The Doll
Flash-fiction - by Christina Sng
The doll looked uncannily like me from the way its hair was parted to the small smile stitched onto its face.
Lila found it in her toybox right under Teddy and Raggedy Ann when we decided to give all her toys a spin in the washing machine.
I took it into the living room where sunlight bathed us all in warmth and brightness.
By the window, I studied it. The resemblance was unnerving, right down to the black sweater and blue jeans I always wore.
The only difference was where its heart would’ve been, there were many tiny holes as if someone had stabbed it repeatedly.
"It is a voodoo doll!” Lila exclaimed, making me jump by appearing suddenly beside me. “That explains those stabby pains you’ve been having, Mom!”
I almost dropped the doll but quickly thought of the implications of that if it truly was a voodoo doll.
Gently, I placed it on the couch, thinking there was only one person in the world who wanted me dead.
But to leave this in his daughter’s toy box? I shook my head.
I would not put it past him. After all, I survived his strangulations and beatings. Why not throw in a voodoo doll too?
The only time he could have done this was before we chased him out months ago, hoping I’d die and he’d get Lila and the house.
But I didn’t. I survived. My heart was stronger than he could ever imagine. I survived him.
Lila hugged me tightly. I told her not to worry, I had a solution.
The stabbing pains returned sporadically. Sometimes intense, sometimes half-hearted as if he were fed up why I was still alive.
I kept the doll with me at all times, kept her safe and loved, whispered to her how strong she was and how loved she was. How she could defend herself against monsters like him.
It came to me one night when I woke up gasping for breath. The pain in my heart was excruciating. I picked up the doll. There was a gaping hole where the tiny pinpricks were.
I grabbed my sewing scissors on my desk and placed it in her hand. Holding her, we stabbed the air all around her, over and over until the pain in my chest ebbed and subsided, and I could breathe again.
With a needle and thread from my sewing kit, I patched up the hole in her chest.
As I tied the final knot, the phone rang. It was the police. “I am so sorry to inform you…”
I nodded and exhaled.
The next day, the police let us into his apartment. An identical doll was strewn on the floor beside the taped shape of where he lay dead just hours ago.
I silently picked her up and placed her in my bag.
Taking her home, I washed her gently and sewed up the hole in her heart.
Both dolls now sit on a chair beside my bed, safe and at peace.
Looking at them, I feel my heart heal, sing, and soar.