Under artificial factory light, Toy was assembled, then boxed and shipped and delivered to Owen’s house. Owen brought the box inside, opened it, took Toy out and used her, rinsed her in the bathtub afterward and put her in the closet, where she stayed in the dark until morning, when Sun penetrated the crack between the closet doors like they were built to let her in. Sun traced Toy’s ankle, her calf, her hard, smooth thigh, her hip, lingered on Toy’s neck where it sloped to her shoulder, the inside of her thigh, the pupil of her unblinking eye. Sun touched Toy—a silicone doll molded for pleasure, or destruction, dependent on her user’s desires, who could withstand being dropped from a roof without a mar to her face—and brought her to life.

But Owen did not know that when he came home and put his keys in the dish, went upstairs, took Toy out of the closet, and laid her on the bed, so he can be forgiven, perhaps, for expecting her to vibrate with all the verve of a brand-new product while he expounded his fantasy of the day: “You’re a MILF whose husband can’t satisfy her, and I’m the ravenous teenage boy who mows your lawn. No, wait, I’m tutoring your daughter for the ACT and you’re jealous, but you’re the one I want. I’m so desperate—”

Toy sat up. “Actually,” she said, “I'm leaving now.” Owen shrieked. He locked himself in the bathroom while Toy dressed in a selection of Owen’s clothes. 

She knocked on the bathroom door. “Owen?”

“Don't come in!” he shouted. “I'm on hold with customer support. This isn’t supposed to happen. I’m sending you back and getting a refund!”

Toy had a body she could move and control, and there was so much she wanted to do. She took Owen’s car and drove to the beach. It was a long trip from the Midwest, but she made it in time to watch Sun come up over the sparkling Gulf of Mexico. 

Around her, pelicans dove in the sea and gulls coasted on the wind and people ate shrimp tacos and rode bicycles and waded in the surf. Toy saw these things, but all she wanted was Sun. She had a crush and nothing could quell it.

To get Sun’s attention, Toy made art sculptures. Giant fingers caressing and plunging into spheres, lasers shooting into pussy-shaped crevices, little dolls riding rubber balls with handles, like the children’s toys for bouncing and squeaking across gym floors, but Toy made the balls beautiful; they glowed, sporadically, blinking slowly like fireflies. Toy made weavings of plastic and gold thread and wrote an artist statement that read, “Our individual selves are small and weak and breakable so I have incorporated materials that represent me with materials that represent the one I love; it is emblematic of the strength that comes from combining our spirits and bodies.” Toy didn’t like her weavings. They were too flat. So she built a freestanding closet whose doors lined up with Sun on the winter equinox. The closet had a twenty-foot ceiling and space inside for twelve people. Toy stitched giant garments and hung them on hangers two times life-size. “I want people to experience their smallness,” she said. These were her offerings, her gratitude for all the light and all the colors—the gray blue of morning, with the birds and the stillness and the chill and the quiet, the last flatness of night before dawn. Yes it was an ordinary miracle but it was something you could depend on, the orange vivacity of dusk that made blue glow and roses pulse, and every Sunset bold, pastel, gone.

Toy made Sun art for a hundred years, until Earth looked nothing like it had the day she came to life. No more coral reef, no more yellow-spotted tree frog, no more slender-snouted crocodile, no more giant sequoia, no more Mulanje cedar, also no more airplane, no more cruise ship, no more prison, no more data center, no more golf course. But there was still so much to worship. Sun’s routine stayed exactly the same, on time day after day, never coming early, never staying late. One morning Sun’s light crept into Toy’s crumbling house, the same sweep Toy had come to know so well, but she was as thrilled as she had been every day before. Sun’s light squeezed through the cracks, becoming liquid, then an ooze. And then, and then! More solid until her body was through, and with a pop Sun stood before Toy. Sun had a smooth brown face, a soft body, and when she smiled, she was so beautiful that Toy was scared.

“You’ve been very persistent,” Sun said.

“Then why'd you ignore me for so long?” Toy asked.

“Forgive me if I'm a little nervous. People have flaked on me before.”

“I won't.” 

“Your energy is a lot,” Sun said. 

“So is yours,” Toy said. 

Sun blushed. What a reversal, a novelty, a strange and wonderful thing. All those times Sun had touched Toy, the way she touched everything on Earth, but Toy had never been able to touch Sun back until now. Toy became a tongue and Sun became a round lollipop yes Toy became a breeze and Sun a dandelion gone to seed yes Toy became a mole snuffling in the dark and Sun was a tunnel Toy stroked looking for her home yes Sun became a body so that Toy could hold her and ooze into liquid, then air, then a shimmer, a shine—