It has been many many years since that seemingly unreal journey to the north pole. Chris was well grown and had a young child of his own. She was a lovely little doll, with curly little brown hair with greem eyes like pine trees and a small little button nose. He would ring the bell for his little doll and smile at her gleeful smiles and laughs that filled the room at hearing the sound.
Chris loved her greatly, and he raised her to believe in many things like the Easter Bunny Tooth Fairy and Santa. He was very happy to say he raised her well. He had gotten a nice job at a Law firm and has become kind of a big shot there. He always had plenty of money for whatever doll his little doll needed. But he always made sure to leave some things unbought until Christmas, always added to them were small gifts from Santa. One time there was a photo of him and his family at the zoo.
Another was a pair of skates, she was so excited and thanked him so many times, but he told her "Those are from Santa honey. He still gives you things too for being such a good girl."
She then wrote a thank you note to Santa, Chris had read it. It had the cute little backwards letters that all 7 year olds write with. It had been four years since then. She's turning eleven next week.
He couldn't help but think of how he was her age when he saw the polar express. How he rode on it and became a believer from first hand experience. He ACTUALLY met the big man himself.
He still believed, he knew he did because of the high metallic ringing that echoed around the loft. She was shaking it so hard that it was making his eyes shake in his head.
He had just come back from a 10 hour day and he needed some rest so he walked to her room.
"Honey, can you please not shake the bell so hard? Daddy needs to sleep, he's had a long day at work." He spoke softly as he leaned on her doorframe.
She looked up in confusion. "But Daddy, the bell's broken… it stopped making its noise."
"What? No, listen" he crouched next to her and softly took the bell from her fingers and shook it gingerly. " Do you hear it? It sounds like Angels Singing, my friend once said." He looked at her with a soft reminiscent smile, which fell at her frown.
"Daddy, there's no sound…"