The second episode of The River brought up some nasty memories I'd tried to repress. You know, some people believe repression is always bad. I'm not so sure about that. There really are some things that are best buried. In this case, that's a literal thing.
This happened when I was about six years old. In the bedroom I shared with my brother in the second of Mom's houses (of the many that have burned), I once found a doll inside the wall. I can't really remember why the wall had been opened. It wasn't the whole wall, just a small part of it, maybe where a vent had been or something. I do remember reaching inside the hole and digging around. I found some material, and bits of newspaper, and a small doll.
The doll was naked and completely plastic. It was dirty and clearly neglected for a long while. Its blonde hair stood out in all directions and its eyes were brown. In terms of size, it looked like it would fit in nicely as some preteen Barbie was babysitting. This is the function I decided the doll would serve.
Normally, I would have been thrilled at this find. I always was with things like that. I loved treasure, I loved mysterious things that came into my life unexpectedly. But this doll gave me pause. No, not pause. I thought the doll was evil.
I'm not saying I believe in possessed dolls. And, I'm sure you're rolling your eyes at me, thinking this is just a child's imagination running away with her. Perhaps you're right. Hopefully, you're right. But I'm not so sure. The doll just set something off in me. We also have to remember it had been put inside a wall, away from everyone in the world.
Past finding the doll, things got really bad for me. It's like any protections I had as a kid were gone. My step-father was horribly abusive. People shot at our house. My mother's insanity escalated and seemed to have no upper limit. I was routinely bleeding, crying, starving. One time I was put out in the cold and left for hours.
I understand the faulty logic of assuming the doll had anything to do with this. It doesn't work in my rational perspective of the world. Of course, as you so well know, with my mind, there are always the darker recesses that sometimes hold on to bitter secrets and horrible truths. I don't want to believe that doll was cursed and somehow harmed my by its influence. I really do not want to believe that at all.
However, I did put the doll back inside the wall. Normally when I put aside a toy or any object I have had contact with, I feel some level of remorse. Not this time. When I placed that doll back inside it's tomb, I felt only relief. I felt like some kind of dark line had been removed from my life. Almost instantly.
I stopped thinking about the doll. I knew it was still there, in the dark, waiting, but whenever thoughts of it would enter my mind, I'd push them away. After a while, I forgot about the doll, or at least told myself I had.
After watching the episode about the doll tree, the little cursed doll came back into my head. I thought about must have happened to it when the house burned, thought about it melting and distorting, as whatever spirit inside it lifted out and moved away forever. Finally, it was just a little mass of nothing plastic, harmless to everyone. Harmless to me.
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