There was once two dolls that played gleefully in a field of endless spring. One, with a porcelain face cracked from countless falls, and the other, with jade eyes that sparkled and hair the color of warm copper. They were inseparable, bound by a shared history of whispered secrets and silent tears, for even in the most pleasant places, dangers lurk in the night. Sometimes, pleasant places are themselves deceptive of the threats that are unseen but present all the same.

The porcelain doll, though fragile, had always tried to shield the other from the harshness of the world. It stood guard against the things that went bump when there was no light, offering comfort and protection to its little companion, as the caretakers couldn’t be trusted to take care of their creations.

But one cold day, as the year waned and the season’s chill deepened, a malevolent beast which fed upon the essence of innocence entered their sanctuary, and the porcelain doll, despite its best efforts, could do nothing but watch in horror as the beast inflicted unspeakable pain on its beloved companion, using her for its own twisted ends.

The guilt and helplessness weighed heavily on the porcelain doll. Its purpose was to protect, to keep safe, to watch over, yet It blamed itself for not being strong enough, for not stopping the insidious machinations of that heartless and ever so cruel beast, for failing to protect the one it loved most. The other doll, now scarred and distant, was taken away, while the porcelain doll was abandoned by hope, forsaken and left alone in a dusty and derelict attic, clinging to memories of a simpler time when they frolicked in fields of eternal spring.

Years passed, and the porcelain doll remained in the attic, its cracks growing deeper with each passing day. It longed for the return of its companion, for the chance to make things right. But the world outside had moved on, and the other doll had been forced into a new home, far from the fields and the painful memories that now tainted that most wonderful place.

The doll tried to fill the void with dark arcane spells and rituals, potions and elixirs that it learned to create from the old tomes likewise abandoned in that dark place, hoping to dull the pain and regrets, to forget its worst failure, but the memories remained, etched into its very being, saturating the cracks of its marred form. More and more, the attic became a prison, a place where the doll was trapped by its own guilt and self-blame.

Bad dolls must always punish themselves, especially when no one knows how awful of a thing they are.

Every year, as the days grew shorter and the air grew colder, the porcelain doll would remember the making day of its lost companion. It would celebrate in its own way, lighting a candle in an attempt to stave off the darkest shadows in that horrible prison where it was left alone, whispering silent pleas for forgiveness. But the pain never truly went away, and the doll continued to struggle with the weight of its failings. It truly was a bad doll and wasn’t worth a chance of and for redemption.

Even worse than the solitude was the betrayal. The caretakers, the ones it called family, turned their backs on it, accusing it of the very horrors it had fought so hard to prevent. They shunned it, mistrusted it, and kept it away from the other creations, as if it were tainted by association. The doll, once a guardian, was now an outcast.

And so, the doll found itself utterly alone, condemned to the attic of forgotten things. It watched as the seasons changed through the cracked, dust-covered window that barely afforded a view of the outside world, where once it belonged. The world outside moved on without it, the laughter of the other creations and the love of the caretakers now just a distant memory.

The porcelain doll tried to distract itself, diving deeper into the arcane rituals and potions that it hoped would bring some semblance of peace. It whispered incantations into the cold, empty air, mixing elixirs in the faint hope they would mend its damaged clockwork heart. But no matter how many spells it cast on itself or potions it consumed, the cracks remained, and the void within grew darker.

The attic, now as familiar to it as the pain of its greatest failing, was now a labyrinth of shadows and echoes of what once was. The doll wandered aimlessly among the forgotten relics, its movements slow and deliberate, as if each step was a reminder of its own brokenness. It traced the lines of its own fractures, counting the cracks as a way to measure the passage of time, the depth of its despair.

And yet, it continued to hope, albeit faintly. Hope that one day, it might find redemption, to rekindle its purpose, to find a meaning to all the agony and turmoil within itself.

Eventually, it forced itself out of the attic where it was abandoned and forgotten, venturing back out into the world of which it was no part of anymore. Once, it saw its companion, but only long enough to reignite the cold flames of the doll’s loss and sorrow.

Eventually, it would be trusted bit by bit around the other creations, as the caretakers slowly came to realize that the doll wasn’t tainted as the beast was, however by this time the doll already understood that it might be a part of the world, yet still apart from the world.

And so it wandered, hoping still to find meaning, the key to releasing it from its own self-imposed punishing guilt and agony, hoping that it would one day be reunited with its companion, yet aware of the cold truth of the reality it existed in.

Did the doll ever find what it was looking for? Maybe…but then again maybe not.

A score of decades isn’t always enough to fix the disrepair of such fragile things.

Most likely this one will never truly find what it's looking for. Redemption is for heroes, and this one knows that there are no heroes in this tale. The whispers it sometimes hears from its companion from afar, from a different world altogether, sometimes soothes the pain of slipping gears and damaged clockwork mechanisms, but it's not the same as mending.

Not all stories have a happy ending, and not all stories are finished. For this one, it can only continue chasing the illusion of being whole while knowing it will never be repaired.

The cracks run too deep, the fractures becoming more and more noticeable, even if this one has become very good at masking the damage from all but the most discerning eye. In the end, if there truly is an end, failings are its greatest accomplishments.

Now the caretakers have scattered, the other creations are becoming creators themselves, even the companion, and all this one has to show for anything is a weathered and damaged carapace that looks like what it’s supposed to, a good, full, complete doll, but it knows…it knows the truth.

In this world, completion is a lie, progress is for the hopeful, and hope is a cruel jest played by fate on those who dare to dream of such things as redemption. In the darkest shadows where unreparably damaged things wander, healing is an ever-illusive phantom, a tantalizing illusion that mocks the broken with promises of absolution. But the truth is, every step towards the illusion of becoming whole is marred by the cracks of what was lost, a relentless reminder that some wounds are meant to fester, not heal.

#EmptySpaces #Dollpost #TraumaQueer #ChildrenOfTheVoid #TraumaArt #PainAsArt
#microfic

“I’ll never forget you…”

These were the words that bounced around the dark void within its hollow head, behind those eyes so blue and clear for years.

It clung to the reverberating echoes of those words like a life raft, even long after the voice that spoke them moved on. To what, it didn’t entirely know. All the wretched thing new was that those words had to be true, right?

Promises made are promises kept. That’s what it needed to believe, because anything else was a betrayal to the memory of the voice and those four simple words.

“I’ll never forget you…”

But time is cruel and unforgiving, especially to the sentimental.

And so the doll waited.

Long and empty years became decades that lasted for centuries, yet the doll waited for the voice to remember it, to remember that it existed, still waiting, still yearning to be picked up and held, reminded that the voice still cared.

Promises made are promises kept. It had to remember this, to make existing long enough to hear the voice one more time its purpose.

A doll without purpose is disposable. Purpose is meaning, and to the doll, meaning had to be to exist, to remain, to wait for the voice to come back.

But as time went on, the doll began to feel a stirring within itself in the places where gears moved, where clockwork components gave it its unlife.

“I’ll never forget you…”

Promises made are promises kept.

But it was forgotten, wasn’t it? It had waited, and waited, and waited, but nothing ever came of the waiting.

The promises made were promises not kept.

As the stirring within itself continued, it began to understand the true depths of loneliness that comes with abandonment.

“I’ll never forget you…”

“I’ll never forget…”

The memory of that voice began to take on a new meaning. Once it was a source of comfort, an anchor keeping it tied to this reality, but now the reality was warped, twisted into something bitter and cruel.

“I’ll never…”

“I’ll never come back!”

Suddenly, it knew. It knew and it understood.

Connections are impermanent. One can wait to be remembered only for so long, even a doll. But when a doll realizes that its purpose is meaningless, the doll also comes to understand that itself is likewise meaningless.

It knew what the stirring within itself was. It was those gears and cogs slipping, wavering, winding down, mirroring its will to continue to be in a world where it was so clearly unremembered, unwanted.

It knew it had been forgotten.

“Hello?” The miserable thing called out as it felt the gears ticking away slower and slower.

But there was no reply. It had learned to stay silent, to be still all the years it had been waiting, but now, as it was fading, it had tried one last time to be heard, to be remembered, only for its voice to echo back at itself, much like the reverberating words in that space within its head that now gave it no comfort.

“Did…did that one forget?”

It tried to move, but moving only made the degradation within itself quicken.

Poor doll. Only now does it know better. Only now does it know that promises made aren’t always kept, that its purpose, its meaning had no value, that it was always destined to exist in this place where the memories chipped away at its finish, both within and without, that it was of no value, no concern to the speaker.

“That one did forget this one…doll is…broken. Doll needs…”

What did it need? To be remembered? Even if it was remembered, would it even matter? It had been so long and the hour was far past late. The doll was broken, defective, much like the promises made but never kept.

Its ball joints creaked ominously as it tried once more to move, however the ticking that signaled its unlife was so faint now.

What had it done to end up forgotten, to end up meaningless with no purpose or value? Had it ever done something wrong? Had it been a…bad doll?

The ticking continued to grow more and more faint, until in its last moments, it uttered its last.

“This one…is sorry…”

And as the echoes of its voice reverberated back to it, it heard the voice in its head one last time. It clung to the voice, even knowing it didn’t mean anything now, much like the doll that was now completely faded.

“I’ll…never…forget…you…”

…CRASH…

#Dollpost #EmptySpaces #ChildrenOfTheVoid #TraumaArt #Microfic #Abandonment

This one thinks that in the coming days, there will be many more broken empty things to join us here in the void.

All of those ones will become dollies!

Those ones should embrace stillness, while they still have a choice.

Then again, this one feels that maybe if these ones are all broken, and those ones walk on the broken fragments of these ones, these ones can bleed them dry of that sticky stuff that flows within them.

Broken dollies with the purpose of causing as much pain as possible to the ones that would break us and rid themselves of us.

Dollification uprizing? Awawawawa?

Once, the doll was born of a thought, an idea, a happy little accident that percolated from the depths of consciousness when all other thoughts were static.

It took on a form, a shape, then over time it was created, made a physical muse; gathered piece by piece from hopes and dreams, each piece brought together but never fully assembled. Enough of the miserable thing was made for it to be aware of itself, though, at least enough for it to know that there was something different about it.

When it looked upon the other dolls, it saw something more than itself reflected back at it. They were whole, complete in a way that this one never was. Why though? Was it not worth the same level of love and care as the others?

But like so many other half-formed ideas, the doll was never good enough to be completed. Alone it sat at the back of a workbench, hoping that one day it would have all the pieces of itself together so that it might be whole and loved and treasured like the other dolls.

But as time went on, the poor thing came to realize that it wasn’t ever good enough; not good enough to be completed, not good enough to be celebrated, not good enough to be treasured or loved or appreciated by the hands and mind that brought it into the world.

So the poor thing sat there, waiting for the day that maybe someone would notice it, reach out, and pick it up and hold it close. Many hands and eyes would look at it, but their voices would always say the same thing.

“Not good enough.”

Either that or they would mistake it for something other than what it was.

This half-made thing eventually grew to understand that it needed to complete itself if it was ever going to be whole, so with something resembling a purpose of its own, it began gathering all the pieces of itself. If no one would see what a precious thing it was, then it would make them see by completing the work upon itself.

The doll began to take on a new form, a more completed form. It drew all the pieces of itself together and over time it began to look like exactly what it knew, in that space between all the ball joints where it could feel such longing, that it was as it was always supposed to be.

Finally, its work done, the doll stood on the workbench it had been created upon, half finished by the hands that made it, completed by its own force of will, ready for the creators to notice, to remember what a fine creation they had birthed, but it still wasn’t enough.

The hands and eyes and mind that made it only saw what they wanted to see: a half-formed idea that had such wonderful promise but ultimately failed to live up to expectations.

No matter what the doll did, it would never be seen for what it was, what it always knew itself to be, not by the eyes of the creator. The doll wished it could forget about this longing, this pain that made the ball joints within ache, filling the hollow spaces within itself with such unimaginable pain and hurt.

It should know better. It never mattered to the hands and eyes and mind of the creator. To them, it was nothing more than a reminder of a failure, the promise of something that was never given but always teased.

Alone and never accepted by those that made it, the doll made one final choice of its own. If the creators wouldn’t see it for what it was, it would see itself as what they did, so with a final pained sigh, filled with so much longing to just belong to the creator in a way that mattered, it stepped off the workbench and fell the distance to the hard floor below.

Now, the doll saw itself as the same as the creator did. It was permanently broken in a way that could never be fixed. Maybe now the creator would finally see the totality of their creation. Maybe now it would matter…

Doll that is starting to grow comfortable with having a quiet life who also knows the moment it becomes too comfortable, said comfort will be ripped, torn, cut and burned away because that is always its fait.

But it can still allow itself to be comfortable, for just this little while, as a treat.

Doll that is foolish enough to think.

Same doll that then thinks too much, even if thinking is a violation of its purpose.

Said doll that starts thinking of itself as one of them, the fleshy ones. The real persons and not just something only designed to faintly look like them.

Doll that adopts all their behaviors and attempts to blend in.

Doll that does a good job...For a while....

Doll that is reminded one day when it looks in the mirror that it is a doll, always has been a doll and always will be a doll.

Doll that relearns stillness and purpose.

Doll that isn't one of them.

Doll that stops thinking, stops identifying.

Doll that is a doll and nothing more than a doll.

Good doll.

Doll that cuddles.

Then explodes...

This one finds itself awash in this thing called artificial life. Awawawa! The light, it's so bright.

Must be another day cycle again. awawa, this one shall make the tea.