The doll was crying again…

Every night around this time, Skye awoke to soft sobs.  Though she had never left her bed, she knew exactly what the poor thing looked like in the darkness of that far corner of the room.  From the corner where it had been thrown, dust tears trail down a painted face, a face that was still beautiful, despite the crack dividing it in two.  You could still tell what she once looked like.  A soft pink dress covered a tiny, cloth body.  Porcelain hands, feet and face were carefully painted so that the features were brought to life.  However, dirt and dust had collected on her over time.  

Now, colors that were once bright and rosy are dingy and sad.  None of her clothes were worn, just neglected so that they might as well have been rags instead of a beautiful dress.  It was a shame.  Someone had cared enough to make her and dress her, but not enough to make sure she was always taken care of and loved.

Skye herself was in much worse condition.  Ripped and dirty jeans covered her bruised knees.  Her hands were small and painful looking, chapped and bitten at the edges.  All up her arms were razorblade scars, some ancient and white, some fresh and angry red.  Only one, a deep gash on her inside wrist, was openly bleeding.  She usually wore long sleeves to cover these scars, like the large black sweatshirt she was wearing now.  Her hair had been cut into a very short, bright blue Mohawk and her face boasted 20 plus piercings.  Basically, she was a freak.  She’d been told this enough by the people outside.  Eventually she just couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t stand their voices calling her names.  Their eyes condemning her for being herself.  That’s why she’d spent the last 5 years here. All alone, except for the doll in the corner.  They were roommates who never talked.

Skye thought the doll was probably lonely, left there in the corner.  Broken and dirty, with no one to talk to but the dust bunnies and an occasional bug that got lost on it’s way home.  It must’ve hurt so much, being abandoned like that.  But then again that’s what people did.  They made you and then they left you all alone to take care of yourself, never wondering how you felt about the loss.

It was so cold.  Skye wrapped her arms around her knees, as if they could replace another’s arms, lost so long ago.  The continued crying only made her temperature drop until her heart felt as if it had frozen solid.  The walls of the room seemed to close in until it was just she and the doll, face to face.  But the doll has never seemed to realize that she existed.

Maybe it would help to talk to her.  She could help the doll realize it wasn’t alone, that everything wasn’t so black and still.  That there was still a hope to be fixed, made right and whole again.  She wanted to believe there was.  Skye had been thinking about it for too long.  Just how hopeless was it to continue to live.  Maybe the two of them could figure it out together.

Maybe she could even make the doll laugh...

Skye moved to the edge of the bed, so that the doll in the corner could see her.  Hopefully she would be a welcome intruder into the creature’s long solitude.

“Umm…hello?  Doll?” she ventured warily.

The sobs were sharply cut off.  Perhaps it had not seen her move to the edge of the bed and was startled by the sudden noise of another voice in what must have seemed to be an empty room.

“Are you okay?” she asked again, anxiously awaiting an answer.

“No…” a small voice replied from the shadows.  “I’m all alone.  And I’m scared.”

“You’re not alone.  You haven’t been for some time.” Skye leaned and opened the curtain so that the moonlight fell across her sitting there on the bed.  She hoped that being able to see her would put the doll at ease.  “I’ve been here all this while, listening to you, wanting to make you happy.  What’s your name?”

“It’s Amber,” she replied.  “But why do you care about who I am or what I feel?  No one else does.”

Skye could feel Amber’s bright blue glass eyes staring hard at her.  She almost forgot what was happening for an instant, forgot that she needed to reply to this dismal thing that’d been completely alone for so long.

“Because you’re beautiful,” Skye replied simply.

Amber’s head snapped back and her eyes widened as she looked at Skye.  She seemed startled by what just been said.  Had no one ever told her this before?  It was completely true.  Skye never told a lie, no matter how harsh the truth was.  But then the doll wouldn’t know that, would she.  They knew next to nothing about each other.

“I really mean it.  You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve seen for a long time.  Especially since you’re broken.  Perfection gives things an ugly, unnatural feeling, don’t you think?” Skye went on, hoping to get a response, hoping she hadn’t said the wrong thing, been too forward.

“But I’d rather be perfect…” Amber said softly, looking down at herself.  “No one wants me the way I am.”

“I do,” Skye said, looking down as she nervously played with her hands. “Though I can see why that wouldn’t be much of a comfort to you.” She continued, bitterly, angry tears starting to form in the corners of her eyes.

“But why?” Amber said. “Why do you care at all?  Why do I matter to you?”

“Because you remind me of myself,” Skye said somewhat sadly.

And it was true.  That was exactly what had drawn her to wonder about the specter that haunted the corner of her room.  The hope that there was someone like her, someone that felt the same crushing loneliness she did.  But unlike Skye, the doll could cry.  Skye hadn’t been able to do that for years now, ever since she first holed herself up in this place.

The room was quiet.  A silence pressed against them both.  Skye wanted desperately to know what Amber was thinking.  She wanted to know if there was the even the smallest chance of winning her over.  She began nervously playing with the ragged quilt she was sitting on, pulling at loose threads as if removing them was a matter of life or death.

Amber’s tiny voice broke the silence.  “I do?” she asked.  “Why?”
Skye didn’t like this.  She’d been trying for so long now to forget that even a simple request such as this cut her.  Why couldn’t the doll just accept this, accept that some one cared, and stop questioning it?  Why’d she have to be so difficult?

“You just do,” there was a cold edge to Skye’s reply.  She abruptly stopped her work on the quilt and clenched her hands into fists.  Her knuckles turned white as she dug her nails into her palms, hoping the pain would make the room disappear and the unwanted question go away.

Amber must have noticed how this was affecting Skye for she shifted in the direction of the bed, as if wanting to go to her.  “I’m sorry,” she apologetically.  “It’s just so hard for me to trust anymore.  Too many said the same things to me before I was broken, only to leave me as soon as they saw the real me.  It’s not just my outside that I’m ashamed of, but my insides too.  I’m useless.” Her last sentence was cut off by a sob, as the doll broke into fresh tears.

Now it was Skye who felt bad.  Here she was, wanting to make the poor thing happy, and all she ended up doing is make her cry again.  She quickly got up off the bed and went over to the corner where Amber was crying.

She crouched in front of the tiny figure.  “No, I’m the one that should be sorry,” she told her.  “The last thing I wanted was to make you cry again.  It just hurts so much to remember sometimes, it gets so that it feels like everyone’s against me.  And I think that anyone who would’ve left you, whether you were broken or not, is an idiot.”

She bent down and hesitantly brought a finger to the unkempt hair on Amber’s head, smoothing the strays back down lovingly.  A sad sort of smile came across her face, before she brought her hand back and clutched it to her chest.

“I’m just so happy someone’s here now…” Amber whispered, dropping her head to her chest.  “You can’t imagine how lonely I’ve been.” Her arms moved to wrap themselves around her knees; mirroring the position Skye had been in on the bed earlier.  We really are so alike, Skye thought.

“I think I could,” Skye replied as she looked down at Amber.  “But none of that matters now, I’m here.  May I hold you?” she asked.  Bending down she stood there waiting with her arms slightly open, hoping the answer would be yes.

“If you promise not to hurt me,” Amber said.  “I’ve been damaged far too many times now.”

“I swear I’ll never do anything to hurt you or make you sad again,” Skye told Amber reverently.  Amber could see the truth about what she said in her eyes, and opened her arms out for Skye to lift her up.

Skye bend down and gingerly picked Amber up, holding her delicately as if the smallest movement would finish the job started so long ago.  Cradling the broken thing in her arms, she slowly moved back to her bed.  She then placed the doll on her lap, so that they were facing each other.

A silence fell over the two again.  This time, however, the silence was comforting, healing both their hurt hearts, making them whole again.

“This is perfect.  I can’t recall a time where I’ve been happier.” Amber said, breaking the silence.  She smiled for the first time, lighting up her tiny face.  Just the sight of that smile alone made something in Skye’s heart soften.  I feel exactly the same, she thought.

“You have a beautiful smile.  Everything about you is beautiful.  I could never leave you like those others did.  You’re too precious.” Skye told her.

Lifting her up to her chest, Skye hugged her.  The warmth and affection in that was given in that embrace warmed them both for the first time in so long.  Skye then placed her in her lap again.  There were tears in her eyes now, shining brightly in the moonlight room.  Crying for the first time, only they’re tears of happiness, she thought.

She took her sleeve, and, wetting it with her tears, slowly cleaned the dirt off the little doll’s face.  She brushed each and every hair back into place, and wiped dirt and dust off her clothes.  Then she lay down, placing Amber on her chest over her heart, and held her there.

“I will never leave you…” she whispered as she fell asleep.  And so they remained, as Skye’s heart slowed and stopped, and Amber’s porcelain body turned to dust.