Dolls

By G.D. Howard

They were there. Their blank, vacant eyes staring at nothing and yet at everything. Inescapable, unmoving eyes that followed one across the room and even out the door. It was beyond the closed door that their muted laughter seemed to echo and mock him as he tried desperately to evade them and their dozens of staring, prying eyes.

They maddened him. They taunted him. Invaded his thoughts and dreams even though they were only dolls. Beautiful, still, little dolls that he was not allowed to touch. He wanted very much to touch their cool, porcelain faces, to feel the silks, satins and laces of their pretty dresses. Perhaps, if he could just touch them and satisfy his curiosity then and only then would he be free of their terrible mocking stares and their haunting, evil laughter. Laughter that echoed through his dreams at night when everyone else in the house was asleep. When they could agonize him freely. Not even Mother believed her precious dolls were capable of anything more than sitting nicely on a shelf in her room.

But, he knew the truth. He knew at night they came alive and wandered the halls of the house. He could heard them as they scurried along the hard wood floors.

There were so many of them. Southern belles, happy faced clowns, sad clowns, little babies, elegant ladies complete with hand bags and parasols. So very many of them and not one that he could touch. If he could only prove to himself that they were in fact as lifeless and harnessless as the dolls Sister played with.

She was brutal to her dolls, leaving them out in the night air, lying on the bench in the garden or soaking in the fountain. One was even hanging from a tree beneath his window, still Sister was allowed to hold them, comb their silky hair, change their frilly clothes. She even had one of them sitting on her dresser, staring at him there in her room full of soft stuffed bears and grinning animals.

They were staring at him as well. Mocking him with their glassy eyes just as the dolls did. The dolls in mother’s room that she was so proud of and refused to let him examine. He was scolded for even being there with them, trying to figure out just why they laughed at him so.

At times he wanted very badly to smash everyone just to rid himself of those haunting eyes. Every doll and toy bear with those gawking eyes.

“These dolls are not the sort you play with,” his mother told him, in a kind, but reproachful tone, “They are collectable dolls, to be admired and treasured. Of course, boys aren’t to play with dolls anyhow.”

She would pat him on his head and offer him a wooden train or little car to play with out in the garden. She, too, was mocking him. He tried to explain to her how they bothered him. How they crept around the house late at night once everyone had gone to bed, but she just smiled kindly at him and told him it was all a bad dream, a terrible nightmare. He felt his anger rise and could not stop thinking of the pretty little dolls. He wanted very much to hold them, to feel the weight of them in his small hands. He, also, wanted them to be gone. Destroyed, their vacant eyes forever closed, never to stare at him again. Horrible torturing idols.

In his bed, he even thought of them. Especially in his lonely room. He could feel them moving around in the shadows of the darkness. He could almost hear their mischievous giggles in the silence of the night. They were teasing him. They wanted to play with him the same as he wanted to play with them. Those curious dolls!

Each night it was the same. He could here his parents talking down the stairs after he and Sister had been tucked into their beds. Then one by one Mother would set about putting out the lights down stairs, her room door would close softly, soon Father would begin to snore and then those dolls would begin to creep about the shadows of the house.

They knew he could hear them. They wanted him to hear their little feet rushing about in such splendid forbidden excitement. If he ventured from his bed Mother would catch him, scold him and sent him right back to bed, but not her cherished dolls. They ran about the house until the first light of morning sent them clamoring back to where ever they had been the day before. She never even noticed that they had moved from their places.

He felt an anger growing inside of him. He hated the dolls for their freedom, for the way Mother loved them so. He wished he could smash them all before they began their nightly escapade.

The creak of the floor board just outside his door gave them away. Once and for all, he would have the best of them! Small and quiet he crept from his bed, feeling in the dark for the baseball bat he kept behind the door with his tattered old mitt. Ever so softly, he turned the door knob to free the latch. The next time they dashed down the hall he would he ready. One good swing would send which ever one it was tumbling down the steep stairs to its ultimate destruction.

Horrible, taunting dolls!

His anger rose and seethed, slender, nimble fingers tightened around the smooth wood of his trusty bat.

Tonight, he could show them. Tonight, they would forever leave him alone. Surely, they would understand he would no longer take their abuse if he could just obliterate one of the mocking horde. He was almost sure it was the happy faced clown with the shiny white jump suit and the bright red tassels, the one with the blue tear drop below his eye. His mother had explained this single tear was to remind everyone to smile through the pain. Tonight, the clown would smile no more, lying in a broken heap at the bottom of the staircase! Tonight, he would end his pain forever!

He heard the rustle of the puffy little suit, the light footfalls on the polished wooden floor. He was ready.

In one quick motion, he flung open the door and swung with all his ten year-old might. His eyes were tightly closed but he felt the bat sink into the softness and heard the gasp then the clatter down the stairs.

Finally! He ran quickly to admire his work. Now, Mother would not be able to deny him when he told her how those dolls mocked and tortured him. Never again could she pat him on his head and tell him it was just a bad dream when he ran into her explaining how they were dancing about his room while he tried to sleep. No more would she tell him how it was all his imagination because, after all they are only dolls.

Now Mother would have to listen when he showed her how he had faced his fear and knocked one down the stairs. Surely, that would prove to her how they ran about the house at night, but no, it was not the frilly, contemptuous clown lying motionless at the foot of the stairs. It was Mother herself looking up at him with those same still vacant doll eyes.

He cried out, stirring the whole house to come running and see just what had been done. Now they would all know. Now, since the dolls had Mother, too.