Dolls Are Toys

Preface

Yard sales often host women who need to get away from a drunken spouse and grandparents looking for gifts for the holidays. And sometimes, sadness. A reeking, blatant, and thick melancholy quilt which tucks in those unfortunate enough to be experienced with it.

Dolls Are Toys

A breeze flows past and graces me with the first sensation of touch since my breakup with Allie months ago. Softly swaying from a rack is a pair of baby shoes. Baby shoes never used… $7 is poorly painted on an old board next to them, a dreadful reminder of events now past. I glance at the middle-aged man who’s in the yard I’m standing in with five other people and then understand.

I’m not the only one who’s going through these hardships. He’s not exactly thriving, but he’s trying. That’s better than what I can say. My feet begin moving on their own, and the man gets closer. No, wait, I’m getting closer to him. I’m watching my life like a movie. Where’s the popcorn? No, no, I need to stop stress-eating.

“Hey.” Instantly I realize how confusing that could sound to the poor guy.

He breaks his glossy-eyed gaze, scratches his eyebrow above a glass eye, and turns to look at me the best he can. “Oh, hey, man.”

Shocked with a surprise from the glass eye, I hesitate, then I point to the baby shoes. “Did you, uh, did you…” I can’t ask that right out of the gates. I hardly know this guy.

“Did I what?” He wonders, obviously.

I clear my throat. “Did you… have a miscarriage?” My throat goes dry, and I can tell he didn’t understand me. Why is this so hard? Dumb question. I start again after he raises his eyebrows patiently. “Miscarriage?” My heart jumps to my throat. I realize how bad that sounded.

He chuckles. “No, no. Those shoes were mine when I was a little tyke.”

“O- oh.” I fluster. I turn around and walk away. How is it raining? I look up and wonder. No clouds, yet my face was soaked.

I unlock the door to my apartment, and grab the nearest item, and scream into it. I back out, hoping it was muffled by this… stuffed bear? What the hell? It doesn’t matter because it gets the job done. I continue screaming, yelling, crying, swearing for another twenty or so minutes. Covered, in snot, the bear’s face and mine, I take the bear outside with me. I throw it. I throw the damned bear as far as I can. It lands quietly in the parking lot and stops bouncing, landing in a puddle. I felt the same way. I was soaked, after all. A note is on my counter, and a soft chuckle escapes me.

Phil, I’m giving you back the baby supplies.

I mean, we both know I don’t need it.

After all, I will not go through that again.

It was Hell. For both of us.

I hope seeing all this crap doesn’t hurt you.

Though it probably will.

I still care about you, and I hope

you care about yourself too.

Sincerely,

Allie

I stare at the mound of baby supplies I was never gonna use, either. What a bitch. My eyes are bloodshot from crying, but of course, I would be right now. I stuff my head in a doll from the pile, wishing it would go away. The regret, the depression, the everything, but it won’t. I take my head out of the doll’s stomach. Dolls are toys, not tissues. I glance back at the pile and notice a particular toy that has netting. After a quick Google search and some scissor work, I hung it up. I was proud. For the first time in a long time, I had a genuine smile on my face. I made sure all my lights were off and all the doors and windows were locked shut. I stood up on the kitchen chair I had dragged over, and sighed, then laughed. I thought back.

I thought back to when times were better. When Allie and I lived here, together. When we were expecting a baby, not seven months of suspense, then many more of crying. Crying alone. I thought back to when we argued. When she was pregnant. When I hit lines of cocaine without her knowledge. Until she found out. I thought back to that night when I had been drinking, snorting lines growing in length, and staying quiet. She had come home from a bad day at work. No, maybe it was a bad trip with friends. It hurts to remember. Either way, she was mad. She opened our bedroom door, and her eyes laid on me.

I tried to explain, but she pressed her finger into my chest, screaming how cocaine was a terrible thing to use, and on top of it, how in two short months, there would be a newborn baby in this apartment. I wasn’t listening. I drank more from the bottle, but she knocked it out of my hand. So I punched her. Hard. As hard as I possibly could. Directly in the stomach. At first, we didn’t think anything of it, other than that I had never hit her before. She said she was leaving and that the baby would not grow up in this environment. She was right, somewhat. The baby wouldn’t grow up at all. I had just killed it.

I had made up my mind. I put the noose I had hastily made around my neck and kicked the chair out from under me. I immediately felt pain and pressure—what a horrible way to go. There’s not much I can do now. Damn you, Allie. You and your stupid dolls. Dolls are toys, not missionaries for depression and suicide, you sick woman. Then, the noose broke.

And so I plummeted in a slow and suspenseful limbo, vertigo overwhelming me. My feet touched the chair’s side, but they launched away a moment later, flipping my entire body. The force drove my head violently into my concrete entryway’s floor, and everything went black. I died smiling, like Mom always wanted.

Finally, peace.