Aivanne.

The Doll Maker

It was all dark here. Like a swirling vortex of starless sky. My trembling hands clawed my way toward what I hoped was the surface.

My mind was swirling with thoughts and feelings, but there were no language in my head that I could use to put words to these emotions. Everything was just pictures and feelings - nerves and optics.

When I finally broke my way through the surface of the ink-black liquid, my day-old eyes didn’t know what to do. I blinked and gasped, and blinked some more.

I hurt all over, but not because of pain, more because of the absence of pleasantry that I had been used to from my lovely ‘egg’ – what I could now see was a wooden, barrel-like object that was covered in sticky blackness thanks to my graceless exit.

“Three-zee.” A voice like a rumbling volcano filled my ears.

A lining being – a wonderful being - dressed all in fine purples and earth tones showed itself to me.

It was a man. My father, to be precise, and my trembling frame knew it without the need to be told.

In a hope of pleasing, I repeated the words my father said, even though they were meaningless to me.

My father began to shed tears in a way that much distressed me. I took a frail step, but I couldn’t hold my own weight, so weak was I. I fell forward into the arms of my father, who held me close, delighting me with an embrace. I felt as though I was fulfilling my one and only purpose.

My father lifted me up the way you would with fragile glass, and with some dismay, I noticed I had stained his immaculate suit. He didn’t seem to mind, though.

I was carried up the harsh stones stairs of the basement, and laid on a velvet fainting couch. Then I was put in enough blankets and pillows to be mistaken for a bird in a nest.

Next, my father took my wrist and placed on it a bracelet made of delicate wrought silver, on which the symbols ‘3 Z’ shone brightly.

A woman wearing a long black dress came to take me away. I didn’t want to leave, and my father didn’t seem to want me to either, but he gave me a look that seemed to say, “it’s for the best.” so I obliged.

First she bathed me, making sure to clean all the black from my hair, then she dressed me up in a long skirt, pinafore and other frilly things. She cooed at me with a voice like honey the whole time.

After all this, she took me from my father’s house. He gave me a sad, but encouraging look as I left.

A carriage was prepared for us, and she snuggled against me with several thick mantels to block the autumn time cold. As we watched houses pass by the window, and I listened to the wonderful sound of wheels on cobblestone, she gave me names and words for things around me.

She pointed at herself and carefully articulated, “Momma.”

She repeated this again, before pointing at me. “Sophie.”

I caught on to this quickly, and parroted everything she said, with her praising me at each interval. In this fashion, we spent the carriage ride, until we at last pulled up to her house.

Momma got out of the vehicle first and helped me follow. She pointed to the large, impressive house, saying “Home!” with enthusiasm.

She kept a steady hold of my arm, and I leant on her as she walked me inside.

The inside of the house smelled of roses and waxed floors. Momma lead me through corridors decorated with vases of flowers and black drapes of fabric.

We entered a small parlor that would’ve been quite cozy, if it weren’t for a large object that filled the center of the room.

A red wood coffin inlayed with gold and carvings made everything else in the room seem unimportant. The smell of roses was so strong I felt sick. Momma pointed at the coffin.

“Sophie.”

I was extremely confused. I point at myself, and look at Momma quizzically.

Momma nods, then points at me, and the coffin. She calls us both Sophie.

That was my name, though. Partly curious, and partly frustrated, I peer into the coffin.

The body of a frail little girl, almost my mirror image, is resting in the coffin. So similar are we, the only thing I can do is spot the differences – the girl has a short, cute, bob hairstyle. My hair is very long, and unwieldy.

A shink of metal sounds behind me - scissors. Using the other ‘Sophie’ for reference, Momma cuts my hair.

When she is done, I can’t even tell myself apart from the girl in the coffin.

Momma admires her handywork with tears in her eyes.

“Sophie...” she says as she hugs me.

Now I know what I am.

FIN.