edited 1/7/12

Porcelain

...

Hello, and welcome to the pokemon center.

We restore your tired pokemon to full health.

Would you like to rest your pokemon?

Nurse Joy is not Nurse Joy. Yes, she is a puppet of joy, a marionette decked in bubble gum pink hair, clean hat perched atop. Pleasant as bliss, she skates downstairs everyday, to handle those oh-so-perfect trainers and their oh-so-perfect pets.

And she smiles not so big or too small, handles the pokeballs like glass.

OK, I'll take your pokemon for a few seconds.

It takes all her willpower not to slip that legendary beast or that beautiful poison cloud or that fickle skuntank - it hurts to look at it - into her pocket. She has plenty of chances. Those trainers hand her their trophies, waltz off to watch some championship battle on television.

With every skuntank or shield that passes under her palms, she struggles to not cry for hours on end.

Somehow, she never, ever does though, even if that certain one could've been hers.

Thank you for waiting.

In those days, she patiently crouched at the end of any route. Every third eager kid that ran by, hollering for their next gym badge, was ambushed. She pockets their trophies as they cry uncontrollably, the wimps.

The Boss never failed to congratulate her; the grunts stiffened their backs to attention whenever she walked by.

Ah, past tense.

We've restored your pokemon to full health.
Please, come back any time!

Words tumble out of her mouth, with the head nurse her puppeteer, the strings connecting them taut and frayed.

"You've changed," the head nurse tells her, "and your name isn't a planet anymore."

She isn't so sure, but glancing into the glossed metal of a machine makes her doubts go away, if only for a moment.

Sweet violet to bubblegum pink, pretty and unfeeling (like porcelain.)