The Wind-Up Doll

Sometimes things in the world surprise you. Sometimes things you think are empty aren't really that way.

In the countryside, past the hills but before you reach the woods, a wind-up doll lives in a ramshackle farmhouse. The farm disappeared long ago, long before she was born, but the house still stands. She lives her simple life there, if you can call it any sort of life.

In a smaller house out past the woods, a sickly gardener works in a lonely, empty place. The world is a hollow shell to her, a cruel and ugly thing. She becomes sick with her emptiness, but she refuses to acknowledge its cause.

After a chance meeting in the darkened woods brings them together, they both learn how to live.