me, and I think the attempt at conciseness was lost because it makes the reader pause.
Very effective descriptions of the “world” through the child’s eyes.
The best thing about this story is, from line to line, I was wondering, “Oh man, what’s going to happen?”
February 8th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Thanks for you comments, guys and gals — much appreciated.
February 11th, 2009 at 8:11 am
A bit derivative? Yes. But that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable. And with an ending like that it’s quite satisfying.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
[...] it already, it won't hurt you. I swear it won't.Shameless brag time — two of my stories, Davy’s Toy Box and The Goon Eternal, have been selected by the brilliant and discerning connoisseurs of all things [...]