The Toy Room

The Toy Room is a bit like a museum or a crypt. All the toys are broken: some because they no longer work properly, and some because they are no longer loved; a toy needs love to be a toy. Toys do not have hearts to be broken, so the whole toy breaks.

The Toy Room has a curator, a kind of historian who can tell you the history of every one of those charges, when they were created and their exploits for toys, as toys, can go anywhere our imaginations choose to take them and do wondrous things. That is how toys live.

The Curator is old, but is not aged because the Curator cannot age. The Curator is not human or strictly 'live', in the animal sense. The Curator is 'live' in the sense that The Curator has active purpose and autonomy. The Curator is not human and is neither male nor female but it is not permitted to refer to The Curator as 'it' for this would be disrespectful, so The Curator is always referred to as 'The Curator' by curious convention.

The Curator has knowledge which is continually being added to, but no wisdom or imagination. Imagination would either be wasted in the sterile environment of The Toy Room or provoke unimaginable despair - The Curator is unprepared to handle emotion. A broken toy is a bit like a broken dream, except that the dream has not broken but has simply flown away leaving an empty shell.

There is one toy in The Toy Room that is not broken. There are two reasons for this: firstly, because it broke all the other toys and, secondly, because IT IS NOT A TOY!

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