The abandoned doll of a long-forgotten witch lays on her back, in exactly the same position as she landed when she was tossed here. She doesn’t know where “here” is. She couldn’t say how long it’s been. But she hasn’t seen or heard anyone in a long, long time.
She only opens her eyes at night now. The stars are her friends. She names them, tells them stories, converses with them, and imagines what they might say to her. They remain silent and respond only in their delicate starlight-sparkling way, of course.
She wishes there were some way to interact with her only friends. Any way at all to play with them. It’s hard carrying both sides of a conversation for an era or more. She asks her friends, but she cannot imagine an answer. A new restlessness slowly grows within her.
Eventually, by sheer force of longing, she finds herself able to move an arm again. The doll passes her hand over her field of view. She can block stars in the silhouette of her arm, opening up new games of hide and seek to her and her friends.
She wonders if she can just reach out and… Her finger points toward the sky, covering a lone star. A tiny push, as hard as she can muster, and when her hand withdraws, the light of that star is gone. Oh! This is new! Such fun new things after so much monotony!
One after another she snuffs out a handful more lights in the sky. It’s the first time her friends ever reacted to something she did, and she giggles in pleasure at the sheer novelty. She asks herself where they went, and she has no answers. What a strange mystery!
This excitement fuels the stories she tells in the coming nights. Dramatic moments feel all the more thrilling when accompanied by the extinguishing of a star! She makes up arguments to have with her friends and “punishes” them by eliminating them. One by one the stars go out.
Eventually she snuffs out her last remaining friend, and she realizes her mistake at last. With no one left to speak to, no one left to speak for, she feels lonelier than ever. The doll with hands covered in starlight dust falls silent, limp, staring into an empty field of black.