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The Toy Soldier was made of gears and wood, not flesh and blood. It was not real. It could never be real, not if it had any say in the matter. The widow had said that the toy was real, that it had once been a real man with a real heart. The toy knew that was a lie, for if it ever was a man, why would she treat it like a toy? She moved it around like a marionette, teaching it how to walk, how to talk, and how to hold tea. She moved its cup to its wooden lips and its hands to her hips.
“Dance with me,” she said.
The toy obeyed.
“Kiss me,” she said.
The toy obeyed.
There was nothing else to be done, was there? For in all the days it could recall, it had been the widow's toy soldier and the widow had been its commander.
“I love you,” the toy said, just as it had been ordered.
The widow smiled and brushed the toy's hair from its face. “I love you too.”
The Toy Soldier's eyes were unblinking, but if it could, it would cry.
The widow promised that she would make a proper British soldier out of the toy. Soldiers fought for queen and country, and so the Toy Soldier would lay down its life for her. It would stay by her side until death did they part. Soldiers marched into battles in spite of fear, so the Toy Soldier would too be unflinching. It would not flinch at her touch or cry with tearless eyes when she played games with its metal heart. With every loveless “I love you,” the Toy Soldier knew less and less what love meant, but ever-dutiful, it would say it back.
The widow taught the Toy Soldier to obey every order it was given to the letter. She taught it with smiles, with words, and with the turning of gears to better serve her whims. It did not flinch. Flinching is a consequence of having muscles that twitch and a mind with the instinct to say “run”. If the Toy Soldier was ever wound tight, it was by the widow’s key. But even a heart of metal could not withstand the pressure the widow put upon it.
Slowly, carefully, the Toy Soldier taught itself to act without orders. Though it was still bound to obey, it took solace in this small freedom. It walked about the manor house, then the grounds, then the gardens, building up the courage to venture further still. When it went into town, the Toy Soldier kept its hair coiled tightly beneath its cap. The auburn strands were not its own, but had been taken from the braid of a dead man. Yet even with that glimpse of humanity hidden, the stares did not cease.
"What a wretched memento mori," the people would whisper, "What a ghastly thing."
The townsfolk had gossiped to one another, speaking of scandal and something indistinguishable from science. Eventually they even brought the matter to the town's vicar, who confessed that there was nothing he could do. He could not reason with the widow and the enormity of her grief. So he returned to normal duties of priests, writing sermons, blessings, and burials, pointedly ignoring the animated clockwork figurine which lived on the hill opposite his own.
Unfortunately for the vicar, the Toy Soldier was marching his way. It went down the hill from the mansion's gardens, through the town and past the gawking people, and right up to the door of the vicarage. It knocked, wood on wood, and waited for an answer. After a few moments, the little door creaked open.
“Hello?” the vicar said, not sure what else to say to a life-sized toy soldier.
The Toy Soldier saluted stiffly. “Hello, old chap!”
The vicar stared up at it, eyes wide. “Er, hello,” he repeated. “May I help you?”
“Yes!” said the Toy Soldier, its voice giddy and bright. “I've come to ask you if I have a soul! I think you would know. I’ve heard you know a lot of things.”
The vicar opened the door a little wider. “Come inside. I'll see what I can do for you.”
The vicar sat in the small foyer and offered the Toy Soldier a seat. He would have offered tea, if his guest had not been made of wood.
“So, you want to know if you have a soul.”
“Yes sir!”
“Why is that?”
“I would like to know if I am real! I have heard that real people have souls.”
“Who told you that?”
“No one! Hardly anyone speaks to me, but I listen anyway.”
The vicar looked into the Toy Soldier's glass eyes. It did not blink, but it looked away briefly.
“Do you want to be real?” the vicar asked.
“...I don't know,” it confessed. “But everyone seems to want me to be.”
“I understand.”
The vicar, unlike most in the town, knew who the toy soldier was supposed to be. He had buried the widow's husband when he was old and studied with him when he was young. The toy soldier looked nothing like the late general once had. The toy, however, was the spitting image of the young lieutenant who had served under him. The toy soldier was the man the widow once wished to marry, a bright-eyed boy who had died in the revolution many, many years ago. Or at least it was the echo of that man.
The Toy Soldier tapped its foot impatiently. The vicar had been quiet for some time, lost in thought no doubt.
“Do I have a soul, sir?” it asked again.
“I cannot say.”
The Toy Soldier stood. “Utter tosh!” it snapped. “Of course you can say! Do I or don't I?”
“I don't know,” said the vicar calmly, “because I am not God.”
“I don't know who or what a god is, I just want to know if I'm real! I just want to know if I'm a toy, a soldier, or something else!”
The vicar laughed softly to himself and shook his head. “Only you can decide what you are. So, since you are clearly not concerned with matters of religion, I will ask you: Are you real?”
The Toy Soldier thought. It thought about its maybe-life and probably-not-love and the way that it marched to every tune it heard.
“No,” it said. “I couldn't bear it if I was.”
“Emotionally?” the vicar asked, raising a brow.
“Emotionally.”
“Emotions are generally considered a consequence of being real.”
The Toy Soldier fixed its jaw into an approximation of a scowl. “But I'm not.”
“Well, if you insist,” said the vicar. “But I encourage you to consider that in the future.”
“I won't,” it lied.
The Toy Soldier did see the vicar for many years after that. It wandered the mansion, the gardens, and even the town when it grew bored enough not to care for the scolding it would get. Never again did it walk up the hill to the vicarage. When the widow died, she was buried in the old churchyard beside a man she never loved. Not a single soul stood in attendance, unless one counted the Toy Soldier and the vicar who spoke the words a vicar was meant to speak. When he was done, he turned to the Toy Soldier.
“Will you miss her?”
“She will be missing.”
“But will you miss her?”
“No.”
The vicar looked down at the grave and watched as it was filled with dark earth. He didn’t know what to expect from a wooden man, but he supposed it made sense. That was, until something occurred to him.
“Did she ever give you a name?”
“Not one that was mine.”
“I’m so sorry. I should have known. I should have listened. I should have done something.”
“You listened and you did nothing,” the Toy Soldier said stiffly. “And now she is dead and I will take my leave.”
“Where will you go?”
The Toy Soldier sighed wearily, its old bellows hissing softly. “Wherever I am ordered to.”