that nutcracker under my bed.

My little wooden toy soldier disappeared from beneath my bed last night.

"He's probably toiling at the palace of the Mouse King," the General said.

So I wailed into the tiny door at the feet of the grandfather's clock, "Nutcracker, Nutcracker it's time to come home !" But the Mouse King said he hadn't seen him.

"No, no, he's probably in search for the Crackatook in the far distant land of Eden," the Captain said.

And so I wailed into a lake filled with the vast imagination of three year old children, "Nutcracker, Nutcracker it's time to come home !" But an Adam told me that he hadn't seen him.

Then suddenly my mind spoke to me, "He has gone."

Gone far, far away to the Doll Kingdom, where he dances with his newfound bride after a lengthy one year and one day frozen in time in that dark, empty place beneath my bed.