by Jeff Strand
As much as he liked Alice, he didn’t want to be among the dolls. He didn’t want to be in the attic with these strange shadows that turned nice into scary. The shadows stared at him and he stared back.
Then the sun was gone completely and it was dark. The attic smelled like wood and paint. It was warm and quiet. The neighborhood in which the house in which the attic existed was warm and quiet, too. Residents used sprinklers in the summer so that their lawns remained a vibrant green and paid sincere-faced teenagers to shovel snow from their long driveways in the winter. Leaf blowers cast off unwanted leaves in the fall and in the spring…well, the spring was something to see. Spring rain stirred crocuses, daffodils, and tulips from the formerly dead land into landscaped perfection. A heavy gate was intended to prevent persons of possibly unsavory inclinations from gaining access to the comfortable community.
The barking dog that startled Blake sounded far away. Had Blake ever met that dog? He bet it was a nice dog, one that licked children’s faces and wagged its tail very fast. Its barking grew louder, closer.
Banging. Louder banging and now shouting. There was a struggle with the lock on the entrance to the attic, a small wooden flap on the floor. It finally popped open and in the sudden light the head of a gray-haired man with a mustache appeared. He looked like Santa, or maybe a relative of Santa’s.
“Santa?” Blake asked.
“He’s here! I’ve got him! I’ve got him!” The man pulled himself through the flap and crawled over next to Blake. He put an arm around him. “It’s okay now, Blake.” He called toward the voices under the floor: “There’s some dried blood on his head, but he’s conscious and looks good!”
“They shoved me up here and I hit my head.” Blake touched his head where it hurt and also his ankle that felt funny. “They were mad.” Tears fell on his soft cheeks upon remembering that he’d made them mad again somehow.
“Well, you’re okay now and nobody here is mad at you.” The police officer smiled and Blake smiled, but his big blue eyes didn’t; they were blank. The police officer noticed this and asked, “Are these your dolls?”
“No, they’re Mama’s. Can Alice come with me? For a tea party.”
“Of course, buddy, anything you want. You don’t belong here with these old toys. You’re not a toy.”
GOOGLY
Jeremy C. Shipp
We eat chocolate cake for breakfast, and when my mom asks me how it is, I give her a big smile that fills up half my face. The truth is though, I’m sick to my stomach, and every bite makes me feel that much worse. I keep imagining my parents kneeling beside my shriveled corpse, slicing off strips of flesh from my bones. This probably won’t happen, but when it comes to matters of life and death, probablies don’t make me feel any better.
After I finish my cake, my mom stacks up all the plates and says, “Are you excited about today?”
“Yeah,” I say. There’s so little truth to my answer that it’s probably a lie.
“You’re going to do fine.” She squeezes my arm, hard, as if to say, “You’d better do fine.”
My father stands. “It’s time.”
I glance over to say goodbye to my mom, but she’s already in the kitchen.
“Stand up,” my father says.
I obey.
My father gazes down at me with sad-looking eyes that remind me of a puppy. “You look frightened.”
“I’m not,” I say.
“There are worse things than facing your own potential death.”
“I know.”
At this point, my dad wraps his enormous arms around me, and I can’t help but imagine him snapping my spine in two. But he doesn’t, of course. He lifts me and carries me up the stairs. I’m fully capable of walking to the attic on my own, but this is tradition.
Once we reach our destination, my father throws me across the room, and I land with a hard thud on the wooden floor. Then he reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a box wrapped in ugly yellow paper. He tosses the gift at my feet.
“Happy birthday, Simon,” he says, and turns toward the door.
“Dad. Wait. Can’t you tell me anything? What am I supposed to be doing in here?”
Without another word, my dad leaves the room and locks the door behind him.
I glance around, rubbing my arm. There isn’t much to see. A few cardboard boxes, a dangling light bulb, a circular window about the size of a dartboard. There are bars on the window, just in case I get any funny ideas. Really the only interesting thing in here is the pile of bones in the corner that once belonged to my sister. Now they don’t belong to anybody, I guess.
For some reason, I’m a little surprised to find my sister’s remains up here. I’d always assumed that my parents had at least buried her in the yard. But why would they go to that kind of trouble for someone like her? She failed her test.
I try my hardest to remember her name. I can’t.
With nothing better to do, I rip up the ugly yellow paper and open my birthday present. I don’t expect anything but a wad of cash, because that’s what they give me every year. But inside the box, I find a familiar face. Well, if a smooth black stone with one googly eye can be considered a face.
“Mr. Googly,” I say, smiling.
So I can instantly recall this rock’s name, but I can’t for the life of me remember the name of my own sister? At this thought, I feel something close to embarrassment.
I dump the rock out of the box into my hand. He feels heavier than I remember.
When I was really young, I would take Mr. Googly everywhere. The park, the grocery store. I would even take him to school with me. Sometimes, I would reach my hand into my pocket and rub my thumb against his puffy plastic eye. At night, I would place him under my pillow.
I don’t remember where Mr. Googly came from, and I don’t quite remember when he disappeared. I thought he was lost for good.
“Do you know what I’m supposed to be doing in here?” I say.
The stone stares at me, silent.
I pocket him, and walk around the room like the ball in a pinball machine. I know I’m in this attic to prove myself. But what does that mean exactly? If I don’t figure out the answer to that question, I’ll end up dying of thirst, and then my parents will eat away at my flesh until I look like my sister.
My stomach gurgles. Sweat trickles from my armpits. I reach into my pocket and caress Mr. Googly.
After a while, I get bored with walking around the room, so I decide to put together my sister’s bones like a jigsaw puzzle. I’m no good at anatomy, so I’m sure some of the bones are upside down or in the wrong spot entirely. It doesn’t matter.
While I’m working on the puzzle, I try to conjure up an image of my sister in my mind. It takes me a couple minutes to come up with anything. But finally, I remember her long brown hair. As soon as this detail comes to me, my right cheek begins to tingle.
Then another memory surfaces. I remember sitting on my bed, asking when my sister would come back. My mother slapped me, hard, on my right cheek. She said, “You have no sister.”
I remember asking her the same question again and again. She always gave me the same answer, in the same way.
At the bottom of the bone pile, I find my sister’s doll, like a prize at the bottom of a cereal box. The doll has one blue eye and one black eye.
“Do you know what I’m supposed to be doing in here?” I say.
The doll stares at me, silent.
After I finish putting together my sister, I search through the cardboard boxes that are lined up against one wall. There isn’t much to see. VHS tapes, old magazines, a crumpled up fedora. I’d like to wear the hat, but after giving it a sniff, I decide to return it in the box.
Really, the only interesting thing I find in the boxes is a rat skeleton.
For no good reason, I decide to replace my sister’s skull with the tiny rat’s skull. After I finish my creation, I take a few steps back and admire my work. I laugh.
A
s the day goes on, I get hungrier and thirstier. But there’s nothing to eat. Nothing to drink. When the sun starts going down, I pull the cord hanging from the ceiling, but the bulb is burned out.
Soon, I’m lying in the darkness next to my sister. I can just barely make out her little rat head. Her doll sits inside her ribs like a prisoner, and I hold Mr. Googly in my hand.
In my dream that night, I’m sitting on an enormous bed, wearing ugly yellow pajamas. The air here smells like dust. If I look carefully, I can see the dust particles swarming before my eyes like fireflies. I want to get out of bed, but I can hear Something crawling on the wooden floor, circling the bed. The Something never stops moving, not even for a second.
I know I should peek over the edge of the bed, but I don’t want to see the Something’s misshapen face. I don’t want to look into its beady black eyes.
My stomach gurgles. Sweat trickles from my armpits. I reach under my pillow for Mr. Googly, but he isn’t there.
Finally, I can’t hear anything anymore, and I know that the Something is gone.
But instead of feeling relieved, I feel more alone than ever.
The next morning, I search the attic for food and water. Of course, there’s none of that here. Well, I could eat spiders or drink my own urine, but I guess I’m not that desperate yet.
Like yesterday, I pace the room, trying to figure out what the heck I’m supposed to be doing in here. I’m thirsty as hell, and every once in a while I glace at the mason jar in the corner that I peed into. Nope. Still not that desperate.
Maybe I’m supposed to prove myself by showing off my fighting skills? As far as I can tell, there’s no enemy in here for me to defeat, but why should that stop me? I grab one of my sister’s femurs, and wield it like a sword. I attack the imaginary warriors around me as if my life depends on it. And maybe it does. I show off my best skills, but the attic door doesn’t open.
After a while, I collapse next to my sister, breathing hard, smothered with sweat.
Maybe I’m supposed to prove myself by showing off my intelligence? Lying on the floor, I recite the Pythagorean theorem, like the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. Then I regurgitate as many dates and events from World War II as I can. After that, I move on to literature, and I summarize A Tale of Two Cities. The attic door still doesn’t open.
I turn to my side and look at my sister’s little rat face. “I’m going to die in here, aren’t here?”
She stares at me with hollow eyes, silent.
For a moment, I picture myself banging on the door, begging my parents to let me out. As if that would have any effect on them. The thought makes me laugh.
I stand and pace the room again. While I’m walking, I hold Mr. Googly in my right hand. I massage his eye. I try to think, but my mind feels like a stinky old fedora that won’t do anyone any good.
Eventually, while I’m squeezing Mr. Googly, I get the sensation that someone’s holding my hand. I can feel this Someone’s fingers interlaced with my own. It doesn’t feel like I’m holding a rock at all.
I look at Mr. Googly, and he’s still just an ordinary black stone.
“Hmm,” I say.
I can’t remember anyone ever holding my hand, but for some reason, the sensation feels familiar. My parents would never have touched me like this. Maybe my sister?
Finally, the memory crawls out of its hiding place.
When I was a little kid, I used to play a game with Mr. Googly where I would lie down in my bed, naked, and I would touch him against different parts of my body. When I held him in my hand, I would pretend that someone was holding my hand. When I touched him to my ear, I would pretend that someone was whispering to me.
But right now, it doesn’t feel like I’m pretending. While I’m squeezing Mr. Googly, it really feels like someone is holding my hand. Maybe I’m hallucinating.
Curiosity gets the better of me, so I strip naked and lie down. I use my T-shirt as a pillow. Hopefully there aren’t any hidden cameras in here. I don’t want my parents seeing this. Then again, I could be dead soon, so what does it really matter?
Just like when I was a kid, I start off by balancing Mr. Googly on my forehead. I close my eyes. I take a few deep breaths. I concentrate on the feeling of the cold stone pressing against my skin.
Minutes pass, and I feel stupider and stupider, lying there naked on the floor with a rock on my head.
But then, something happens. It’s only a faint sensation at first, but in time the feeling grows in pressure. I feel as if someone’s leaning over me, kissing my forehead. Warmth spreads throughout my body like a drop of bright red food coloring in a cup of water.
I open my eyes. Of course, there’s no one there.
Next, I place Mr. Googly on my lips. I don’t actually remember putting the rock on my lips when I was a kid, but I want to see what happens.
Time passes, and I feel someone kissing me on the lips, gently. My chest aches. I want to reach out and wrap my arms around the Someone above me.
I consider positioning Mr. Googly between my legs, but there really could be a hidden camera in here, so I decide against that. Instead, I lie on my side, and rest the stone against my ear.
Soon, I hear a woman whispering. She gets louder and louder, and eventually I can make out what she’s saying.
“I love you, Harold.”
Who the fuck is Harold?
Then I hear a little boy. He says, “Daddy, Daddy! Pick me up!”
There are other voices, too. Men, women, children. I even hear a cat purring at one point. I hear the name Harold over and over again, so it seems to me that all of the voices are speaking to this one guy in particular. Who all these people are, I have no clue.
The voices don’t say anything especially mind-blowing or interesting. What the voices have in common is that they’re all speaking in soft tones. After a while, I can’t even hear the words anymore. The voices become like music, like a lullaby.
My breathing slows. My muscles relax. This is the closest I’ve ever come to sleeping without actually being asleep. It’s as if I’m soaking in a hot bath after spending hours in the rain without an umbrella.
In this peaceful state, a memory bursts into my head. I remember lying next to my sister in our bedroom. With her eyes closed, she held her doll against her ear. She smiled in a way that didn’t look at all menacing.
I open my eyes. After removing Mr. Googly from my ear, I crawl over to my sister. I remove the doll from inside her ribs. The doll has one blue eye and one black eye.
With my bare hands, I rip apart the doll’s face and remove the black eye. Just as I suspected, the eye is actually a smooth black stone, the same shape as Mr. Googly.
So my sister grew up with a special rock just like I did. We used these toys to comfort ourselves as children, to make life easier. To pretend that we were human.
When my dad gave me Mr. Googly as a birthday present yesterday, I assumed that it was a sort of warning. I thought he was saying, “You can die a child up here with your little toy, or you can grow up and live.” But Mr. Googly is more than a simple warning, isn’t he?
Unless I’m hallucinating all of this, Mr. Googly is imbued with some sort of positive energy. He’s filled with voices and caresses and kisses. Are these memories? Harold’s memories? If these are memories, then why are all the memories so soft and sweet? Why isn’t there any pain?
Maybe this rock is only imbued with those moments of warmth in Harold’s life that managed to touch his soul.
Maybe this rock is Harold’s soul.
I stare at Mr. Googly as he rests on the palm of my hand.
“You’re why I’m here, aren’t you?” I say.
He looks up at me with a puffy plastic eye, silent.
To be honest, there’s still a big part of me that wants to play with Mr. Googly. But if I’m ever going to grow up, I have to leave that part of me behind.
When my sister was trapped in the attic years ago, maybe she figured all this out. May
be she just decided that she’d rather die than grow up. She was a fool.
“I don’t want him anymore,” I say, and I throw Mr. Googly at the floor.
I sit and wait for the attic door to open.
It doesn’t.
I wait for what seems like an eternity, and I feel myself growing weaker and weaker.
Eventually, I crawl over to Mr. Googly and study him carefully. I turn him over in my hands. I poke his eye. Mr. Googly is the key to all this, but I’m not sure what more I need to do or say.
I hold the rock close to my face and say, “Help me.”
I know it’s stupid to ask a soul for help. Mr. Googly, or Harold, or whatever his name is, doesn’t care a thing about me. He’s not my friend. He’s living in his own little world, away from pain, away from me and my kind. Why should he get so much while I get so little?
Without thinking, I stick Harold in my mouth and I break him to pieces with my pointed teeth. My father once told me that souls are an acquired taste. To me, Harold tastes like dust. As I swallow him, part of me wishes that I could absorb the soft voices and caresses and kisses. But of course, all of this passes right through me. All that remains in my chest is a dull ache of pleasure, knowing that I’ve destroyed something precious.
A moment later, I’m writhing in agony on the wooden floor as my new horns burst through my scalp. I reach out to my sister, hoping to hold her boney hand, but she’s too far away. Soon, my parents are standing above me with smiles that fill up half their faces, and I know I’ve passed the test. And I feel more alone than ever.
Rubik’s Cube
Melanie Mascio
I wake up sometime in the middle of the afternoon. It’s Monday. I look up at the ceiling and think: how interesting, that it’s there; that it’s white; that it’s above me, not too close and not too far; that it hasn’t fallen down in the night. I feel compelled to write about the ceiling. First I have to get out of bed. This is not always an easy task. Definitely not on a Monday.
