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A Taste of Scattered Girls, by Tyrolin Puxty
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don’t remember being human. Probably because I don’t want to. The professor tells me how cumbersome the body is and how aches and pains are a way of life. He says this way, I’ll never feel any pain and can dance for as long as I like, never growing old, never damaging my joints.
He calls me his little broken doll.
I rest my hands on the professor’s thumb. I’m about the size of his foot, but my arms are disproportionally small. I struggle performing mounts because I can’t grip my ankles, but the professor promised he’d fix it soon.
He’s holding another doll in his hands, frowning as he adds intricate details to her face. He’s serious most of the time, and I have to really concentrate to hear him speak.
“You’re making a new friend for me?”
“I am.” I’m sure he means no offense, but his tone sounds like he isn’t paying any attention to our conversation.
I lift my hands from his thumb and smooth the crinkles in my tutu. I’m wearing an orange leotard today, a color I’m not fond of. I’ll be stuck with this outfit for a week until the professor sews a new one for me, but I’m not too concerned. I’ll have a friend to play with, so I can overlook pretty much everything else.
Her features are coming to life. She looks a lot like me. The professor has given us both large eyes – larger than our upsettingly small hands. They’re sky blue, with a white sparkle in the corner. My nose isn’t as petite as hers, but it doesn’t bother me. We’re each pretty in our own way. Her lips are pale, and she has a dimple in her right cheek. I press my fingers into my own cheeks, the plastic unyielding. I’ve always wanted dimples. Maybe I can ask the professor.
Her hair remains ruffled, hanging limply by her waist. It compliments her black corset, black skirt, and black boots. Wow. She sure does go for a lot of black.
“Will you paint her lips red like mine?”
“No.” He dabs his paintbrush into the ink. He’s enhancing her eyelashes now. “You’re a ballerina. She’s a goth. Your makeup will be brighter than hers.”
“Oh. Of course!” I smile, but I feel stupid. I need to learn to keep quiet when he’s working.
I practice my jetés. It’s freeing to leap, but not all of my joints are as flexible as they could be. I have a natural point, but my hips don’t allow my leg to extend as far as the humans’ on TV. They squeak every time I try. Ballerinas shouldn’t squeak.
The professor leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. He beams at the goth doll staring vacantly into his eyes. “There. She’s done! What do you think, Ella?”
I can’t stop my chest from puffing out with excitement. I suck on my lips to contain the goofy smile spreading across my face and walk towards my new friend. I stroke her hand, waiting for a response. When nothing happens, I take a step back.
The professor grins, his glasses falling to the tip of his nose. “Don’t worry, my dear, I haven’t activated her yet. Should I make any other changes before I do?”
I tilt my head to the side, examining my new friend. “No, I like her. She’s different than me, though. Why is she broken?”
The professor scratches his pointed chin and runs a finger through her hair. “She used to harm herself…” His tone is soft, as always, but there’s a hitch in his voice. He gently taps her wrist, his nostrils flaring. “I didn’t paint the scars. She doesn’t need a reminder.”
I glance at my knees where the hinges poke through my stockings. Should I voice the question that blares in my mind? “Wh… what did you keep me from remembering?”
He tears his gaze from the goth doll and looks at me, expressionless. I struggle reading the professor. His voice is often monotone, and he has an impressive poker face. “Why would I tell you what I’m keeping from you, if I’m keeping it from you?” he smirks and cups his hands together, indicating for me to step on. I step into his hands, his flesh bouncy. He travels slowly because he knows fast motions make me queasy. He lowers me into the treasure chest, beautifully decorated to look like my old bedroom, apparently. He leans in and gives me a kiss on the head, avoiding my carefully pinned bun. “So long as you can dance, Ella, you needn’t worry about the past.”
I pace in the chest. It’s fairly big – probably a few human feet wide and long, but I can’t be sure. Its exterior looks decrepit and rotting, but the inside is lined with plush carpet and pink wallpaper. The professor placed a mirror in the corner for me to fix my hair and built a big bed that matches the wallpaper. He worried it wasn’t very comfortable, but I said I didn’t care. It’s not like I can feel how uncomfortable something is.
There’s a ladder in the center of the chest for me to climb out. The chest lives in the attic, so the professor wired up an old-style TV that takes a while to formulate the picture. He knows how much I like to watch the dancers in the old movies.
There’s a new addition to my chest today, a bed on the other side of the room, adorned with black cushions and matching duvet. The professor has inscribed wording on the wooden headboard, but I’ve never been great at reading. It doesn’t help that the font is in swirly writing.
The professor surprises me when his shadow encompasses the chest. He’s so quiet–I never hear his footsteps.
He gently lowers the goth doll onto her bed and strokes her hair.
“This is Lisa, but you’ll have to tell her that. She won’t remember her name.” He kneels to speak to me. It’s odd when he looks into my chest like this. His face looms round and bright, the way the moon looks on TV. “I’ll go into my lab to activate her. She’ll be shocked, so I’ll close the chest and let you ease her into it. Can you do that, Ella?”
I nod firmly; I won’t let him down. The professor uses his finger to tickle underneath my chin. I can’t feel the pleasurable sensation you’re supposed to, but I know to laugh anyway.
The chest lid creaks when the professor closes it, leaving Lisa and me in a morbid darkness. I switch on the lamp by my bed, made from a human torch, and wait patiently on my bed for Lisa to be activated. I consider turning on the other lights, but stop when I remember the TV shows. Goths like darkness, so maybe she’ll feel more at home with less light.
I run my ballet shoes through the carpet as Lisa lies still, stiff, lifeless, staring at the ceiling. The professor has painted her so she looks sad. I don’t know why he did that.
My eyes widen when Lisa snaps from her upright position into a curled ball. Her jaw hangs open and she squeals, high-pitched and desperate, then brings her knees to her face, muffling her cries. Is…is she biting into her limbs?
Her hair covers her face, no longer straight and pristine. A bald patch winks at the back of her head – presumably, where the professor missed a stitch. His eyes ar
en’t as good as they used to be.
“Hello?” I ask softly. Lisa lifts the hair from her eyes and peeks at me.
“Who are you?” She growls, her voice reminiscent of a TV werewolf. Husky, deep, and vicious. “You’re a child!”
“I’m twelve.” I cautiously step towards her. “I mean, my age is. My name is Ella.” She flinches when I move, so I halt. “You’re safe, you know.”
Lisa slowly uncurls and sits hunched on the end of the bed. She scans the room suspiciously, as if trying to make sense of her new home. “Where am I?”
“A safe place.” I keep my tone calm. The professor said not to tell her that she’s a doll right away. That it would only cause panic. He also said she wouldn’t remember anything from her human life, so try not to force any memories. “What should I call you?”
She narrows her eyes. “Lisa.”
Lisa? She knew her name was Lisa? She’s not supposed to remember anything from her human life. I clear my throat, even though there’s nothing there. “You… you know your name is Lisa? What else do you remember?”
“What kind of stupid question is that? I’m fifteen. My best friend is Marcy, and my parents are divorced. I’ll ask you again. Where am I?”
I can’t keep my jaw from slackening. How does she know that? Did something go wrong? I raise my hands defensively. “A new home, far away from anything evil, I promise. Lisa… do you know what happened before you came here?”
She stands, unaccustomed to her new body, then stumbles and falls back onto bed, her eyebrows whooshing up. “I remember… I remember going to hospital… I had a fight with Dad…” Her eyes flutter, and she cradles her head in her hands. “Then it’s black.”
“Wow.” I’m genuinely impressed. “I don’t remember anything before…” I motion towards my body. “This.”
“How long have you been here?”
I shrug. The professor said he had dark hair when I first met him; but it’s always been ashy to me. “My whole life.”
Lisa draws her knees to her chest again and studies her hands. She bends each finger one at a time, her nostrils flaring with each squeak of her fingers. She lifts her skirt and stares at the hinges where her knees used to be, then taps her legs, the plastic loud in the silence.
She lowers her dress and gazes at the wall in front of her. Her shoulders rise and drop quickly.
“Are you okay?” I whisper, still too nervous to walk any closer.
Lisa doesn’t make eye contact. “This is why I don’t need to breathe. Or eat. Or blink.” She locks her jaw. “I’m a monster.”
“No! No, of course not! We’re dolls!” I smile my most encouraging smile. “Pretty dolls. See?” I pirouette, but she doesn’t look. I don’t know what else to do. Lisa has made the whole situation uncomfortable–not enjoyable like I’d imagined.
Lisa rolls on her side, her back facing me. “I’d like to be alone, please.”
“Why do you want to be lonely?”
“Just because I want to be alone doesn’t mean I’m lonely!” She barks.
I start to respond, but there’s no point. I can’t stay in this chest with her–her mood is suffocating me. If my heart worked, I’m sure my face would be flushing from frustration. I reach for the ladder in the center of the chest and climb up. I check to see whether Lisa is watching, but her head is buried in the pillow.
There’s a window at the top of the ladder, so I awkwardly throw my leg through and force the remainder of my body until I topple out and land on the floor.
The fall doesn’t hurt, but I’ve twisted my wrist. I try to screw it back into place, but it doesn’t budge. It’s hideous. My palm is just, like, staring at me, facing the wrong way.
“Ella?”
I flinch at the sound of the professor’s voice. Gah. That sneaky thing again! He towers over me, but makes sure his shadow doesn’t encompass me–he knows that freaks me out. He bends over and cups me in his palms, elevating me to his eyelevel.
“You jumped out of the equivalent of a three-story building after spending five minutes with Lisa?” He laughs, but it’s more like a quiet wheeze. “Things didn’t go so well?”
“It was awful!” I cradle my broken wrist. “She’s awful! She’s moody, rude and just, well… awful!”
With his thumb and index finger, he tweaks my wrist, putting it back into place almost immediately. “Is that better?”
I test my hand and flop it around. “Yep. Thank you! How can I stop her mood? Or is this what all teenagers are like?”
“Maybe we could help redecorate the chest?” He strokes my hair, studiously. I can’t help but notice he’s ignoring my last question. “We could make it feel like it’s her home, too.”
I lean forward to place my palm on the professor’s thumb. “But she remembers her old home.”
His thumb flinches, and he inhales, staring at me like I’m an alien. I don’t think he’s ever going to exhale. “How much of it does she remember?”
I shrug nonchalantly, but I’m unnerved by his demeanor. “Her age, her family, her friend, the hospital.”
The professor splutters and puts a hand to his forehead. He almost drops me and falters to keep me from falling, then places me back on the closed chest and paces, scrunching the tips of his lab coat and scratching his head. “She’s beyond repair,” he mutters, before stopping to bite his nails. “She is beyond repair.”
eyond repair…
His words haunted me through the night. What had he meant? Do I really want to know?
The professor made a bed out of a half-empty tissue box so I could sleep in the attic and watch TV. He understood that I didn’t want to be in the chest with Lisa.
“The recent outbreak has infected as many as ten thousand Denver residents with an over ninety-five percent fatality rate.”
5:06 am. The news has been reporting the same story for hours. I flick the channel several times to try find something–anything–else, but the same thing is on every station. It’s times like this I really wish the professor would invest in cable TV. I’ve seen it advertised before. They have a whole channel dedicated to musicals where people sing and dance all day, every day. A perfect paradise.
The TV’s backlight is less intense now that the pale sky outside is peeking through the window. I wish we had curtains. I hate the idea of anything watching me from the outside in.
I yawn, even though I don’t need to. I don’t get tired if I don’t sleep. I just… don’t think as clearly. Memories scatter and my words jumble. I refused to sleep for three months once and by the end of the stint, I was an incoherent mess. But I didn’t care. Anything was better than sleeping. Better than those vivid dreams that petrified me: images of fire and dead bodies. I haven’t dreamed since I told the professor about them. Now, I can sleep peacefully in oblivious darkness.
Sleep didn’t come naturally to me tonight. I kept thinking of Lisa and how she wanted to be alone, meanwhile claiming she wouldn’t be lonely. That’s got to be poppycock, as the professor says. Things can’t work like that. Can they?
I pull the tissue over my shoulders, imagining the warmth. I like to pretend I can feel, sometimes. Even when the professor accidentally pricks his finger with something sharp… I don’t know, I kind of envy him for it, even though it hurts him. It’d be nice to feel again. Anything. Something.
Lying on my side, the news anchor looking funny from the twisted angle, I rest my eyes for the first time in hours and tune out the woman’s calming, melodic voice amongst the chaos.
There’s pressure by my feet, like the stack of tissues beneath me has been pushed down. I open my eyes to see Lisa sitting erectly at the other end, grinning contritely. I sit up and smile politely, fighting the urge to snark. I guess I should give her another chance. We all deserve at least one.
“Hey,” Lisa says, her tone a lot softer now. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“How did you get out of the chest?” I scan her body for injuries.
“Sam
e way you did.” She sweeps her hair from her eyes. “I got lonely in there.”
Ah. So she does get lonely. “Well, that’s good. I mean, it’s not. But, I was getting lonely out here, so it’s good you came out. Gah, I’m rambling. Sorry.”
She laughs. Wow. I made the goth laugh! Her whole face seems to change. Her giggle is light, breezy, and completely contradictive to her fashion sense. “I had time to process everything.” Her laugh fades, and her face droops. “So, I’m a doll now. I was human yesterday, and today I’m not. And you can’t tell me why?”
I shake my head, uncertain how to take her new attitude. I’m not buying this sudden acceptance –it’s like she has an ulterior motive or something. “The professor told me something bad happened to us as humans, so he turned us into dolls. That’s all I know.”
Lisa bites the inside of her mouth before forcing a smile. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this. And guess what? You’re going to show me around. I’m sure the professor has a diary detailing his sordid workings.”
“There’s not much to see.” I keep my voice just above a whisper. “The professor won’t let us out of the attic, and I mainly spend time in the chest.”
“Nah, come on!” Lisa nudges my arm with her elbow. “I’m sure there’s some good stuff around here! Otherwise, what’s the point of living in an attic? It’s not World War II, you know.”
“What happened in World War II?” I try, but she dismisses my question with a wave of her hand. I glance awkwardly to my ballet shoes. “Honestly, I’ve never left the attic. We’re not allowed in the lab or downstairs.”
“So there’s a lab?” She speaks slowly, carefully… suspiciously.
“Well, yeah. The professor is, well, a professor. He professor-izes things in his lab.” I shift uncomfortably. “Makes stuff, experiments with other stuff. In his spare time, he paints with me and teaches me things about trees.”
Lisa looks like that old painting The Scream, although maybe a little less dramatic. “Trees?” She sounds spectacularly unimpressed. “You study trees?”
Broken Dolls Page 1
